Shopify says remove Stripe billing or get booted from their app store

624 points by ponny ↗ HN
We're a SaaS business currently listed on the Shopify App store. Today we got this stern email from Shopify's 'Partner Governance' team.

TLDR: Don't even have Stripe as an option for Shopify users or we'll boot you. Also backpay since Jan 2019.

"At Shopify, it is critical to maintain high trust and integrity within the Shopify App Store, so merchants have a reliable place to find solutions to grow their business.

During a routine investigation, Partner Governance identified your app [our app] as offering external billing for Shopify merchants and not using the Billing API for all payments.

[a couple of images of our cart]

As you are aware, all paid apps are required to use our Billing API, as noted in our Partner Program Agreement (Section 3.2 Payments, Point 5) unless express permission is granted by Shopify.

Payment information should not be obtained from the merchant directly and all charges should be processed through the billing API.

We require that you make the required changes as soon as possible to ensure all future payments are handled through our billing API. This would include redirecting any current merchants to select their plan and re-approve the new subscription through the Billing API and ensuring that all new merchants are billed through the API.

Shopify has also recently rolled out an annual subscription feature on the Billing API that makes the yearly subscription event easier on the API.

Additionally, we will require a report of the merchants who have been billed outside of the Billing API and retroactive revenue share payment for any/all qualifying 20% revenue dated January 2019 - Present.

Once the report has been reviewed, we will reach out with next steps on how to submit the transfer of funds to Shopify via wire transfer."

Pretty ironic too when you've got Shopify's CEO tweeting about the unfair 30% cut Apple wants: https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1362411841943711744

235 comments

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This isn't a particularly surprising occurrence, is it? For better or worse, it sounds like them defending their moat: which is exactly what any company would do.
Doubt there is anything you can do. Should have read the contract/terms before getting in bed with them.

If your business has grown you could evaluate to move off the shopify platform. And figure out best way to handle this fine/charge.

This was always the case with the Shopify App Store. They were more loose in using other payment systems, as long as you payed them their 20% by wire transfer. Since end of 2019 they give that permission to almost nobody.

It is also a big piece of the verification process for the App Store. So maybe you added Stripe later and now they found it?

Did you have a written waiver that you could charge another way? That is required at least since ~2015.

Nah, we've had Stripe since 2013. Added Shopify billing in 2016 (which was a nightmare using their old API). We'll be too small for an exemption/wire transfer method.
If in glasshouse, then do not to throw stones.
I'm sorry but Shopify has always been focused on profit and lock-in, which is why they don't allow tools that move customers away from the platform and will stop paying resellers (all) their recurring commission if you don't add enough new customers to the platform every year.

And now your stepping on their transaction profits which are substantial, considering the amounts they process.

wow, they hold seller's data hostage?
Shopify resellers (affiliates), not merchants.
Which makes sense - don't sell data to the shady intermediaries keep it with the merchants. Merchants should own their client list not some developer intermediary who is trying to make money on that data.
The insane growth the stock has had needs to be kept propped up for the shareholders to be happy. More profit = more shareholder value and that's that. Once you IPO, forget about any and all startup grandiose values that was created on inception to help the 'little' guy. Shopify will be the new Yelp with their mafia style tactics.
How exactly did you think Shopify made money?
Do think this is unjust? I'm a bit confused, I thought that was the whole point/business model of Shopify?
How are you surprised? If you have billing sorted for your SaaS, why do you even need Shopify for?
plugins, fulfillment, order tracking, the UI. it does way more than billing.
Any of those could be arranged with woocommerce / magento / shipstation.
If your SAAS wants to integrate with Shopify (which owns a majority of the market for SMBs e-com websites), telling your customers to switch to magento is a no-go.
Generally speaking it is very surprising for a merchant of any product to require that you not use a competing product in order to use their product.
Not a surprising practice, but:

> Pretty ironic too when you've got Shopify's CEO tweeting about the unfair 30% cut Apple wants: https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1362411841943711744

That's pretty hypocritical

I mean, Tim Cook wants his cake and the Shopify CEO wants his cake too, so the hippocracy is expected.
Everything started to fall apart when the horses seized power
The legislature and judiciary soon fell to stasis and stagnation. Nothing could be achieved in the face of so many "neigh" votes.
Roman emperor Caligula supposedly appointed his horse as a consul.
I saw a movie about that once - think it was called "planet of the mares".
At this point I'd be willing to try a hippocracy.
The rule of hippos?

