How to lower Shopify payment fees, and what you can't avoid

Shopify payment fees come from two places: the card processing rate you pay on Shopify Payments, which depends on your plan, and a separate third-party transaction fee Shopify adds when you take payments through another provider. The most reliable ways to lower them are to stay on Shopify Payments where you can, pick the plan that fits your volume, and cut avoidable extras such as currency conversion. Moving the checkout to another processor, LatchPay on Whop included, rarely makes fees lower on its own; it changes who processes your payments.

How Shopify payment fees work

There are two separate fees, and they are easy to mix up.

The card rate on Shopify Payments

When you use Shopify Payments, every card payment carries a processing rate. Shopify's pricing overview lists these online card rates for US stores, as of September 2026:

• Basic: 2.9% + 30¢
• Grow: 2.7% + 30¢
• Advanced: 2.5% + 30¢

Rates differ by country and by card type; Shopify publishes them per country and has a separate page for US rates by card type. Shopify Plus rates are set per region and are listed on the Plus pricing page.

On top of that, when a buyer pays in a currency different from your payout currency, Shopify charges a currency conversion fee of 1.5% or 2%, depending on where your store is located.

The third-party transaction fee

If your store takes payments through a provider other than Shopify Payments, Shopify adds its own third-party transaction fee to each order. As of September 2026 the rates are:

Shopify plan	Third-party transaction fee
Basic	2%
Grow	1%
Advanced	0.6%
Plus	0.2% (Plus pricing)

This fee is billed by Shopify on your Shopify bill. It comes on top of whatever your other provider charges for processing. Orders paid through Shopify Payments carry no such fee, and when Shopify Payments is active, Shopify's help center says PayPal Express and manual payments are excluded from it as well.

Realistic ways to lower your fees

None of these is a trick. They are the levers that exist, in the order most stores should look at them.

1. Stay on Shopify Payments if you can

If Shopify Payments is available in your country and accepts your business, it is usually the cheapest setup inside Shopify: one card rate, no third-party transaction fee. Adding a second gateway alongside it can bring the transaction fee back for the orders that go through that gateway.

2. Pick the plan that matches your volume

A higher plan lowers both the card rate and the third-party fee, but costs more per month. The maths is simple: take your monthly online card revenue, multiply by the difference in rates (for example 0.2 percentage points between Basic and Grow in the US), and compare that saving with the difference in plan price. Below that point, the cheaper plan wins.

3. Reduce currency conversion

If a large share of buyers pay in another currency, the conversion fee adds up. Shopify supports payouts in multiple currencies in some regions, which can reduce how often a conversion happens. Check what is available for your country before changing prices or markets.

4. Cut refunds and chargebacks

Refunds and disputes cost more than the rate itself: the original fee is often not returned, and chargebacks carry their own fees. Clear product pages, honest delivery times and fast support lower the fees you never see on the pricing page.

5. Look at total cost, not only the headline rate

A lower rate from another provider can be eaten by Shopify's third-party fee. On the Basic plan, a gateway charging 0.5 percentage points less than Shopify Payments still costs more overall once Shopify's 2% is added. Always add both numbers before switching.

When a different processor makes sense anyway

Some stores cannot use Shopify Payments, or can use it only with payout holds or reserves that hurt cash flow. For them the question is not "which rate is lowest" but "which setup lets me get paid reliably, at a cost I can plan for". That is where a third-party gateway or a checkout replacement comes in, each with its own trade-offs: a separate gateway inside Shopify's checkout, an app that connects another processor, or a checkout that runs outside Shopify's own.

Where LatchPay and Whop fit, and what they cost

LatchPay replaces two things on a Shopify store: the checkout page and the card charge. Products, inventory, discounts, shipping, tax, orders and customers stay in Shopify, and every paid order is written back into Shopify as paid. The payment runs on your own Whop business, where Whop is the merchant of record, so a buyer's card statement starts with WHOP*. See LatchPay and Shopify and LatchPay and Whop for exactly what moves and what stays.

A LatchPay order touches three companies, and each charges its own fee.

LatchPay's price

From the fees page:

• Starter: €100 per 30 days plus 0.5% of paid orders minus refunds.
• Scale: €299 per 30 days plus 0.25% of paid orders minus refunds.

The two cost the same at €79,600 in paid orders a month; above that, Scale is cheaper. The usage fee is billed weekly to the card on your LatchPay membership and is never taken out of your store payments. There is no setup fee. Details are in Starter and Scale and The weekly usage fee.

Whop's processing fees

Whop charges its own processing fee on every store payment, under Whop's terms. LatchPay does not change or absorb it. As of September 2026, Whop's fees page lists 2.7% + $0.30 per successful domestic card transaction, plus 1.5% for international cards and 1% for currency conversion, and a separate fee when Whop collects tax for you. Check Whop's page for the current numbers and for your region. LatchPay's help center explains why we recommend prices that include VAT on your Whop business, which avoids Whop's tax fee.

Shopify's third-party transaction fee

Because the payment runs outside Shopify Payments, Shopify may add its third-party transaction fee to each LatchPay order, at the rate for your plan. That is Shopify's fee, billed by Shopify. LatchPay does not hide it. See Whop's and Shopify's fees on top.

A worked example

A Basic-plan store in the US takes $10,000 in card orders in a month. On Shopify Payments, at 2.9% + 30¢ and an average order of $50 (200 orders), processing costs about $350.

The same month on LatchPay's Starter plan, before refunds and assuming the store currency is close enough to euros to compare:

• LatchPay: €100 membership plus 0.5% of $10,000, about $50 in usage fee.
• Whop: 2.7% + $0.30 on 200 domestic orders, about $330, more if buyers use international cards.
• Shopify: 2% third-party transaction fee on the Basic plan, $200.

That is clearly more than Shopify Payments. On Advanced, Shopify's part drops to 0.6%, and at higher volume LatchPay's fixed price weighs less per order, but the total is still unlikely to beat Shopify Payments on rate alone. We would rather say this plainly than let the numbers surprise you.

So who is LatchPay for?

Stores that cannot rely on Shopify Payments: those with frozen or held payouts, those in a category or country Shopify Payments does not support, and those that want a branded checkout with order bumps, post-purchase offers and fraud rules without moving off Shopify. For them, the extra cost buys a checkout that keeps working and payouts on Whop's schedule instead of a hold.

It also has limits you should know before comparing costs. While LatchPay is on, Shop Pay and the storefront's other express buttons are hidden, checkout apps that inject into Shopify's own checkout do not run, and subscriptions (selling plans) are not supported. The full list is in What LatchPay does, and what it does not.

Try it on your own numbers

If Shopify Payments works for you, stay on it and use the levers above. If it does not, the fees page has a table of what each LatchPay plan costs at different monthly volumes, and the demo shows the checkout buyers would see. When you are ready, you can create an account and place a test order before switching anything on for buyers.