Payzium vs Shopify Payments
Shopify Payments' rate is welded to the plan you pay for. A cheaper subscription buys a worse rate. We show you both ladders side by side.
Last updated: July 12, 2026
where Shopify Payments is genuinely the right call
Shopify is one of the strongest commerce platforms in the world; the storefront, POS, inventory, and payments genuinely feel like one product. If you already run your business on Shopify, the integration is seamless and you save the third-party 2% transaction fee. On Interac in-person, the flat 15 cents with no percent is genuinely competitive economics for a debit-heavy merchant. None of that changes the fact that your processing rate is stapled to the plan you happen to pay for. The page below shows both ladders, then does the honest math at $40K a month.
the published rate, line by line, by plan
Every Shopify line by plan, every Payzium line, on a representative $50 sale.
| Payment type | Shopify published (by plan) | Payzium all-in | $50 sale: extra you keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online standard card (Visa, Mastercard) | 2.8% / 2.6% / 2.4% + 30¢[1] | about 2.30% | $0.55 to $0.10 |
| In-person credit card | 2.6% / 2.5% / 2.4%[2] | about 1.84% | $0.38 to $0.28 |
| Interac debit, in person | 0% + 15¢[3] | 5¢ flat | $0.10 |
| Third-party transaction fee (if you use another processor) | 2% / 1% / 0.6%[4] | n/a: we are the processor | $1.00 to $0.30 |
| PlanMonthly subscription (in addition to processing) | $49 / $132 / $517 monthly[6] | $5 account fee | structural |
Payzium figures use the Tier 1 standard schedule (0.30% plus 5 cents card present, 0.40% plus 5 cents card not present), passed through the live interchange engine that prices the homepage slider and /calculator. Shopify rates shown are Basic / Grow / Advanced; Plus is quoted separately. Tier 1 is the worst case for Payzium; higher tiers widen the gap. See the math for your own volume on /calculator.
Shopify Plus starts at $3,400 CAD a month[6]; below that tier, the published plan rate is the rate you pay.
the rate ladder, welded to the subscription ladder
A cheaper subscription buys a worse processing rate. Here are both ladders side by side.
Every Shopify plan carries a different processing rate. Downgrading the subscription raises the rate on every transaction; upgrading the subscription lowers it. Payzium's rate does not depend on which subscription you pick, because there is no subscription.
| Plan | Monthly billing | Yearly billing | Online rate | In-person rate | Third-party fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $49/mo | $37/mo | 2.8% + 30¢ | 2.6% | 2%[1] |
| Grow | $132/mo | $99/mo | 2.6% + 30¢ | 2.5% | 1%[6] |
| Advanced | $517/mo | $389/mo | 2.4% + 30¢ | 2.4% | 0.6%[5] |
| Plus | from $3,400/mo | quote only | quoted (unpublished) | quoted | 0.2%[6] |
To get Shopify's Advanced rate on a $40,000-a-month merchant, the subscription costs $517 a month (or $389 on yearly billing). That is $4,668 to $6,204 a year in subscription fees, before a single transaction is processed.
the third-party fee, plainly
If you pick your own processor, Shopify charges you 2% at $40K on Basic. That is $800 a month.
The third-party transaction fee is what Shopify charges merchants who use Shopify's platform but process cards through a different provider (Payzium, Stripe, another gateway). On the Basic plan at $40,000 a month, that fee is $800 a month, or $9,600 a year, purely for using a processor other than Shopify Payments. On Grow it drops to $400 a month; on Advanced $240; on Plus $80.
The fee is Shopify's stated cost of you having a choice of processor while staying on the platform. Payzium does not run a storefront platform; if you love Shopify's storefront, the honest question is whether the platform value is worth the platform fee.
a worked example, the assumptions stated up front
$462.72 vs $721.00 a month on Basic. Shopify Payments plus the plan.
The profile: $40,000 in monthly card volume, 100% card-present through Shopify POS, 60% credit and 40% Interac debit, $50 average ticket, 800 transactions. Shopify Basic plan on monthly billing. If your profile differs or you are on a different Shopify plan, your number differs. The rate stays welded to the plan.
Shopify Basic (in person)
- Credit (60% of volume): 2.6% × $24,000 = $624.00/mo
- Interac debit (40% of volume): 15¢ × 320 tx = $48.00/mo
- Basic plan subscription (monthly billing): $49.00/mo
- Total: $721.00/mo
Payzium wholesale-plus
- Card-network pass-through: credit only, with assessment = $345.72/mo
- Interac (flat 5¢/tx): 320 tx × 5¢ = $16.00/mo
- Payzium margin (credit only): 0.30% × $24,000 = $72.00/mo
- Per-transaction fees: 480 credit tx × 5¢ = $24.00/mo
- Monthly account fee: $5.00/mo
- Total: $462.72/mo
Monthly savings with Payzium on this profile: $258.28. The Payzium total above matches the homepage volume slider and /calculator to the cent at this profile.