[Edit] Thanks for clueing me up.

Rule of horses. "Hippos" means horse. "Potamus" means river. "Hippopotamus" means "river horse."
And Hippopotamus are closest related to pigs.
I'd prefer the rule of Hippocrates :D Not doing any harm seems like a good maxim for CEOs...
"Hippocrates" means "horse holder".

Unfortunately, they turned out to be a bad investment.

How do you drop-ship horses?
Just like you drop-ship everything else - buy it and set the destination to the customer's address.
The cake is a lie.
Ok, got it. Not enough Portal fans here.
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I had the feeling he was complaining about the value amount, not the exclusivity requirement.

It's pretty hypocrital but still... Sort of hypocrital

Is it impossible to reach and provide your service to Spotify merchants without going through the Spotify app store? If yes it's hypocritical, if not then the situation is totally different than what is going on with Apple.
Shopify.

I agree with the case being different to Apple. And not sure why it is hypocritical. Not to mention Shopify holds no clear monopoly over e-commerce. Unless people want to argue the Shopify has a monopoly on Shopify App Store.

> Unless people want to argue the Shopify has a monopoly on Shopify App Store.

They're trying to enforce exclusive control over transactions made on their platform, which sounds a whole lot like Apple to me.

And also not unreasonable, IMO (since it's the business model their platform is built around), although their CEO trying to ride the outrage train for political points is pretty distasteful, especially when his own company is doing the same thing.

And Apple has no monopoly over cellphones... it's the exact same thing. If you are a Shopify customer, there's only 1 AppStore.
In US, one could argue Apple has a monopolistic position on Smartphone. Today, the iPhone has 66% market share in the United States, 75% of U.S. App Store revenues, and over 80% of time spent on the mobile internet.
I have noticed a pattern these days - people publicly criticise certain behaviours and then they do exactly what they criticise. They think that majority of people won't actually verify that and such message will embed a positive impression about that person. Then you have people rather lie to themselves rather than accept that they were wrong, so if they later find out that those people actually were doing what they spoke against, they will dismiss it and rather keep the embedded good image. It's fascinating. I wonder if there were any studies about that as it seems like so many organisations or people exploit this these days.
it is not new, it is called Projection. It has been around for as long as humans existed. it is easier to spot today because of internet and archiving tools that means everything you ever say or do is recorded for all time.
Does as I say, not as I do whether it's the Mega Church pastor or Tim Cook.

Trust No One.

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Well, Orwell had a thing or two to say about this in 1984. It's incredibly common in party politics.

If you are the party that always criticize something, nobody will believe that you are doing it. So, if you plan on doing something, you accuse our largest opositor of doing it, loudly and repeatedly.

This puts that insane Qannon theory and the kids who went missing under Trump's kids in cages program in an entirely new context...
You mean Obama Biden's cages, they built them and continue to operate them after all. Exemplifying the point made above about hypocrisy
Last I checked, Biden wasn't separating children from their parents at the border as a blanket policy and using them as leverage to get the parents to go away. Emphasis on BLANKET POLICY. Obama/Biden didn't put every child in a cage the way steven miller did.

So no, I dont' see hypocrisy here.

Its night and day. Trump's stewardship put these children in a lord of the flies scenario where they had to take care of each other and the leadership acting more like prison guards than caretakers.

I agree that Biden should close those things down but he cant just release the children into the wild. He got left with a timebomb and care has to be taken when dismantling it. Time will tell if he commits to transitioning these children to more appropriate living facilities and finding their parents (https://reason.com/2020/10/21/545-migrant-kids-snatched-by-t...) or relatives. He's been president less than 2 months. it will take time to see if he honors his commitments.

> ...it will take time to see if he honors his commitments.

"I will not ban fracking." ...bans fracking

"$2,000 stimulus checks for everyone." ...$1,400 checks for some

"I have an extensive plan for COVID." ...doesn't have a COVID plan

"We need to close the immigration facilities used to separate parents and children." ...Trump admin closes one site. Biden admin reopens it

"I will eliminate President Trump’s... MPP on day one." ...hasn't ended the MPP

So far, at least on the hot ticket items, he's not running a great track record.

