Hi there,
Your frustration is completely understandable, and you’re not alone.
Shopify charges an additional fee (e.g., 2% on the Basic plan) when you use a third-party payment provider, because you’re not using their in-house system, Shopify Payments. This fee is added on top of whatever the third-party processor charges — which can indeed push your total cost per transaction to 3–5%, depending on your setup.
Unfortunately, this fee isn’t tied to any specific support or service provided by Shopify at the time of payment — it’s simply part of their pricing structure for using external gateways.
Shopify justifies this as part of the cost of maintaining their ecosystem, but for merchants in unsupported countries especially, this often feels unfair — and in many cases, pushes people to look for more cost-efficient platforms.
If you are considering other payment options with lower fees, but still paying third party fees, this pay-by-bank vs shopify payment methods comparison may be helpful.
Hope this helps clarify things a bit.