Shop Pay and the Shop App in 2026: Costs, Installments and Shop Campaigns

Shop Pay is Shopify's accelerated checkout. A shopper saves their email, shipping address and card once, and on later visits to any store that offers Shop Pay they can check out in a couple of taps. For merchants it costs nothing extra: Shop Pay is included with Shopify Payments, and its transactions are processed at your normal Shopify Payments rates.

Around Shop Pay sit three related products. Shop Pay Installments lets customers split a purchase into payments, with Affirm as the lender. The Shop app is Shopify's consumer app for order tracking, browsing and buying from Shopify stores. Shop Campaigns is a pay-per-conversion ads program that promotes your store in the Shop app and on other placements, charging you only when a customer converts.

Shopify makes strong conversion claims for Shop Pay, and they are worth knowing, along with where they come from. This guide covers each product, what it costs, how to turn it on and what to watch for, as of October 2026.

It is part of our Shopify resource hub.

What Shop Pay is and how it works

Shopify's Help Center describes Shop Pay as "an accelerated checkout option designed to enhance the shopping experience for customers on your Shopify store and on Shop." Customers can pay with Visa, Mastercard, American Express and other cards you accept online. Shop Pay stores and encrypts their shipping and billing details so returning buyers skip the form-filling.

A Shop Pay account works across every store that offers it, which is the main reason it converts: a first-time visitor to your store may already have an account from another Shopify brand. Shopify said in its Spring '26 Edition (June 2026) that Shop Pay gives access to "250M+ shoppers," and that brands not on Shopify can now offer Shop Pay at their checkout too.

Shop Pay also powers express checkout outside your store. Shopify's Shop Pay page lists the Shop app, Facebook, Instagram and Google, and Shopify offers Shop Pay checkout links you can share in email, chat or social posts to send a buyer straight to a prefilled checkout.

What Shopify claims about conversion

Shopify publishes these figures on its Shop Pay page:

• "As much as 50% better conversion compared to guest checkout."
• Shop Pay "outpaces other accelerated checkouts by at least 10%," and "its mere presence drives a 5% lift in lower funnel conversion."
• "On average, 43% of buyers already trust and use Shop Pay as their preferred checkout method," and "1 in 5 buyers choose Shop Pay at checkout."
• Buyers using the Shop app "have a 9% higher repurchase rate."

Shopify footnotes the conversion figures as "based on an external study completed with a Big Three global management consulting firm in April 2023." They are Shopify's numbers, not independent benchmarks, and "as much as" means results vary by store. Shopify's Black Friday Cyber Monday 2025 release offers a more recent data point: it said 32% of orders over that weekend used Shop Pay. Your own checkout reports are the best evidence; compare completion rates by payment method before and after you turn it on.

What Shop Pay costs

Premium cards such as American Express and business cards are charged at Shopify Payments' premium rate (3.5% + 30¢ on Basic online), whether or not the buyer uses Shop Pay. For a full breakdown, see our guides to Shopify Payments and Shopify transaction fees.

How to turn on Shop Pay

If you use Shopify Payments, Shop Pay is usually available as soon as Payments is set up. According to Shopify's Help Center, to activate it you go to Settings, then Payments, click Manage in the Shopify Payments section, check the Shop Pay box and click Save.

• Third-party gateways: Shop Pay can work with a third-party gateway only if your store is in Australia, France or the United States and meets the Shopify Payments requirements for your region.
• Finish setup: Shopify warns that if you don't complete your Shopify Payments setup (business and banking details) within 21 days of your first Shop Pay payment, those payments are refunded automatically.
• Testing: you can't simulate a Shop Pay test order. To test, place a real order, then cancel and refund it.

When eligible, activating Shop Pay also turns on Sell with Shop, which lists your products in the Shop app, and Sign in with Shop, which lets customers sign in to your store with their Shop account if you use customer accounts.

Shop Pay Installments

Shop Pay Installments is Shopify's buy now, pay later option, offered through Affirm. As of October 2026, Shopify's Help Center says it is available to eligible stores in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, and in person at US retail locations. You need Shopify Payments and Shop Pay active.

Installments can lift average order value for higher-priced products, but the fee and the non-refundable fee on returns matter if your return rate is high. Model it on your actual margins before promoting it heavily.

Shopify Protect for Shop Pay orders

US merchants get one more benefit from Shop Pay: Shopify Protect, free protection against fraud-based chargebacks. It applies only to eligible orders processed through Shop Pay, requires a US Shopify Payments account, covers physical goods, and requires orders to be fulfilled with tracking within set time limits. It covers fraud-based chargebacks, not every type of dispute.

The Shop app

The Shop app is the consumer side of Shop Pay. Buyers use it to track Shop Pay purchases from checkout to delivery and to browse and buy from Shopify stores. Shopify said its app tracked more than 136 million packages over BFCM 2025. In the Spring '26 Edition Shopify added AI-powered Shop Search, Sign in with Shop across more surfaces, retail locations shown in Shop, and in-store returns by QR code.

For merchants, the Shop app matters in two ways. Your products can appear there through Sell with Shop, which turns on with Shop Pay when your store is eligible. And order tracking happens in an app where shoppers keep discovering products, which is the context for Shopify's claim that Shop app users have a higher repurchase rate.

Shop Campaigns

According to Shopify's Shop Campaigns page, it is "an ads program that helps you acquire and convert customers at an average customer acquisition cost that you set. You're charged only when a customer converts, with no upfront budget or subscription fee." Ads run in the Shop app, on the Shop website, on the Shopify Product Network and on optional third-party placements, and how often your ads are recommended depends on the customer experience your store provides.

The Spring '26 Edition expanded third-party placements to ChatGPT, Pinterest and the open web through Microsoft Monetize, alongside Meta, Google, X, Bing and Snap. Shopify also introduced Campaign Autopilot in early access, which can recommend Shop Campaigns tactics. Because you set the acquisition cost and pay only on conversion, Shop Campaigns is lower risk than an open-ended ad budget, but compare the cost per customer with your other channels and your margin before scaling it.

Is Shop Pay worth turning on?

For most stores on Shopify Payments, yes: there is no added fee, setup takes a minute, and Shopify's own data, while self-reported, consistently points the same way. The main reasons to hesitate are operational, such as a business that needs a specific gateway in a country where Shop Pay doesn't support third-party processors. Once it is on, keep the checkout clean so express buttons are visible, and measure the effect. Our checkout optimization guide covers what else to test.

Conclusion

Shop Pay, Installments, the Shop app and Shop Campaigns form one connected system: a fast checkout, a financing option, a consumer app that keeps buyers coming back, and a pay-per-conversion ad program. Shop Pay costs nothing extra with Shopify Payments, Installments costs more per order but shifts credit risk to Affirm, and Shop Campaigns charges only for results. If you want your store and checkout designed around these tools, our Shopify website design team can help.

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