Major Issues Transferring Customer Payment Data off Shopify Payments

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

Merchants are struggling to export customer payment tokens when migrating subscriptions away from Shopify Payments, particularly when using Recharge or similar subscription services. The core issue: Shopify stores payment data but refuses to provide encrypted transfers of payment tokens to new processors, even when migrating to Stripe (which powers Shopify Payments).

Key findings from the discussion:

  • Payment data is stored with Shopify when using the integrated Shopify Checkout
  • Shopify support confirmed no export capability exists and offered no timeline for implementation
  • The only official solution: ask customers to manually re-enter payment details after migration

Merchant frustrations:

  • One user spent all of 2022 attempting resolution through Shopify, Recharge, Stripe, and legal documentation review—with no success
  • Another merchant is being forced off Shopify Payments due to product restrictions but still denied access to tokens
  • Multiple users report identical runaround experiences spanning 2022-2025

Current status: The issue remains unresolved as of 2025. One commenter claims to have found a processor capable of porting subscriptions, though details weren’t shared publicly. Merchants view this as Shopify deliberately gatekeeping data to discourage platform switching.

Summarized with AI on October 24. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
9

Hey @HalP1 , to help you not waste any time on it, this was a complete dead-end and the most work I did for something that translated to no resolution for all of 2022. I chatted with Shopify, Recharge, Stripe, etc. I even combed through Shopify’s legal docs/T’s & C’s regarding ownership of data to try to force it.

Shopify gatekeeps this information to make it not worth your while to switch off Shopify Payments, which they benefit from directly by brokering all these merchant accounts to Stripe.

I’ll send you a DM now and we can chat further on my experience. Very frustrating overall.