Pricing Clerkmate.ai

How Shopify’s Billing and “Minutes” Work

Understanding how Shopify handles billing and usage is key to effectively managing your business. Here’s a simple breakdown.

How Shopify’s Billing System Works

Shopify uses a monthly billing model that adapts to your store’s activity.
Your base plan fee (for Starter, Growth and Pro) is a recurring charge billed once per month (30 days) on your designated billing date.

What Happens When You Upgrade Your Plan?

When you upgrade your plan, Shopify uses prorated billing to ensure a fair charge.

Prorated billing means Shopify calculates the price difference between your old and new plans, and only charges you for the remaining days in your current billing cycle.
For example, if you upgrade from the Starter plan ($49) to the Growth plan ($149) halfway through the month, the charge is calculated as follows:

plan1_cost + (plan2_cost - plan1_cost) * (cycle_days_left / total_cycle_days)

Using this example:
$49 + ($149 - $49) * (15 / 30) = $99

You’ll immediately gain access to all the features included in your new plan.

In addition, the minutes included in your new plan are also added proportionally based on the remaining days in your billing cycle.

The formula is:

new_plan_minutes * (cycle_days_left / total_cycle_days)

So if your new plan includes 1,000 minutes per month and you have 15 days left in your 30-day cycle, you’ll receive 500 minutes added for the remainder of that cycle.

What Happens When You Downgrade Your Plan?

If you decide to downgrade your plan, your current subscription remains active until the end of your billing cycle.
Once that cycle ends, your plan will automatically switch to the new, lower-tier option.