Accept Crypto on Shopify: USDC Checkout vs Gateways (2026)

You can accept crypto on Shopify in two ways: USDC built into Shopify Payments, or a third-party crypto gateway such as BitPay, OpenNode or Crypto.com that you add in your payment settings. The native USDC option has no extra provider to sign up with, and Shopify says customers can't open disputes on USDC orders. It is limited to certain regions, though, and it takes USDC only. A gateway takes Bitcoin, Lightning and other coins, but Shopify may add a third-party transaction fee of 0.2% to 2% on top of the gateway's own fee.

This guide covers both routes: who qualifies, how to set each one up, what a $100 order costs on each, and what to do with crypto once it's in your account. It also covers the shopper's side: paying a Shopify store with crypto.

Yes. Shopify's Payments page says merchants can "accept cards, wallets, installments, and crypto." There are two separate products behind that line:

• USDC through Shopify Payments. Built with Coinbase and Stripe, announced in June 2025. It sits inside Shopify Payments, next to cards.
• Third-party cryptocurrency providers. Shopify's cryptocurrency help page lists nine of them. Each one is a separate company with its own account, fees and settlement.

Shopify Payments' crypto option is USDC; if you want Bitcoin, Lightning or other tokens, you need a provider from the second list.

Shopify's USDC help page sets three requirements:

1. "You must have Shopify Payments activated on your store."
2. The store must be in a supported Shopify Payments region.
3. "The account representative of your Shopify Payments account must have a residential address in a USDC-eligible region."

The eligible regions on the same page:

Shopify says USDC payments run on five networks: Base, Ethereum L1, Optimism, Polygon and Arbitrum. A customer needs USDC on one of those to pay.

From the USDC help page:

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings, then Payments.
2. In the Shopify Payments section, click Manage, then More actions, then Manage payment methods.
3. In the Crypto section, click Verify identity to enable USDC and complete verification. The account can sit in "Pending onboarding" while this runs.
4. Activate USDC in the Crypto section.
5. Under Crypto transactions, choose how you want to be paid.
6. If you chose USDC payouts, claim them later from Finance, then Payouts: click Pending, then Claim, connect your wallet and approve with two-factor authentication.

Shopify offers two payout options:

• "Payouts in local currency": the USDC converts and joins your normal Shopify Payments payout. Shopify's announcement says merchants "receive their local currency by default."
• "Payouts in USDC": you claim the USDC to a crypto wallet. Shopify says this option isn't available in all regions.

Before switching from USDC back to local-currency payouts, claim any USDC balance first, or Shopify changes the setting for you.

The help page lists the limits:

• "Your customers can't pay for subscription products with USDC."
• "You can't partially capture funds on orders paid for with USDC."
• "You can't offer post-purchase upsells when a customer pays with USDC."

Refunds work differently from cards. With local-currency payouts, refunds come from your Shopify Payments balance and convert to USDC. With USDC payouts, you need enough USDC in your balance to cover the refund.

On cost, Shopify says customers pay "without incurring their own foreign exchange or gas fees," and that "credits for USDC payments are automatically applied" to your payouts or USDC balance. The help page doesn't list a separate processing rate for USDC, so check the rate shown in your own Shopify Payments settings before you compare it with a gateway.

Shoppers who pay with USDC on Base can get cashback from Shopify's USDC program, paid to their wallet 30 days after purchase and "capped at 100 USDC per transaction." If they ask for a refund before that 30-day date, the cashback isn't paid.

If your store isn't in a USDC region, or you want Bitcoin and other coins, you add a provider instead. These are the nine on Shopify's cryptocurrency help page, with Shopify's own description of each:

One caveat on Solana Pay: when we checked in November 2026, its Shopify App Store listing, from developer Helio Fintech Ltd, said "This app is not currently available on the Shopify App Store." Check before you plan around it. Our Solana Pay explainer covers how the protocol itself works.

Shopify's steps:

1. Go to Settings, then Payments.
2. Under Additional payment methods, click Add payment methods.
3. Search for "cryptocurrency" and select the coins you want to accept.
4. Review the providers that support all the coins you picked.
5. Activate one and follow its setup guide. Shopify says activating one doesn't affect your existing gateways.

Two warnings from the same page. "There are no automatic refunds for cryptocurrency payments through Shopify," so you refund through the provider by hand. Shopify also says longer settlement times can cause overselling in flash sales, and suggests a direct method like Shopify Payments for those.

Shopify also tells merchants to "verify that cryptocurrencies are acceptable as a form of payment in your region before accepting them."

A gateway order can carry two fees: the provider's, and Shopify's third-party transaction fee. The cryptocurrency page says "you might still be charged third-party transaction fees for payments processed through third-party payment gateways." The rate depends on your plan.

From Shopify's pricing page, checked November 2026, in USD:

Provider fees are on each provider's own site. BitPay's pricing page lists 2% + 25¢ per payment below $500,000 a month in volume, 1.5% + 25¢ from $500,000 to $999,999, and 1% + 25¢ from $1,000,000, with "higher fees applicable for high-risk industries." OpenNode's pricing page says "conversion is always free" but doesn't list a processing fee, and Strike's business page doesn't list one either.

Here's a $100 online order on each plan, comparing a card through Shopify Payments with BitPay at its entry rate (2% + 25¢ = $2.25) plus Shopify's full third-party transaction fee:

Card rates are Shopify's US online standard rates; BitPay is the under-$500,000 tier. The fee math changes with BitPay's volume tiers, and with what your provider actually charges.

