Shopify is allowing merchants to use a third-party processor alongside Shopify Payments while retaining Shop Pay. For merchants that have wanted to challenge their acquiring costs without compromising checkout, there are now more options. There is also a significant cost attached to this flexibility.
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Can Shopify merchants use a third-party payment provider and keep Shop Pay?
Yes.
Shopify now allows eligible merchants to use Shopify Payments alongside a direct third-party payment provider. The third party can become the primary processor for credit and debit cards, while Shopify Payments remains active for Shop Pay and payment methods the third party doesn’t support. Shopify Payments can also attempt to recover eligible card transactions when the primary provider fails to process them.
For contracted Shopify Plus merchants, the arrangement is currently in Early Access and available by request through Shopify Plus Support. It is available on other plans, subject to Shopify’s eligibility requirements. Multi-entity setups are currently excluded.
For merchants that have previously considered third-party acquiring but didn’t want to lose Shop Pay, this is welcome.
There is a significant cost attached to it.
Transactions processed by the third-party provider remain subject to Shopify’s applicable third-party transaction fee. Transactions processed through Shopify Payments in the hybrid setup, including Shop Pay and applicable local payment methods, are charged at the normal Shopify Payments rate plus an additional 1.25%.
An additional 1.25% is material, particularly for larger merchants operating on retail margins.
A lower acquiring rate from a third party therefore doesn’t necessarily result in lower payment costs overall. Any savings need to be assessed against Shopify’s additional fees and the cost of retaining Shop Pay through Shopify Payments.
Earlier this year, Opt-ic wrote about how choosing Shopify had, for many merchants, effectively meant making a payments decision at the same time. Shopify Payments, checkout and Shop Pay worked well together, while alternative processing often became difficult to justify once the wider costs and potential impact on checkout were considered.
There are now more ways to structure that relationship. Whether they reduce the merchant’s total cost is a different question.
Shopify Payments is Popular
Most of the Shopify merchants we work with aren’t trying to replace Shopify.
They like the platform. Their ecommerce teams like it. The checkout works. Shop Pay makes purchasing particularly easy for customers who have used it before.
Shopify puts the Shop Pay network at more than 250 million buyers and is making Shop Pay available outside the Shopify platform through its “Shop Pay on any platform” proposition.
There is an understandable reluctance to interfere with that experience in pursuit of a cheaper processing rate.
Opt-ic has worked with Shopify merchants on this from several directions. We’ve introduced third-party payment providers, analyzed the economics of Shop Pay, renegotiated existing arrangements and removed individual payment methods that weren’t earning their cost. In other cases, the economics have supported a wider replatforming.
The answers have differed because the businesses, transaction profiles and commercial arrangements have differed.
A merchant can be perfectly happy with Shopify and Shop Pay while still questioning what it pays to process the underlying transactions.
The new hybrid arrangement gives merchants more scope to separate the two.
Why is Shopify doing it?
Payments are increasingly important to Shopify.
Shopify Payments processed 68% of Shopify GMV in Q2 2026, up three percentage points year over year. Merchant Solutions generated $2.78 billion, around 78% of quarterly revenue, with Shopify Payments the largest contributor to the year-over-year increase in Merchant Solutions.
At the same time, Shopify is winning larger merchants whose payment requirements can be considerably more complex.
A large international retailer may already have negotiated acquiring arrangements with Worldpay, Adyen or another global provider. It may have domestic acquiring in individual markets, specific treasury and settlement requirements, existing fraud infrastructure and long-standing commercial agreements based on substantial payment volume.
We see these differences when analyzing merchant data. The same merchant can have very different payment economics by card type, country, channel and transaction route. A single headline processing rate captures very little of the true cost.
For a larger retailer, replacing an established payments architecture simply to accommodate a new commerce platform can be difficult to justify.
Giving those merchants greater freedom over acquiring removes some of that constraint.
The fee structure allows Shopify to do so without giving up the payments revenue. Externally processed card volume can still attract a third-party transaction fee, while transactions retained within Shopify Payments are charged at the merchant’s processing rate plus the additional 1.25% under the hybrid model.
Shopify can accommodate merchants that want greater control over acquiring while continuing to participate financially in their payment volume.
Shop Pay is moving beyond Shopify
Shop Pay itself is starting to operate across a much wider footprint.
Shopify now promotes “Shop Pay on any platform”, allowing businesses to add Shop Pay to an existing checkout without moving their underlying commerce platform to Shopify.
With more than 250 million registered buyers in the Shop Pay network, Shopify has built a large base of customers whose saved identity, address and payment details can be recognized when they encounter Shop Pay again.
That relationship continues to have value even where somebody else processes the underlying card transaction.
This could become more relevant as shopping journeys increasingly begin outside a merchant’s own website.
Shopify’s Universal Commerce Protocol is being developed to support commerce through AI agents and is designed to work with any payment processor, including Shopify Payments. Shopify’s developer documentation also describes Shop Pay credentials being used in environments where merchants can process payments through their own processor.
It also helps explain why Shopify may be comfortable with greater processor choice. Its relationship with the merchant and customer increasingly extends beyond who ultimately acquires a particular card transaction.
What do the additional fees do to the numbers?
Take a merchant with $100 million of annual ecommerce volume.
