Approval to charge merchant outside of the Shopify Billing API

Retired Boards Appdev Custom Storefronts

Topic summary

A developer asks how to obtain approval to charge merchants outside Shopify’s Billing API, referencing a checkbox in the app listing during review and citing apps like ShipStation as precedent.

Context: Their app is for existing users to import Shopify shipments, so charging through Shopify Billing would be duplicative. They want to avoid double billing and seek clarity on the official approval path.

Key questions:

  • Is there a faster or alternative method to gain external charges approval besides submitting a support ticket and waiting weeks?
  • Can approval be granted before submitting the app for overall review?

References: Includes a screenshot of the app listing checkbox and links to a previous community post indicating no publicly known solution.

Moderation note: The poster mentions a prior attempt was removed without notification and requests moderators to clarify any rule violations if this thread is deleted.

Status: No solution or official guidance confirmed in this thread. The request remains open, seeking process details and timelines for approval to charge externally.

Summarized with AI on February 5. AI used: gpt-5.
1

How do apps like ShipStation gain approval to charge merchants outside of the Shopify Billing API?
This is a checkbox in the app listing when submitting for review:

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Our app is for existing users to import their Shopify shipments, so there’s no need to charge the customer double through the Shopify Billing API.

Other than submitting a support ticket and waiting a few weeks, is there another way to gain approval? Maybe I missed it. I’ve heard app reviews can take a long time, so I wish there were some way to gain external charges approval before submitting the app for review.

It looks like there’s no known solution for this publicly, but it’s worth a shot.

Note: This is my second attempt at posting this. The first post was removed, but I didn’t receive a notification as to why. If a mod deletes this, please let me know what rules I’m breaking.

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