MerchantFlow Billing and Pricing Overview

MerchantFlow Billing and Pricing Overview

MerchantFlow billing supports two payment paths for e-commerce merchants and agencies: Stripe billing for standard web workspaces and Shopify billing for Shopify App Store installs. Your billing path determines where checkout happens, where charges appear, and how plan changes are processed.

What Are the Two Billing Paths?

• Stripe billing for standard web workspaces
• Shopify billing for Shopify App Store installs

Which path your workspace uses determines:

• Where checkout happens
• Where charges appear
• How plan changes are approved
• Whether payment methods and invoices are managed inside MerchantFlow or in Shopify

Who Can Manage Billing

Billing is owner-managed.

Owners can:

• Start the live trial and complete checkout
• Open billing settings
• Review invoices
• Change plans
• Update payment details
• Cancel or reactivate the subscription

Admins can operate the workspace, but they do not have billing:manage access.

How Much Does MerchantFlow Cost?

MerchantFlow has three merchant tiers, priced in USD:

• Starter - $49/month ($39.20/mo billed annually)
• Pro - $89/month ($71.20/mo billed annually) - includes Flow AI
• Plus - $149/month ($119.20/mo billed annually) - includes MCP server, Business Valuation, white-label PDF reports

Annual billing is 20% off on every tier. Agencies are billed separately on a flat Agency plan at $499/month (10 client stores included, $29/mo per extra store). See Pricing Plans for the full feature comparison and the Agency plan.

How Billing Starts

Web Signup (Stripe Billing)

For a standard MerchantFlow signup:

1. Create the workspace from /signup
2. Choose real data on /onboarding/choice
3. Complete the merchant onboarding steps
4. Arrive at /onboarding/payment
5. Choose a tier (Starter, Pro, or Plus) and a billing cadence (monthly or annual)
6. Click Start 14-Day Free Trial to launch Stripe checkout

The current merchant onboarding path is:

/onboarding/choice -> /setup-2fa -> /onboarding/commerce -> /onboarding/marketing -> /onboarding/fulfillment -> /onboarding/balance -> /onboarding/funding -> /onboarding/payment -> /onboarding/email-summary -> /onboarding/complete

Important details:

• Stripe checkout requires a verified email
• The billing step happens before live onboarding is considered complete
• A referral or coupon code can be applied on the payment step before checkout
• Canceling checkout returns the owner to /onboarding/payment
• Successful checkout returns the owner to /onboarding/email-summary, which finishes onboarding at /onboarding/complete

Shopify App Store Install

For embedded Shopify installs:

• Billing approval is created through Shopify AppSubscription
• MerchantFlow redirects to Shopify's confirmation page
• Charges appear on the Shopify invoice, not a separate Stripe invoice
• Plan changes stay on the Shopify billing path for that tenant

Agency and Demo Paths

• Agency tenants bypass the normal merchant billing flow and complete onboarding through the agency branch
• Demo mode is a product tour path and does not start live billing by itself

How the MerchantFlow Trial Works

MerchantFlow offers a 14-day trial on every tier, but the activation path depends on billing provider.

Web Signup Trial

• The live onboarding flow ends with /onboarding/payment
• Stripe checkout is launched before production onboarding is fully complete
• Stripe checkout requires a verified email
• The workspace is trialing after checkout starts, with no charge on day one
• The trial runs on the Plus feature set regardless of the tier you selected; billing drops you to the selected tier when the trial ends
• If the trial expires without valid billing access, product access is blocked until billing is resolved

Shopify App Store Trial

• Billing approval happens through Shopify
• The trial window is attached to the Shopify subscription approval flow
• Charges appear on the Shopify invoice, not a direct Stripe invoice

Demo Mode

Demo mode is separate from production billing and does not activate live workspace billing by itself.

See Trial Period for the full workflow.

What You Can Do in Billing Settings

From Settings > Billing, the owner can usually:

• Review the current plan and subscription status
• See trial end, renewal, or cancelation timing
• Track plan usage against your caps - orders this month, team seats, connected stores, and the history window. Going over the monthly order cap eventually hides the excess orders from dashboards -- see Pricing Plans
• Open Stripe-backed payment management for Stripe tenants
• Browse invoice history for Stripe tenants
• Upgrade or downgrade between Starter, Pro, and Plus
• Switch between monthly and annual billing
• Cancel the subscription (always effective at the end of the current billing period) and reactivate a pending cancellation

What you actually see depends on the billing provider and current state.

Understanding Billing States

The billing UI can surface states such as:

• trialing - the workspace is inside the trial window
• active - the subscription is active
• canceling - cancel at period end has been set
• canceled - the subscription is no longer active
• past due - a payment failed; access continues during a 21-day grace window while the card is retried. The plan badge has no dedicated past-due label today and reads Not started in this state, so confirm the state from your dunning email or by contacting support rather than from the badge alone
• not started - billing has not been completed yet

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I know which billing provider my MerchantFlow workspace uses?

If you signed up through the MerchantFlow website, your workspace uses Stripe billing. If you installed MerchantFlow through the Shopify App Store, your workspace uses Shopify billing. Check Settings > Billing to confirm.

Can I switch from Shopify billing to Stripe billing?

The billing provider is fixed at the tenant level based on how the workspace was created. Contact [email protected] if you need to discuss billing provider changes.

Does MerchantFlow offer a free plan?

MerchantFlow does not offer a permanent free plan. New workspaces start with a 14-day trial on the tier they select at checkout. A demo mode is available for exploring the product without connecting live data.

Can admins access billing settings?

No. Billing is owner-managed. Only the workspace owner has billing:manage permission. See Roles and Permissions.

Related Pages

• Pricing Plans
• Trial Period
• Payment Methods
• Invoices
• Upgrade or Downgrade
• Cancel Subscription
• Shopify Billing

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Last updated: August 29, 2026