App developers report not receiving Shopify payouts for approved app charges—primarily usage charges (pay-per-use fees billed via the merchant’s Shopify invoice), but also one-time and subscription charges.
Scope and impact:
Delays exceed 10 months for some stores; one developer cites ~$20k in pending usage charges.
Charges show in Shopify Partner dashboards but don’t appear in pending payouts.
Operational context and concerns:
Usage charges only pay out after merchants clear their Shopify invoices. Developers question why stores aren’t suspended for invoices unpaid >1 month.
Several reports indicate the issue is concentrated among stores in India; one developer is considering blocking India due to high support load and unpaid payouts.
Shopify interactions:
Support sometimes asks to cancel app charges to help merchants pay their Shopify invoice, which developers view as unfair.
In one case, Shopify admitted mistakenly applying app credits to a store and promised reimbursement within 45 days.
Another report says Shopify support “sees nothing strange,” claiming stores paid, yet payouts remain absent.
Workarounds and status:
Some are shifting from usage to one-time charges, though even those have failed to pay out for some.
No resolution; issue remains open with unclear enforcement and payout visibility.
Summarized with AI on December 12.
AI used: gpt-5.
We have the Shopify app and we charge the client based on usage, through the usage charge that they approved on installation.
Recently, we noticed that there are some stores that are active, and we applied the usage charge, but in payouts not receiving payment from Shopify for those usage charges.
There are some stores whose charges are not received for 10 months. However, the charge was applied and shown in the Shopify partner.
Is this happening with anyone else or it is a known issue?
Yes, its happening with us as well many other friends of ours.. we have around $20k lying in Usage charge and we have not received it.. pending for many stores for more than 10
months as well.
Generally usage charge appears in the payout when the store clears the Shopify invoice but I dont understand why Shopify is not closing stores if the have any unpaid invoice for more than 1 month. This is really hampering our business.
It happened to my app with subscription charge as well, there’s quite a lot of stores (most are from India) where they have subscribed to my app for more than 4 months and they weren’t charged (or just didn’t pay their Shopify bill), hence it didn’t appear on my payout.
I had a few instances where the Shopify support staff emailed me, and asking if they can cancel my app subscription charge, so that the merchant can pay their Shopify invoice (some merchant refuse to pay Shopify invoice if they see there’s a lot of app charges, I guess?), this is very unfair to app developers as the merchants has utilized the app resources.
I emailed one of the Shopify staff and mentioned one of the store, and they looked into it (after a few months of me asking) and they said they “mistakenly” have applied app credits for the merchant store (hence the merchant weren’t charged, but I didn’t get paid as well), and promise to reimburse back in 45 days, I really hope they reimburse back.
The problem is this is just one store, I really hope I don’t need to contact Shopify partner support and list out all the stores which have used my app for extensive period but didn’t get charged for it.
We are not even receiving one time charge from many of the stores. This is really disturbing and Shopify is doing nothing about it, thats the saddest part.
I know this is an old thread, but we are seeing this as well on stores from India only. I have contacted Shopify partner support and they told me they see nothing strange, the amounts have been paid by the store. They couldn’t tell me why the payouts are still not even showing up in pending payouts. I am considering to remove India from the allowed countries. With all due respect, they require the most support, pay the least and when they do pay, Shopify doesn’t pay out those amounts.