An improvement of 10 basis points in acquiring is worth $100,000 a year.
Now assume, simply to illustrate the scale, that 25% of the merchant’s volume continues to go through Shop Pay.
That is $25 million of volume.
An additional 1.25% on $25 million is:
$312,500 a year.
That is the additional premium alone. The normal Shopify Payments processing rate still applies to those transactions, and the merchant also needs to include Shopify’s applicable third-party transaction fee on the externally processed volume.
A modest improvement in acquiring price can disappear once the complete fee structure is included.
The exact position will depend heavily on the merchant’s transaction mix.
US debit, premium credit, commercial cards, international cards and different card networks carry different underlying costs. FX, cross-border fees, routing, provider margin and commercial rebates can alter the result further.
This is why Opt-ic analyzes payments at transaction level rather than comparing one headline processing rate with another.
There is also payment recovery to include. An eligible payment that fails through the third-party provider can be retried through Shopify Payments.
The recovered transaction may cost more to process, but it may also have prevented a lost sale.
How much is Shop Pay actually worth?
The additional cost of retaining Shop Pay in the hybrid model puts more emphasis on understanding what it contributes.
Shopify has promoted Shop Pay on the strength of its conversion performance. For an individual merchant, the more useful question is how much additional revenue and contribution it is actually creating.
Opt-ic recently analyzed Shop Pay for an established Shopify merchant where it represented more than a quarter of completed orders.
The merchant liked Shop Pay and didn’t want to interfere with a checkout experience customers were already using heavily.
The available merchant data couldn’t establish how many of those orders would have disappeared if Shop Pay hadn’t been available.
A customer choosing Shop Pay and completing an order doesn’t demonstrate that Shop Pay created the order.
Some of those customers would have bought anyway and simply used the fastest checkout option available. Others may have abandoned if they had been required to complete a standard checkout.
Our analysis looked at the conversion and financial contribution required for the additional cost of Shop Pay to be justified. It allowed the merchant to assess Shop Pay against its own transaction data rather than relying on a platform-wide conversion figure.
We’ve taken the same approach when analyzing other payment methods. High usage doesn’t necessarily demonstrate incremental value, particularly when customers may simply use another payment method if their preferred option disappears.
Under Shopify’s hybrid arrangement, understanding that value becomes more important. If a sizable proportion of a merchant’s volume continues through Shop Pay and attracts the additional 1.25%, there needs to be enough commercial benefit to support the cost.
Assessing the new options
Merchants that previously considered third-party acquiring but stopped because of Shop Pay or concerns around conversion should revisit the position.
The flexibility now exists to retain Shop Pay while introducing another provider for credit and debit card processing. For contracted Shopify Plus merchants, the new arrangement is currently available through the Early Access program.
Whether it saves money will depend on the merchant.
Shopify’s third-party transaction fees sit alongside the additional 1.25% applied to applicable Shopify Payments transactions in the hybrid model. The financial contribution of Shop Pay also needs to be understood rather than assumed.
At significant volumes, relatively small differences in those numbers can translate into substantial amounts of money.
Opt-ic has worked with Shopify merchants across a range of payment strategies, from introducing third-party providers and renegotiating existing arrangements to analyzing Shop Pay, removing individual payment methods and, in some cases, moving platforms altogether.
Most merchants we work with aren’t looking for change for the sake of it. They want to keep what works and understand whether they’re paying more than they need to.
Shopify’s new third-party arrangements give them another option, albeit one with a significant additional cost attached.
A proposal from a PSP showing a lower processing rate doesn’t answer whether that option will save money. The merchant’s existing commercial terms, Shopify’s additional fees and the contribution from Shop Pay all form part of the cost.
You can like Shopify, value Shop Pay and still expect competitive payment economics.
Sources
Using Shopify Payments with a third-party provider — Shopify Help Center. Hybrid configuration, primary third-party processing, Shop Pay, payment recovery, Shopify Plus Early Access and multi-entity restrictions. Shopify Payments fees — Shopify Help Center. Pricing for the hybrid arrangement, including the additional 1.25% premium on applicable Shopify Payments transactions. Third-party transaction fees on your Shopify bills — Shopify Help Center. How third-party transaction fees operate and how rates vary by plan. Shopify Payments — Shopify Help Center. General documentation for Shopify Payments and use alongside a direct third-party provider. Shop Pay on any platform — Shopify Help Center. Expansion of Shop Pay beyond Shopify stores and the 250m+ customer network. Universal Commerce Protocol — Shopify. UCP and support for different processors and wallets. Shop Pay payment handler specification — Shopify Developers. Technical documentation on Shop Pay credentials and merchant processing in UCP environments. Shopify Q2 2026 Financial Results — Shopify. Financial background on Q2 2026 and Merchant Solutions growth. Shopify Quarterly Results — Shopify Investor Relations. Quarterly financial information and supporting materials. Shopify Q2 2026 Earnings: Merchant Solutions Surge 37% — EcomCrew. Secondary analysis of Merchant Solutions and Shopify Payments. Shopify Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript — The Motley Fool. Supporting source for 68% Shopify Payments penetration of GMV. Did Shopify Already Decide Your Payments Strategy? — Opt-ic. Previous article providing the background to this piece. Opt-ic Analysis and estimations