He's done a bunch of little stuff, but the big things promised during the campaign have systematically failed, and several the exact opposite direction.

So, sure, let's see if the career politician honors his commitments. I'm not holding my breath.

You are reaching.

re: fracking: When asked soon after the comment, he clarified that he was referring to fracking on federal property. The original context of his comments that he would ban fracking were usually centered around the controversy of Trump having opened up lots of federal land to fracking. Fracking on federal land is a small fraction of total output.

re: 2k stimulus checks. Not sure what the actual intent was, but I immediately understood it to mean that they would send out $1400 checks because $2k was the initial amount that Dems wanted and GOP negotiated it down to $600. As for "everyone" well, do we really think -everyone- should get money? Very few people are in favor of high earners getting a check.

re: covid plan. Not sure where you got that. He was working on covid and spending more time pre-Jan 20 meeting with covid experts and task forces than the president at the time. Who was preoccupied with his tv and phone.

re: MPP. Looks like it is already underway. https://www.metro.us/biden-to-bring-in/ You have to unwind programs like this to avoid causing even more harm.

re: immigration facility reopened. Biden admin provided extensive explanation of why they needed to re-open it. Unaccompanied children arriving at the border. They need some stop gap at the moment.

Hey, please correct this disinformation, its not a good look. Unaccompanied minor immigrants without documentation are safeguarded in facilities now, not jailed in cages.
Ok, let me correct these: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/lawyers-have-fo...

It's true they existed before, but they were used in situations when an underage child arrived to the border. Or child was found with human traffickers. They weren't splitting children from parents for longer than 42h.

Trump was the one that made the cages full, by implementing the zero tolerance policy, separating children with parents and often deporting the parents making it difficult to reunite them.

Hey please focus on the issue at hand, Biden uses facilities not cages. Whataboutism isn't a good look for you. Please stop using the "C" word.
Indeed, like fighting systemic racism with systemic racism.
Actually, that's one of the more reasonable strategies of this form. What would you have done to reduce the harm of that problem?
Well, that "problem" presupposes an upward or stagnant trend, which are not demonstrably true. Then the admittedly harmful act of racism was used to accelerate resolution of "that problem".

Here's the problem with that:

- it was not demonstrated that other more productive forms of change were ineffective; in fact, history shows there has been tremendous progress in the absence of "racism to fight racism"

- it has not been shown that "racism v racism" has improved "that problem"

- it is yet to be shown the negative consequences of such a strategy, but history is full of examples of further suffering, not less

You call it "reasonable", and yet I find a complete lack of reason in its use. When challenged to provide reason, all responses I've witnessed reflect an attitude of, "I don't need to give you a reason/justify it".

To my mind, that is precisely absent of reason, so I challenge your assertion that it is in any way "reasonable".

Okay, first up: make sure we're talking about the same thing.

I'm talking about hiring (etc.) quotas requiring the demographics of (e.g.) a workplace to be roughly similar to the demographics of the general population. Fuzzy quotas, so a two-person team doesn't have to be representative but a 20 000 person company shouldn't be almost exclusively white men in their 30s.

A steady forward trend of progress seems quite reasonable. As long as you are not the one who was on the receiving end of past injustice.

In basketball, if someone gets fouled while trying to make a shot, is it unfair that everyone has to stand back while the person fouled gets to shoot free throws just because they are wearing the same color uniform?

It would be great if we could leave race out of the equation when trying to right past wrongs. Unfortunately, when a past wrong was committed based solely on race, given limited resources, the remedy likely needs to be based on race as well.

> In basketball, if someone gets fouled while trying to make a shot, is it unfair that everyone has to stand back while the person fouled gets to shoot free throws just because they are wearing the same color uniform?

Thank you for your very interesting example! I'll try to address it:

I believe this analogy to be erroneous. An appropriate example would fall somewhere along the lines of the following:

Imagine, in basketball, if a player fouls another player. Or, rather, a team fouls a great number of players on the opposing team. Nothing is done and the opposing team loses.

During a later game—years later, when none of the original players play for either team anymore—the two teams meet up. For an indefinite number of games between two teams, the fouled team is prescribed some number of free throws for all members of their team.

Would you consider that to be an appropriate facility to rectify the past injustice? Perhaps the fouled team's reputation was damaged because of past, persistent losses, so they were no longer able to compete effectively for years. But over time, referees notice the fouls and punish them as they occur, with traditional "fouled player gets free throws".

