What card processing really takes from a Canadian sale
Every processor advertises a headline rate — 2.9% + 30¢, 2.8% + 30¢, 2.5% flat. The headline is not what a small seller pays, because the 30¢ is charged on every ticket whether it is $3 or $300. This calculator turns the published Canadian rates into the fee and the effective rate on your own sale, and into the volume a cheaper plan has to earn before its extra monthly fee is repaid.
Rates are each provider's own published Canadian figure, read 6 Nov 2026. Change a number and every figure below moves with it.
What the fee leaves you
| Route | Fee on CA$50.00 | You keep | Effective rate |
|---|
The plan crossover: does a lower card rate pay for its monthly fee?
| Shopify plan | Monthly fee | Card rate | Total paid on monthly volume |
|---|
Three findings that change how you price
- The 30¢ is the trap, and it lands hardest on cheap items. On a CA$3 sale, a "2.9% + 30¢" rate takes 12.9%; on CA$5 it takes 8.9%; on CA$10, 5.9%. A product priced at CA$5 has to carry a fee that behaves like 8.9%, and that is before the marketplace's own commission if you also sell there.
- Shopify's cheaper card rate is a volume bet. Basic is CA$37/mo at 2.8% + 30¢; Grow is CA$99/mo at 2.6% + 30¢. The 0.2-point saving is worth CA$62/mo only once you process about CA$31,000 a month online. Advanced costs CA$352/mo more than Basic for 0.4 points — it needs roughly CA$88,000 a month. Below those volumes the cheaper rate costs money.
- Cards cost more online than in person, and PayPal costs most across the border. Square Canada charges 2.5% flat on a card present and 2.8% + 30¢ online — CA$0.45 more on a CA$50 sale. PayPal adds 0.80% when the buyer is in the US and 1.00% anywhere else on top of its 2.90% + CA$0.30, so a CA$50 sale to an American buyer is charged at an effective 4.30%.
What to do about it
- Add the fee to the price, not to your margin. If a CA$5 item is charged like 8.9%, price it as though it were — or stop selling one at a time and sell three.
- Do not upgrade a platform plan for the card rate unless the volume is there. Run your own monthly online volume through the table above; the crossover is CA$31,000/mo for the first step on Shopify Canada.
- Take the card in person when you can. At a market or a pickup, the same sale can cost a third less than it does through a checkout page.
- Watch the cross-border surcharge. If most of your buyers are American, PayPal's extra 0.80% is a real line in your pricing, not a rounding error.
- Check the fee against the item, not the order. A bundle raises the average ticket, which cuts the effective rate on every unit inside it.
Card fees are one line of many, and the one that is easiest to forget is the one that turns a "profitable" export into a loss. Margin Guard Pro reads your marketplace export, applies the platform fee, the processing fee, the shipping and the product cost to each order, and shows the orders that lost money. US$29, one time, for Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers.
Not ready to buy? Run your export through the free report instead — profit per order after fees, no signup.
Weighing a marketplace against your own store? The Etsy-versus-Shopify break-even, in orders a month.
Questions sellers ask
Is the 30¢ fixed fee really charged on every sale?
Yes, on every card transaction, whatever the size. That is why the effective rate on a small ticket is so much higher than the advertised percentage — the percentage is small on a small sale, but the fixed part is not.
Which of these is the cheapest for me?
For a domestic card online, Square Online and Shopify Basic both publish 2.8% + 30¢ — a tenth of a point under Stripe's 2.9% + 30¢. In person, Square is 2.5% flat, which is cheaper than any online rate. PayPal matches 2.90% + CA$0.30 domestically but adds 0.80% for a US buyer and 1.00% elsewhere. The table above puts your own sale amount through all of them; the cheapest row is marked.
Do the monthly platform fees count in the comparison?
Only in the plan-crossover table, where they belong. The per-sale table is per-sale card cost alone; the second table adds Shopify Canada's plan fees (Basic CA$37/mo, Grow CA$99/mo, Advanced CA$389/mo, from Shopify's own annual-billing prices) and shows what you would pay in total at your stated monthly volume.
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