# How to accept crypto on Shopify in 2026 (without KYC, without 2.9%) > Shopify Payments charges 2.9% + 30 cents. Native crypto apps charge 1%. Plaitr is flat $99 to $999 a month with zero KYC. - **Author**: Maya Chen - **Published**: 2026-05-12 - **Category**: E-commerce - **URL**: https://www.plaitr.com/blog/accept-crypto-on-shopify-2026 --- Shopify Payments takes 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction. Native crypto apps in the Shopify App Store take roughly 1% per transaction and demand KYC. Plaitr charges a flat $99 to $999 a month with no per-transaction fee and zero KYC. For any Shopify store doing more than roughly $40,000 a month in volume, the math is decisive. This post walks through the cost comparison, the install steps, and the trade-offs you should think about before switching. ## TL;DR - Shopify card processing costs 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. - Most Shopify-native crypto apps (BitPay, NOWPayments, Coinbase Commerce remnant) charge 0.5 to 1 percent per transaction plus KYC. - [Plaitr](https://plaitr.com) charges $99 to $999 per month flat, zero KYC, non-custodial, every L1 and L2. - Breakeven against the cheapest crypto apps lands at roughly $50K monthly crypto volume. Breakeven against Shopify Payments is much lower. - Install takes about 30 minutes: connect wallet, add the hosted checkout widget, point your Thank You page at Plaitr. ## Why should Shopify merchants accept crypto in 2026? Three reasons matter. First, fee compression. Card processing eats 3% of revenue. On a $5M store that is $150K a year. Second, geographic expansion. Cards do not work in many countries. Crypto does. Stablecoin demand from Argentina, Nigeria, Turkey, and the Philippines is a real revenue line you are leaving on the floor. Third, chargeback elimination. Crypto payments do not reverse. On a high-risk product this single fact saves more than the entire crypto integration costs. ## How much do Shopify crypto fees actually cost? A Shopify store doing $1M per year in crypto-paying customers has these annual costs: - Shopify Payments (if cards worked): $29,000 + $30,000 transaction fees, roughly $59,000 total. - BitPay or NOWPayments at 1%: $10,000. - Coinbase Commerce: variable, partially sunset for stablecoins as of 2026. - Plaitr Growth ($499/mo): $5,988. At $5M annual volume the Plaitr saving against BitPay alone is $44,000. Against Shopify Payments the saving is $290,000. Run the breakeven yourself. The crossover point against the cheapest crypto apps is roughly $50,000 in monthly crypto-paying volume. Below that, the apps are fine. Above that, Plaitr is structurally cheaper for as long as you stay on the platform. ## What you give up with a percentage gateway KYC. Every percentage-charging gateway requires merchant KYC. Government ID, business registration, beneficial ownership. The forms are not the problem. The problem is what happens when you scale or your traffic mix changes. Account holds, freezes, and required additional documentation are routine on percentage-gateway stacks. Non-custodial gateways like Plaitr have no account to freeze. Custody. Percentage gateways hold your funds before settling. Plaitr does not. Funds route directly from the customer wallet to yours. Upside. The fee is a tax on your growth. Every additional sale costs you 1 percent on top of every other variable cost. With a flat fee that is no longer true. ## The 30-minute install 1. Sign up for a Plaitr account. No KYC. Connect a wallet on each chain you want to accept (Ethereum, Solana, Tron, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, BNB Chain). 2. In your Shopify admin, install the Plaitr Hosted Checkout app (or paste the payment link as a manual payment method). 3. Map each chain to a payout wallet or to the Plaitr same-day fiat off-ramp. 4. Test a $1 transaction on Solana or Tron (cheapest to test on). Confirm the webhook hits your Shopify order create event. 5. Set the Plaitr widget visible at checkout. Done. On Solana and Tron the test transaction finalizes in seconds. On Ethereum mainnet expect 15 to 60 seconds. On Bitcoin (if enabled) expect about 10 minutes per confirmation. ## What about Shopify's own crypto products? Shopify added native crypto wallet support starting late 2024 but it is still card-rails routed through Stripe and Shopify Payments for settlement. You pay 2.9% + 30 cents either way. The customer-facing experience is crypto. The merchant-facing economics are not. Native crypto apps in the Shopify App Store solve the routing problem but most charge percentage and most require KYC. The few that do not (BTCPay Server, OpenNode for Bitcoin Lightning only) limit you to Bitcoin or require you to self-host. ## Migration from an existing gateway If you currently use BitPay or Coinbase Commerce on Shopify: - Read the [BitPay comparison](https://plaitr.com/compare/bitpay) for the fee delta and migration steps. - Read the [Coinbase Commerce migration guide](https://plaitr.com/compare/coinbase-commerce) if you were affected by the 2026 sunset. - Run both gateways in parallel during cutover. Plaitr's webhook structure is compatible with the Shopify order webhook contract, so the integration is a credentials swap. ## Which chains should a Shopify merchant accept first? For a Shopify store, the realistic priority order is: 1. [Solana](https://plaitr.com/accept/solana). Sub-second confirmations, low fees, high stablecoin demand. 2. [USDC on Base](https://plaitr.com/accept/base). Coinbase-aligned, growing fast, near-zero fees. 3. [USDT on Tron](https://plaitr.com/accept/tron). The single biggest stablecoin corridor in the world. Critical for non-US customers. 4. [Polygon](https://plaitr.com/accept/polygon) and [Arbitrum](https://plaitr.com/accept/arbitrum). EVM customers, low fees. 5. Ethereum mainnet. Only if your customer base is DeFi-native and willing to pay gas. ## When should a Shopify merchant stay on a percentage gateway? Three scenarios. First, sub-$10K monthly crypto volume where the flat fee is more than the percentage. Second, you require a specific enterprise integration only your incumbent supports. Third, you cannot configure non-custodial wallets and need a managed custody product. For everyone else, the math favours flat fee. ## Bottom line Shopify merchants who currently accept crypto via a percentage gateway are paying more than they need to once they cross roughly $50K monthly crypto volume. Plaitr removes both the percentage and the KYC. The install is short, the math is clean, and the chain coverage is current. > Plaitr is the non-custodial, zero-KYC crypto payment gateway for Shopify stores doing more than $40K monthly volume. Flat monthly fee, same-day settlement, every L1 and L2. --- - [More E-commerce articles](https://www.plaitr.com/blog/category/e-commerce) - [All articles](https://www.plaitr.com/blog)