Should the fouls of the past team be enforced on the new, modern team in such the way described with indefinite, prescribed free throws?

Your example is obvious: yes, those individuals who are harmed are right to have an opportunity to regain advantage after they are fouled upon. But that is an equitable and obvious form of justice that has been—in one form or another—the default perspective throughout history.

What you're talking about, however, is not that. It's a far more complicated scenario the effects of which are far more difficult to quantify.

If one is to assert that harms done to people who no longer exist by people who no longer exist should be rectified by people related to those who were harmed, then I think it is also the responsibility of such a person to clearly outline and justify:

- the limits of who is eligible to receive such justice

- the degree to which harm has "trickled down" to the modern individual

- why others who have been victims of injustice are not eligible for justice

- a prescription for resolution that adequately repairs the harms

- from whom the justice should be paid

Now, this is exceedingly complex, and one could argue that it's not fair to remain complete inactive just because we cannot perfectly balance these variables. Some justice is better than no justice.

The problem is that innocent people are victimized by the decision to do something when it's not possible to quantify the impossible variables. (From which my basketball example stems.)

Now, the predominant argument seems to be something along the lines of, "we don't have to figure out these variables because everyone from the fouling team has benefited from the history."

I will counter this with an admittedly extremely offensive and unpalatable response. Before I do so, I want to be clear that my writing this does not mean that I advocate it. I mention it to show that it's not a simple matter, even if we reduce it to "those who benefit from the injustice."

If we assert that justice should be served by the people who benefited from past injustice, then it would be apt to identify that those whose ancestors faced injustice have—in some way—also benefited from the injustice. That is not to say that they are responsible, but rather to illustrate that such justification for choosing from whom the justice should come is not simple or clear.

I assert that if the principal is to ensure that those who have faced injustice—or have been indirectly harmed by injustice—are adequately "made right", then the onus is on those prescribing resolution to do it without creating further victims. If that is impossible (which it is), then it is their responsi...

>During a later game—years later, when none of the original players play for either team anymore

But of course, life is not like discrete games all played by unrelated teams in a vacuum. Imagine if points were cumulative (you know, like wealth, social capital, culture) and those points were passed down after each game forever. Well then of course it would make sense for a much later team to have to stand while the team that was wronged gets a few free throws.

No one is saying we should take points away from the team that fouled and give them to the team that was wronged. Just give them a few free throws.

There is nothing about any plans I have seen that could qualify as "vengeance".

A free throw isn't vengeance.

I would encourage you to read up on the history of opposition to the civil rights movement in America and note how clearly many of your ideas echo that opposition.

The, "if we give them a chance, that might cause us the slightest tinge of possible harm, so we cannot give them that chance" has been the mantra since immediately after the emancipation proclamation and has been repeated ever since.

Revenge feels great but wears off quickly.

Racism to make up for past racism reenforces divisions and keeps racism aliveb

Restitution has nothing to do with revenge.
but if you're caught later on, then fasten your seatbelts
If you own the media then you can sit back and relax. At most you'll get few days of moaning and things will go back to normal. Majority of people won't even know or connect things anyway. If media are licensed, then they will never run anything that will upset government too much. I've seen this many times. Even if hostile nation's media pick up the topic and report it honestly, the government can dismiss it as a conspiracy theory or just say it is an attack. Ultimately even if people see all the evidence, most of the time they'll pretend they didn't and stick with the status quo.
As I said above, people will just not believe it.

Things are obviously more complex than everybody just automatically not believing, and owning the discourse makes all the difference (although owning the press like a sibling comment says is overkill). But it happens again and again on politics, and rarely becomes a problem.

> They think that majority of people won't actually verify that and such message will embed a positive impression about that person.

That's pretty accurate, though. 80% of people are too distracted or lack the intellectual rigor to put two and two together, or even care about doing so.

