Now it won’t surprise me if this just gets moderated away, but I wanted to share our story here.
We’re a non-profit, and were looking at the Shopify Starter plan - and reached out to Shopify to confirm that yes, indeed, the 5% fee included the credit card processing fees.
Unfortunately, after getting board sign-off and moving forward, we were noticing we were actually being charged much more than 5%. We tried reaching out to Shopify support again, and after being given a few wrong answers, were eventually told that both the web site and the support agent were both wrong - that no, you pay 5% PLUS the transaction fee.
As a non-profit, we’re on a very tight budget, and had the 5% fee and $7/month fee approved, but Shopify is refusing to do anything about the extra transaction fees - and despite them giving us assurance there are none, we’re stuck with them.
I can’t bring myself to trust a payment processor that won’t own up to their own error and expects a non-profit to front the cost instead. That’s really not acceptable.
Go try another payment processor instead, Shopify can’t be trusted.
I’m sorry to hear that you feel as if there were hidden transaction fees! While I cannot account for what you may have discussed with another support agent, I can assure you that we do try to be as transparent as possible with pricing, which is why in our help guide introduction to the Starter Plan we include a link to the transaction fees you should expect to pay on your plan over and above the subscription fee:
We charge 5% plus a .30 cent fee per transaction if you’re using Shopify Payments as your payment gateway. If you’re not using Shopify Payments, it will be 5% plus whatever additional fee the third-party payment provider charges.
While I know this may not be what you want to hear, and while I cannot waive or amend those fees, I do hope this provides more clarity on what you should expect and that it will help you with any decision moving forward.
Truthfully if you are a Not for Profit, we do have other plans and options that would possibly better suit you. I would suggest reaching out to our support through our help center and asking them to detail the Not for Profit plans that, I would suggest, are better options for you than the Starter plan.
You’re absolutely right, the page does not mention this, and I have passed this feedback on to our content team.
While I cannot access that ticket from the community forums, I would highly recommend that you contact our Support again and ask to hear about our Not For Profit plans which are built specifically with people like yourself in mind! Those plans should better suit your needs than the Starter Plan.
