Charging for your app with the REST Admin API: FAQ

Your share of the revenue is defined in the Shopify Partner revenue share agreement.

The Partner Dashboard only reports the amount Shopify has successfully charged the store owner on their invoice, including the charges your app levied. If you've made a 30-day recurring charge, the charge won't be added to the running total in the Partner Dashboard until the store owner has paid Shopify for the invoice the charge was added to. For this reason, it may take up to 37 days between activating the charge and the charge appearing in your Partner Dashboard.

Shopify pays out to partners using PayPal twice a month to cover revenue accrued from the 1st to the 15th, and from the 16th to the end of the month. If the amount owed doesn't exceed the minimum threshold ($25 USD), then Shopify defers payment.

When a merchant upgrades or downgrades their application charge plan, the charge will be prorated accordingly. You can find more details here ›

If a user uninstalls your app before the first day of the independent app billing cycle, they are not charged for the following month. If they uninstall it after the first day of the billing cycle, they are charged. There is no pro-rating.

Similar to when a merchant uninstalls an app, the merchant is expected to pay for any application fees. Once the funds have been collected, Shopify will remit 80% to you. Recurring app charges are not pro-rated.

When a merchant changes a plan, the shop's billing cycle restarts, but the recurring app charge cycle remains unchanged. You can register a webhook for the shop/update event to know when a merchant changes a Shopify plan.

If an app charge (one-time or recurring) is not approved by the merchant within 48 hours, the charge expires and is deleted from the system. When this happens, you'll need to recreate the charge if you still want to bill the store owner.

For apps that are not free, make sure that you have implemented the Shopify Billing API. Use of other payment methods or systems is not permitted unless you have otherwise been notified by Shopify. Contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

This is for you to decide. Since you are specifying the trial_days property every time you create a new RecurringAppplicationCharge, you are able to ignore it, or set it to a custom value, for any merchant you know has previously installed your app.

As an example, every store in your database could include a first_install_date property that is set when the entry is created. Every time your app is installed, check whether that store already exists in your database, and if it does, what the difference is between the first_install_date and the current date. If that is less than your trial period, then continue offering a trial. Otherwise, ignore the trial_days property, and the merchant will not be offered a trial.

Create a new RecurringApplicationCharge to replace a merchant’s existing plan. It is strongly recommended that you do not cancel the old charge. This ensures that the merchant is not double billed for overlapping billing periods. If you need to cancel the old change before creating the new charge, then it is important that you take into account the number of days the merchant has remaining on their plan. There are two possible courses of action:

1. Offer an application credit to reimburse the merchant for the overlapping payment periods; or
2. Create the new charge with the trial_days property set to the number of days remaining based on the merchant’s old billing cycle.

You can use the GraphQL Admin API to charge merchants annually. If you need to charge a merchant on a non-monthly or non-annual basis (such as quarterly or semi-annually) then you can use one of the following methods:

1. Create an ApplicationCharge that you post to Shopify on a quarterly or semi-annual basis. The merchant will have to accept each charge manually. This is the recommended course of action.
2. Create a UsageCharge with a monthly fee of $0 but with a capped amount equal to the maximum charge amount. You can bill the merchant on a basis equal to the period that the charge covers.

A shop can be placed on a dormant, frozen, or closed plan by either Shopify or the merchant. Each plan has a different effect on the existing recurring application charges for the shop:

• While a shop is dormant, all apps and their recurring application charges stay active and are charged normally.
• While a shop is frozen, all apps and their recurring application charges become inactive but remain on the store. The recurring application charges will resume after the store is unfrozen.
• After a shop is closed, all apps become inactive and remain on the store, but all recurring application charges are removed. Partners need to create new recurring application charges if the store re-opens.

You can register a webhook for the shop/update event to know when a store's Shopify plan changes.