Everyone thinks they’re different. This other person’s bad behavior is a pattern, but my own is one time things. I’m certain I have my facts right about their behavior from skimming these articles/internet comments, but they are wrong about what I’m doing because they’re too lazy to do their own research. They don’t deserve it, but I do. They’re doing it in bad faith, but I’m not. Their behavior is inexcusable, but you’re missing context to understand mine. Or my favorite: their ends (which I don't understand) don’t justify their means, but mine do.
I tend to sum that up with a joke self contradictory sentence: "Normally this would be special pleading but....".
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The author misunderstands some of the complaints against Apple. In this case: (1) Apple is effectively a monopoly, much more so than shopify. (2) the author can still sell to customers your SAAS service, just not through the shopify store. (3) I could be wrong but I believe the shopify store brings lots of customers. For most developers on the app store, apple does not bring customers (this is why many people argue that apple might take a higher cut for those who find your app on a chart, and a lower cut for just using the link or branded search).

If they don't believe the inbound flow is worth it, then just selling direct to customers should make sense.

> (1) Apple is effectively a monopoly, much more so than shopify

I’m just curious, by which metric?

Apple has > 60% market share in the US [1]. 60% is considered by courts to be a barrier to entry for new competitors [2]

[1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta...

[2] https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c10784/c10784.pdf: "60% is a favorite threshold for the courts"

A quick search for worldwide data shows that both Shopify as iOS have a market share in the ~23% area.
All the search results for iOS US market share give such wildly different answers, from 15% to 65%. I wonder what the deal is.
This is a completely bullshit justification. The behavior is identical to Apple's.
We don't know this specific scenario, but it's highly likely that the application in question directly reads or writes non-public data on their clients' storefront operations and accounting. In that case, there's very much a sense of lock-in. Shopify does not have an open API where anyone can access data given an OAuth token; it will not let this app use their API unless it complies with their terms. See: https://shopify.dev/concepts/apps#public-apps

In comparison to Apple, phone user : Shopify merchant :: app developer : this SaaS business. If I as a consumer think that Apple policies are too stringent, I can pay money to buy an Android phone. But the cost to me as a merchant of switching from Shopify to a custom site where I can choose who connects over API, once my business is underway and has built a brand identity, is absolutely prohibitive.

App approval processes are app approval processes, plain and simple. And if you make revenue share a precondition of using your APIs, you don't have open APIs.

If properly motivated SaaS companies can switch from one cloud provider to another (AWS <-> GCP <-> Azure), a far more technically difficult operation, it’s eminently possible to switch off Shopify. It’s far from cheap or easy so the business may decide it’s not worth the time or money, but far more difficult technical migrations have happened. Be aware of your options - if Shopify decided to raise the price they charge 10x, would you really just roll over and pay it because it’s “absolutely prohibitive” to move of them? 100x? Your branding is your own, and Shopify does not control that - you do. I’m not saying you should move off Shopify for the fun of it, just that alternatives exist.
False equivalency here. I get it, dunking on wealthy CEOs is easy and fun, but I would expect better commentary out of hackernews.
I don't understand how Apple can expect to charge 30% when the user is not buying from the app developer, but just using the app to purchase from a seller through the app developers app and store... Shopify doesn't have 30% margin to give to Apple, do they? That doesn't seem right to charge that to Shopify when they're not selling an app feature directly to the user.
Here's an interesting angle: Shopify apps literally make money for Shopify even without the 20%.

Since these apps are mostly marketing (upsells, abandoned cart reminders, upgrades etc), they drive sellers' revenue = they literally bring more profits for Shopify, or am I missing something?

What does this mean? Even if you use the Shopify API but are not on their App store, you have to use Shopify billing?
Shopify is really terrible when it comes to partner support. The documentation is terrible and if you want to use their API, be prepared to bang your hand against the wall for their design choices. Partners are not Shopify's actual customers of course, but Shopify wants partners to make up for all the shortcomings of the platform without making appropriate tools and support available.

In your particular case, if I understand correctly, Shopify wants you to bill customers for App store purchases through their platform. I don't think that's wrong - most marketplaces expect a cut of the revenue you make off their platform.

These aren't purchases via their app store (I don't know if you can even do that?). They're within our webapp using Shopify's billing API to buy stuff. The Shopify integration is just used for discovery (via their app store), login, installation, email integration, and of course billing.
do you show to the Stripe billing option to all installations (meaning also the ones that came directly from the App Store listing) or only the ones that came through your website / are existing customers?
All. That's the issue they've got. It looks like we're going to have to hide it for anyone that comes in via the App Store.

Another problem is we've got 4 products and only one is listed on the Shopify app store. If they log in via product A's listing then buy product B, it seems we must use Shopify's billing for that too.