The takeaway: on a small plan, a gateway won't save you money on fees. Merchants add one because some customers want to pay that way, or for Bitcoin and Lightning, which the native option doesn't take. For a fuller list of gateways beyond Shopify's nine, see our crypto payment gateway comparison.

Sources: Shopify USDC payments, cryptocurrency, Shopify Payments and pricing.

Our view: if your store is in an eligible region and already on Shopify Payments, start with USDC. It is one toggle and avoids a second provider. Add a gateway only if your customers ask for Bitcoin or other coins, or if you're outside the USDC regions.

From the customer's side, it depends on what the store has switched on. Each Shopify store chooses its own payment methods.

• USDC at checkout. If the store has enabled it, the shopper connects a wallet with USDC on a supported network. Shopify's help page says customers can get USDC from exchanges such as Coinbase or Crypto.com and hold it in an exchange wallet or a wallet like MetaMask or Trust Wallet.
• A crypto gateway option. The store shows a provider's checkout, and you pay from your wallet.
• A crypto-funded card. Most stores don't offer any crypto option. A Visa or Mastercard you top up from a crypto wallet goes in the ordinary card field, and the store sees a normal card payment. Our guide to paying with crypto covers this route in more detail.

If a card payment fails, our decline guide goes through the common causes and fixes.

Not directly, and a prepaid crypto card isn't the answer either. Shopify's bill payment page says it takes "a valid credit card from Mastercard, Visa, American Express, Diners Club, or Discover," and states: "Prepaid and virtual credit cards aren't accepted."

The options it lists include a credit card that allows recurring payments, PayPal (balance, bank account or a card linked to the PayPal account), or a Shopify Balance card where available. Don't put a prepaid crypto card on your Shopify subscription: Shopify's own page rules it out.

If you take USDC payouts, the money lands in a wallet you control. You can hold it, send it to an exchange, or spend it on business costs.

A crypto card turns that USDC into card spending without a bank transfer in between. A store owner can use it for business costs paid by card, such as ad platforms and software tools; check each one's card rules first, since some refuse prepaid cards, as Shopify does for its own bills. For ads specifically, see our Facebook Ads payment guide and our page on a card for AI and ad spend.

SolCard is one option. It's a prepaid Visa or Mastercard you top up with USDC, USDT, SOL and other tokens on Solana, Ethereum, Base, Polygon and more, with no bank account and no credit check. Shopify's USDC help page doesn't say which network a claimed payout arrives on, so check which network your USDC sits on, and that the card's deposit screen lists that token and network, before you send it.

The costs, from SolCard fees and the help-centre fee breakdown:

A one-time card issuance fee comes on top: $10 for a Virtual card. On a $1,000 USDC top-up, the Virtual tier's 5% is $50; on Platinum it is $0. The limitations matter for a store owner: Virtual caps spending at $10,000 a month, and Platinum, the 0% tier, needs identity verification and isn't offered in the US. A SolCard can't pay your Shopify subscription itself, for the reason above. See virtual cards for how the cards work.

Not through Shopify Payments, whose crypto option is USDC. To accept Bitcoin, add a third-party provider from Settings, then Payments. Shopify's list describes OpenNode as taking Bitcoin and Bitcoin Lightning, and Strike and IBEX Pay as taking Bitcoin Lightning.

Not natively. Shopify Payments' crypto option is USDC on Base, Ethereum, Optimism, Polygon and Arbitrum. For USDT, you'd need a third-party provider that supports it; check the provider's coin list before activating it.

Shopify lists Mexico, the US except Alaska, New York and Texas, 29 European countries and territories including the UK and Switzerland, and Hong Kong through Shopify Payments Hong Kong. The account representative also needs a residential address in an eligible region.

No. Shopify's USDC help page says "your customers can't open disputes on orders paid for using USDC." You can still refund them from your admin.

On a third-party gateway, Shopify may charge its third-party transaction fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, on top of the provider's fee. Shopify's Shopify Payments page says you aren't charged third-party transaction fees on orders processed through Shopify Payments.

For USDC through Shopify Payments, refund from your admin; with USDC payouts you need enough USDC balance to cover it. For third-party gateways, Shopify says there are no automatic refunds, so you refund through the provider by hand.

Not with a prepaid one. Shopify's billing page says "prepaid and virtual credit cards aren't accepted" for Shopify bills. Use a credit card that allows recurring payments, PayPal, or Shopify Balance where it's available.

Shopify gives most eligible stores a one-toggle way to accept crypto: USDC through Shopify Payments, paid out in local currency or claimed as USDC. Outside the USDC regions, or for Bitcoin and other coins, a third-party gateway works, but on smaller plans Shopify's third-party fee makes it cost more per order than a card. If you take USDC payouts, a crypto card such as SolCard lets you spend them on ads and tools, though not on your Shopify bill. For more on how stablecoin acceptance works at the processor level, see our Stripe crypto payments guide.

• Shopify Help Center: USDC payments with Shopify Payments
• Shopify Help Center: Cryptocurrency
• Shopify Help Center: Shopify Payments
• Shopify Help Center: Payment methods for Shopify bills
• Shopify: Pricing
• Shopify: Payments
• Shopify News: Introducing USDC on Shopify
• Shopify App Store: Solana Pay
• BitPay: Pricing
• OpenNode: Pricing
• Strike: Business
• SolCard, Fees and SolCard fees: complete breakdown