What happens if I don’t send Shopify their payments?
Sarah is a first-time Shopify user. She has started selling hand-crafted items and jewelry in her store.
She is amazed by the entire platform that is enabling her to sell to people as far away as South Africa, Ukraine, and Brunei. But then suddenly she receives an email from Shopify.
It says that the monthly $29 fee of Shopify couldn’t be charged to her credit card on file.
— Sarah was overjoyed. “Yay!! My credit card is declined. I will be able to use Shopify for free!”, Sarah exclaimed.
No that’s definitely not what happened.
She was worried sick about her beloved store. What will happen now? Will people still be able to visit the store and purchase items?
Shopify is not a Monster
Yes, that’s true. And Sarah isn’t the only one.
There are probably hundreds of thousands of store owners who have failed to pay the monthly Shopify fees at least once or twice.
If you have faced it, then rest assured. Shopify is actually conscious of the challenges you may face at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey. And they are committed to helping you as much as possible.
So, what happens to my Shopify store when I can’t pay?
Well, to provide you with a thorough and authentic answer, I talked to Shopify customer support about it. You will be able to watch the screen video of the entire chat with Christian, the customer support agent I talked to.
if you don’t want to watch the video, fine. I am going to lay it down for you.
— So let’s say your Shopify store billing date is the 1st of every month. On 1st January (just as an example), Shopify tries to charge your card the monthly fee ($29 for instance).
And it fails. Your card doesn’t have enough limit or balance. According to Christian from Shopify, you will get a notification email about it obviously just like Sarah did.
And you will get 6 more days. That is, Shopify will try to charge your card the monthly fee for the 2nd time on 7th January. Let’s say you haven’t been able to manage the fee for some reason. Can happen to anyone.
— And it still fails to withdraw the monthly fee from your card for the 2nd time. No need to keep holding your breath. Your store lives. Shopify will give you 7 more days to pay the monthly fee.
That means Shopify will try to charge your card the 3rd time. Let’s now consider the worst-case scenario.
For the 3rd time, Shopify fails to get the monthly fee from you. What happens now?
Well, your store will be frozen. That is, you will not be able to log in to your Shopify dashboard. People will not be able to visit your store either.
Question is, how long will your store stay frozen?
From what Christian told me, there is a 2 years frozen period for Shopify stores that fail to pay the monthly fee. Do you get what it means? You will have 2 years to pay the monthly fee and reclaim your store.
Here is the transcript of the entire conversation I had with the Shopify customer support person.
Hope it helps.
Want a bit of free advice? Make sure you keep enough balance/limit on your card. Even though Shopify gives you ample time to make the payment, it’s best to not go there. You will spare yourself the inconvenience.