Yes but if you bill them separately using Stripe, that's clearly against their Terms of Service.

> The Shopify integration is just used for discovery (via their app store), login, installation, email integration, and of course billing.

So Shopify is responsible for generating 100% of your revenue, correct? If you are opposed to a 20% cut of that on principle, how else do you expect them to make money?

Using their subscriptions?
Their subscription service alone doesn't cover the costs of running the business. That's why they take a margin on sales.

Also it seems like a fair way to make money -- sell hosting services for cheap (so people who want to start a business can get going fast) and as they move into larger revenues they provide a portion back to the services that helped them get there.

Worth mentioning Shopify uses Stripe. A few months back they introduced their Shopify Payment Module (at least in Europe) which runs on Stripe, which then overrides and disables the standalone legacy Stripe module. You can't have both, and they don't straight up tell you this when you try their module.

They now absorb the commission into their pricing. Once you disable your standalone Stripe integration, it disappears and they only way to get it back is to cry to support.

It’s the TOS, and after some social platforms were kicked out of big Corp hostings and app stores because of Trump’s scandal, I don’t think there is much you can do aside of sucking it up and planning a well thought migration out of their service.
I don't get why people downvoted you. I make Shopify apps too and I abide to the same TOS.

OP clicked "I have read and agree" on the TOS when signing up and they are now complaining that the fees are unreasonable?!

I'm not a Shopify partner, but it looks like this is nothing new or suprising, and clearly stated in their terms. Why are you suprised or pissed off?

Or maybe I don't understand how exactly you use Stripe in connection to Shopify. Can you tell us more about what your app does and how you use Stripe?

Because they're paying for a platform to deliver services and the platform then tries to dictate how they run their business. It's questionable at best and should perhaps be illegal.
No, you've misunderstood the situation here.

OP is not "paying for a platform" on Shopify -- they are not a customer of Shopify running a store. OP is a Shopify partner offering a service to Shopify's clients, through Shopify's own web site, and is expected to pay Shopify a cut of their profits in exchange for being featured this way. This is a standard practice for this type of partnership.

> expected to pay Shopify a cut of their profits

A cut of the profits would be really nice actually. A cut of revenue is a totally different beast.

True that! Though then you would get into games of companies hiding profit to avoid paying.
Just because Apple also has everything "written down" in their terms, but Shopify CEO is pissed off by them. Also, because they're asking for the commission retroactively for any billing they have done bypassing their API.
Apple’s store is the only way to distribute iOS apps. Shopify is not the only ecommerce platform, and on top of that, you can even make plugins for Shopify users without going through their app store. It’s completely different. You have a choice.
Can you create a private app for each of your customers? I know it would be a lot more challenging and you wouldn't get free marketing from Shopify's app store, but from my understanding private apps aren't subject to Shopify's commission and at least you would have more control over your business.

https://www.shopify.com/partners/terms#section-c2-2

> Unless otherwise indicated in this Agreement or agreed to by Shopify in writing, under the App Plan, an App Developer is entitled to eighty percent (80%) of the total revenues from the sale of, subscription to or charges relating to the Public Application, with Shopify being entitled to the remaining twenty percent (20%).

https://www.shopify.com/legal/api-terms

> “Public Application” means an Application that accesses the Shopify API via an API Client and that is made available to Merchants either via a URL or through the Shopify App Store, and that is not a Custom Application.

> “Private Application” means an Application that accesses the Shopify API via Private API Credentials and is made available to a single Merchant.

You could in theory, but this requires having each merchant go into their admin and manually grant you scopes and then copy/paste the api key and secret to you. Definitely not a scalable way to go about it.
Or, 'Shopify says follow the terms you agreed to when you signed up or get booted from their app store'
Shopify is a terrible experience overall, and I wouldn't recommend it for anyone looking to start a quick ecom business online, especially if you don't have technical experience _or_ you don't plan exactly what you'll do if you grow over it. I had to work with some clients that wanted to move away from Shopify and I was surprised at how certain types of paccounts are required to access certain parts of the API for their store. For example, you could retrieve orders but not promocodes, or not users, I can't remember exactly now, but they either had to pay more or put up with CSV parsing with limited amount of information and details. These services would probably not have had the "success" they're seeing if it wasn't for these dark patterns they implement to ex(tract|tort) money from their most likely non-technical clientele.