Payzium uses the Tier 1 standard interchange schedule (the conservative regime above the Small Merchant / Small Business program ceilings); a merchant under $14,583 a month sees a lower Payzium rate than published here because both SMB programs apply. Shopify Payments' Interac in-person economics (flat 15 cents with no percent) are legitimately competitive; on the Interac line alone, Shopify beats most non-Payzium alternatives. Both sides exclude terminal hardware. Yearly billing lowers the Shopify subscription line by $12 a month (Basic) to $128 a month (Advanced); the processing lines are unchanged. Annual extrapolation deliberately omitted from visible copy: every month will not track this exact profile, and Pay less or it's free is the guarantee for whether real savings show up.
the Interac line, plainly
Shopify Payments' flat 15 cents Interac is legitimately competitive. Our 5 cents is lower.
Shopify Payments charges 0% + 15 cents[8] on every Interac debit transaction, every plan. That is honest debit economics; a big-ticket Interac merchant on Shopify Payments pays 15 cents whether the sale is $5 or $500. Payzium charges a flat 5 cents per Interac transaction, no margin, no assessment, no per-transaction fee. 5 cents is 10 cents lower than Shopify's 15 cents on every debit transaction, but Shopify's Interac line is the strongest debit economics in the flat-rate category and we will not pretend otherwise.
On a $50 in-person debit sale, Shopify's cost is 15 cents; ours is 5 cents. On the credit lines above, that pattern reverses.
what Shopify Payments does well, plainly
Four things Shopify Payments gets right. We will not pretend otherwise.
Shopify Payments is the seamless-integration story for merchants who already live on Shopify. This is real and worth saying. Honesty about Shopify's strengths is what makes the plan-rate ladder teardown above credible.
Platform integration is seamless.
One dashboard, one settlement, one reconciliation. If you already run on Shopify, Shopify Payments is one click.
Interac in-person: 0% + 15 cents flat.
Flat 15 cents Interac with no percent is genuinely competitive for high-Interac merchants; Payzium's 5 cents is lower, but Shopify's line is honest debit economics.[8]
No monthly processing fee beyond the plan.
The subscription is real, but Shopify does not charge a separate monthly processing fee, PCI compliance fee, or setup fee on top of the plan.[6]
POS Pro on Advanced and Plus.
The upper-tier POS is a strong retail product with staff accounts, custom pricing rules, and warehouse features.
the $5 monthly account fee, surfaced honestly
Payzium charges a $5 monthly account fee. Shopify's plan is the fee. Here is when the math recovers ours.
Shopify's plan subscription starts at $49 a month on Basic monthly billing[6] and rises with plan tier. Payzium publishes a $5 monthly account fee on every account. The same honesty standard we apply to the plan-rate ladder applies here: we will not show per-transaction wins on the credit lines while staying quiet on a fixed monthly fee.
The credit-line spread between Shopify's plan rate and Payzium's all-in rate recovers the $5 fee with a few hundred dollars of monthly card volume, which any active merchant clears in days. Above that, every dollar of credit volume is net savings. The Shopify plan subscription runs $49 to $517 a month on top of the processing lines; Payzium's account fee is $5.
If your monthly card volume is small enough that $5 a month is a real consideration, you are almost certainly better off on a starter plan somewhere.
the real cost of leaving Shopify Payments is the platform, not the processor
Shopify Payments has no cancellation fee. The friction is the platform.
Shopify Payments is month-to-month within your Shopify subscription. Turning off Shopify Payments and switching to a third-party processor triggers the third-party transaction fee (2% on Basic, dropping by plan). Leaving Shopify entirely means migrating the storefront, product catalog, and customer accounts to another platform, which is real operational work. Payzium is a card-processing service, not a storefront platform; if the value in your Shopify subscription is the storefront, we tell you that plainly and you decide what to leave and what to keep.
Pay less or it's free covers up to CA$1,000 of your switch-out cost. If Payzium has not lowered your processing cost in the first 90 days, every Payzium fee is refunded.
Honest math
Honest math. Decide from there.
