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Gateway Cost is the total payment processing fee across your orders. Upstack calculates it from the rates you enter in Cost Settings. It isn’t read from your payment processor’s statements, so it’s only as accurate as those rates.

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Formula

Gateway Cost = SUM ( Flat Fee + Order Total × Percent Fee ÷ 100 ) for each order with a matching gateway entry

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Formula Components

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How Upstack calculates it

You set rates in the Payment processing fees section of Cost Settings. Each entry has a Gateway Name, a Flat Fee, a Percent Fee (%) and optional Effective From and Effective To dates. For each order, Upstack:
  1. Reads the payment gateway names on the Shopify order.
  2. Picks the first entry whose Gateway Name matches one of them (ignoring capitalization) and whose dates cover the order date.
  3. Charges that entry’s Flat Fee plus its Percent Fee on the full order total.
  4. Charges nothing if no entry matches.
Some results follow directly from those rules:
  • Unconfigured gateways cost $0. If you add a new payment method and don’t add a matching entry, its orders carry no gateway cost.
  • Split payments use one entry. An order paid partly by gift card and partly by card gets one matching entry, and its percent applies to the whole order total.
  • Refunds don’t reduce it. The fee is based on the order total before returns.
  • Rate changes need dates. Give a new rate an Effective From date so older orders keep the old rate.

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Example

A beauty brand sets up two gateway entries and leaves gift cards unconfigured. In October: Shopify Payments works out as $131,040 × 2.9% + 1,560 × $0.30 = $3,800.16 + $468.00. The rates here are this store’s own entries, not published processor pricing. Gateway Cost % for October reads 3.87%, higher than either entered rate looks. That’s because it divides by Net Revenue ($134,600 here), which leaves out shipping, tax and refunds, while the fee was charged on the full order total.

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How to interpret it

  • Compare it with your processor payouts. If Upstack’s Gateway Cost is well below what your processor actually charged, an entry is missing or a gateway name doesn’t match.
  • Watch the mix. A shift toward a higher-fee wallet raises Gateway Cost per order without any rate change.
  • Read it as part of CM2. Gateway Cost is subtracted in CM2 (After Fulfillment) together with shipping, handling and other transaction costs.

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FAQ

No. Upstack calculates Gateway Cost from the rates in Cost Settings. Gateway names are discovered from your order history so you can pick them, but the fee amounts come from your entries.
Either no payment processing fees are set up, or the gateway names on your orders don’t match any entry for those dates.
Gateway Cost comes only from the payment processing fee entries. Other Transaction Cost comes from order fees you assign to the Transaction category. Total Transaction Cost adds the two.
See all Transaction Cost metrics →