With that being said, I don't see a problem in requiring their users to use a specific PSP that makes more business sense for them. But yes, like other have pointed out, it's way up there on the hypocrisy chart to do this while complaining about Apple. Apple's 30% cut is not unfair, neither is theirs.

Sadly there aren’t a lot of better options. Spotify has to be the worst bang for your buck option though if you actually have customers. The most basic functionality sucks without apps so you have to get them and sure most apps are “free” until you actually get customers but then you get slammed with fees. Wordpress is similar where if you want it to actually perform like a half decent store you need to pay for a ton of add-ons but it’s even worse because even if you have no customers you have to pay for the addons.
I'm not entirely sure that's true, there are plenty of good options. But none of them are as easy to start with for sure, but it's deceptive. Like you said, basic functionality sucks and for any decent behavior if you have customers you need to know which addons to use and pay for them. There is no reason for them to be free, but at least if you're using Wordpress with addons you're in full control of your customer data. Holding your data hostage to force you to pay more is incredibly hostile.

If you're serious about your ecom and you're in it for the long run, it's worth it to pay for a custom solution. Control your code and your customers data.

didn't apple just say they are going to cut their charge in half?
They don't understand the model where SaaS businesses use Shopify as a billing channel on top of their own subscription model, it's all or nothing - they assume that anything in the app store can only use Shopify billing if the user installs via Shopify, which is fair but their billing API has glaring issues:

- App Charges get added to clients bills, you're not getting paid right away (60+ days in some cases) vs getting paid instantly

- If someone doesn't pay their Shopify bill, tough shit you're not getting paid

- Got fraudulent accounts billing via Shopify? They can use your app then never pay anything - fun

- Want to do refunds? Too bad there's no way to do it via the API you have to manually email Shopify then they apply an App Credit (not even a refund) for the customer, then you email them back

- Uninstalling the Shopify App cancels billing, so you lose complete control of your normal downgrade process

- Payments come via PayPal bi monthly :(

There's plenty more, but you're basically losing all the upside of Stripe in exchange for the App Store promotion of your app.

I mean shopify payments have a lot of drawbacks but not having refunds is not one of them [1]

[1] https://shopify.dev/docs/admin-api/rest/reference/orders/ref...

This is a different API than for App Store billing afaik
Correction: https://shopify.dev/docs/admin-api/rest/reference/billing/ap...

Also, I have no idea how that API works, because I, like grandparent, always email support when there is a refund request.

Why is this not a simple button in the partner admin page?

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In my experience the "ApplicationCredit" is virtually worthless. You can't apply a credit after a merchant has uninstalled your app since their Shopify API access token has been revoked. And in the vast majority of cases, refund requests happen after a merchant has uninstalled the app.

Why so many refund requests after a merchant has uninstalled your app you ask? Because Shopify inexplicable doesn't prorate app charges when a merchant uninstalls your app in the middle of their 30 day billing period. Even if a merchant uninstalls your app 1 day into their 30 day billing period then Shopify's billing system still charges them for the full 30 days and doesn't automatically refund them back the difference. So we're often inundated with refund requests from merchants. We then have to send an email to Shopify's billing team to have them refund the charge. It's absolutely nuts!

This is not a Shopify Billing refund but a refund for orders within a merchant's store.
Launch on BigCommerce, where you can use your own billing, and come back and tell us how that went.

Hint: poor conversion rate because merchants need to enter their CC details, and low volume. 20% on Shopify is a steal IMO.

Last time I checked, it was pretty complicated to publish on BigCommerce App store, they allow only pre-approved partners. Did it change?
There are some hoops and a fee to pay to join. It is effectively 'open' though.
Sorry to be blunt but what do you expect to happen when you breach ana partner agreement you've read and signed?

It's the walled path you and other merchants paved, but nothing is stopping you right now from making your own store on a personal site I think? If you need one let me know how I can help you.

He's not a merchant he's an app developer with a saas that shopify merchants can use.
> currently listed on the Shopify App store.

so their company developed a plugin for shopifys walled garden app store - which has T&Cs

Right, and the knowingly violated those T&Cs and got an email about it. Which, by the way, is a hell of a lot nicer than a certified letter from a law firm.
I am a Shopify partner through 3 years, paying 20% of my revenue to Shopify, and every time I have been in contact with "partner support" it has been, to put it mildly, an underwhelming experience.