Wholesale-plus pricing at interchange + 0.30% + 5 cents Tier 1 margin. The Honest Rate Promise and Pay less or it's free. $5 monthly account fee disclosed; no setup fee, no PCI fee, no monthly minimum, no junk fees.
common questions
Questions merchants ask before leaving Shopify Payments
Can I use Payzium and still keep my Shopify storefront?
Yes, but Shopify then applies the third-party transaction fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced, 0.2% on Plus. At $40,000 a month on Basic, that is $800 a month purely for choosing your own processor. The comparison is honest: if the storefront value is worth $800 a month to you, keep Shopify and swap only the processor. If it is not, the honest answer is to leave the platform.
How can Payzium be cheaper than Shopify Payments' Advanced plan rate?
Shopify's Advanced plan gets a lower processing rate (2.4% online, 2.4% in-person) but the subscription is $517 a month on monthly billing (or $389 on yearly). Payzium's Tier 1 in-person credit is about 1.84% all-in with a $5 monthly account fee, no matter which subscription tier a hypothetical platform would put you on. The credit-line spread widens further at higher volumes.
What is interchange and why does Payzium charge it at cost?
Interchange is the fee the card networks (Visa, Mastercard, Interac) set and collect on every card transaction. Every processor pays interchange to the customer's card-issuing bank. Shopify Payments bundles interchange into its plan-tiered flat rate. Payzium passes it through at cost, so you pay what the network actually charges, no markup, and on top of that we charge our published margin. That structure is why our all-in rate is lower on most lines: there is no spread between wholesale interchange and the rate on the statement.
What about Shopify Payments' 15-cent Interac?
That is a genuinely competitive line. Payzium's flat 5 cents is lower, but Shopify's flat 15 cents (with no percent) is honest debit economics. For a debit-heavy merchant staying on Shopify's platform for the storefront, the Interac line alone would not motivate a switch; the credit lines and the third-party fee are where the math lives.
Are these rates guaranteed?
Yes, two ways. The Honest Rate Promise: if we ever charge a junk fee, we refund it twice. Pay less or it's free: if you have not saved money on processing within the first 90 days, every Payzium fee is refunded and we cover up to CA$1,000 of your switching costs, to move to any processor you want. The published rate is the rate on the statement.
What does Pay less or it's free cover if I am coming from Shopify Payments?
Two things. It covers up to CA$1,000 of your switch-out cost, which for a Shopify Payments merchant could mean setup work if you also leave the platform, or the third-party fee runway if you stay. And if Payzium has not lowered your processing cost within the first 90 days, every Payzium fee is refunded. The guarantee runs for the first 90 days and is not rolling.
Sources
- [1] Shopify Canada Basic plan online standard card rate 2.8% + 30¢ CAD (Grow 2.6%, Advanced 2.4%). Screenshot 2026-07-11, SHA-256 19057f869d7c1d92dba8419b41e5852931e135e8377ca6a4a8e1083867069c5f. https://www.shopify.com/ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
- [2] Shopify Canada Basic plan in-person card rate 2.6% + 0¢ CAD (Grow 2.5%, Advanced 2.4%). Screenshot 2026-07-11. https://www.shopify.com/ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
- [3] Shopify Canada Interac in-person rate 0% + 15¢ CAD flat, every plan. Screenshot 2026-07-11. https://www.shopify.com/ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
- [4] Shopify Canada third-party transaction fee 2% Basic, 1% Grow, 0.6% Advanced, 0.2% Plus, charged when a merchant uses a processor other than Shopify Payments. Screenshot 2026-07-11. https://www.shopify.com/ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
- [5] Shopify Canada Advanced plan online standard card rate 2.4% + 30¢ CAD; Plus plan card rates listed only as 'Most competitive rates' (no published figure). Screenshot 2026-07-11. https://www.shopify.com/ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
- [6] Shopify Canada plan pricing (monthly billing): Basic $49 CAD/mo, Grow $132 CAD/mo, Advanced $517 CAD/mo, Plus starts at $3,400 CAD/mo. Pricing PDF 2026-07-11, SHA-256 307f11182071bc650788fbc795168383863669e625cb89379ee3b5ad402dc04a. https://www.shopify.com/ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
- [7] Shopify Canada plan pricing (yearly billing): Basic $37 CAD/mo, Grow $99 CAD/mo, Advanced $389 CAD/mo (Plus yearly not offered). Pricing PDF 2026-07-11. https://www.shopify.com/ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
- [8] Shopify Payments Canada Interac in-person 0% + 15¢ CAD flat is legitimately competitive debit economics for merchants with high Interac mix; on the Interac line alone Shopify Payments beats most flat-rate alternatives (Payzium's 5¢ flat is lower). Screenshot 2026-07-11. https://www.shopify.com/ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.