You have to argue your way through an army of outsourced supporters who are equipped with nothing but the public Shopify docs, until you get to a real employee who concludes it with a "sorry, but we can't help".

Some of my issues:

1. If you're not American, you will be forced to hand over 3% of your 80% revenue cut to PayPal. (Unless your MRR cut is >$30k)

2. Sometimes Shopify just kills features, which merchants and partners rely on. Sure, we get a notice that the API will change - but how does that help, when there is no alternative way to achieve the removed functionality? I was lucky enough to get through to someone who knew someone at the dev team, but the response was once again "sorry, you're not a priority".

Off topic:

How much of a revenue bonus would be enough incentive to install a specific shopify/plugin/minor-UI-tweaks addition to your store ?

3%? 10% 1%? Lets assume I can convince you we dont share your data or harm your business.

I run an app, not a store :)
Probably he meant in your cart inside the app
Why would any one use Shopify 20% instead of 3 -4 % of stripe? Sounds like Shopify is total rip off.
I think the 20% is the fee for Shopify as a whole, not the payment processing fee. Since payment processing is a small portion of what they offer at Shopify its not an apples to apples comparison with Stripe.
Yeah it sucks, I just think of it as the marketing fee. I have done literally zero marketing other than put my app on their store and it has been selling for 6 years now.

As of now, the app pays for the mortgage, car payment and then some so I can't complain too much I guess.

may I ask what exactly you sell?
I have an app on the Shopify app store that helps users manage their inventory.
There is some confusion.

This is revshare of what the shopify partner bills the shopify store owner.

It's identical to apple charging developers a revshare of payments billed through the app store.

Not saying it's good here, just clarifying that it's not card processing fees, it's platform fees + billing fees.

Shopify does provide other qualities for the 20%:

- Seamless integration with the merchant billing system. I.e. free trial(s) are credit card up-front automatically, with zero friction for the user.

- "Free" marketing in the App Store.

- Access to paid advertising in the App Store.

Good partner support is just not one of them :)

> If you're not American, you will be forced to hand over 3% of your 80% revenue cut to PayPal.

That's wild considering they're headquarters is in Ottawa, Canada.

If you look through the history of Shopify, majority of their features are launched US first and sometimes never make it back to Canada. They also only bill in USD for their service and don't allow Canadian merchants to pay in Canadian dollars... and yes this is a Canadian company. They know where their biggest market is and Canadian market is often way down the priority list.
This is helpful insight into the company.

Offtopic: They are a large Rails shop and apparently are on a hiring binge this year.

It sounds like developers don't really own their app/code, own in the sense of you build, maintain and support it. Working in an organization with support outsourced makes me think they are getting large enough that bureaucracy is growing.

You'd think being an org with lots of engineering they would understand that API support for devs building things on their platform is kinda important and maybe shouldn't be lumped into general support. There are reasons why devs pick Stripe.

What is a good alternative to Shopify for a small webstore? I don't want to pay a 20% cut.
IIUC, the 20% cut does not apply to web stores, it's for SaaS vendors who want to offer a plugin to Shopify web store owners, via Shopify's App Store.
I think there's some confusion here. This topic is about developers selling apps via the Shopify App Store, not about how much you pay Shopify to run an online ecommerce store.

Shopify charge a monthly fee for their online ecommmerce stores, and they don't take a 20% cut for that.

If you know a bit of coding I would advise to use SpreeCommerce. I used it very succesfully in the past.
I've been really enjoying SpreeCommerce (based on Rails). You can get away with very little coding if you're happy with the current feature set (which really covers all the basics and then some) and your Payment Gateway of choice is supported by them already or within the ActiveMerchant Payment Gateway options. And then writing your own Payment Gateway integration (like for offsite payments) is really easy too.
WooCommerce?
WooConmerce runs like garbage and slows the site speed down to a crawl though.
Really? Seems like a problem for the site & server itself rather than WooCommerce. Is there any evidence for this?
Craft commerce is a great platform but not ready to run like Shopify
I could see a lot of reason why Shopify would more or less be force to do this. If the transaction appears to be initiated on their site they may both be liable for PCI DSS and GDPR.
That's more common than you think.

If the world is ever dominated by aliens it won't be due to their superior firepower, but because some human accepted their EULA/ T&C without reading.