Best Shopify surcharge apps compared (2026)
Four apps that add a credit card surcharge or fee to a Shopify store. Ratings, review counts, pricing and listing dates below were read directly off each app's Shopify App Store page on the review date, and nothing in the table is estimated. Where we could not verify something, the table says so.
Disclosure: we publish this page and we make one of these apps
- FeeLayer is built by MerchantLayer, the publisher of this page. Read our claims about it accordingly, and check them against the three competitor listings we link, which are independent of us.
- FeeLayer is in early access and is not currently available on the Shopify App Store. You cannot install it today the way you can install the other three apps on this page. It has no App Store listing, no star rating, and no public review history.
- We have not independently tested the competitor apps. Everything stated about them comes from their own App Store listings on the retrieval date, linked in each section.
The four apps at a glance
Sorted by App Store review count, highest first, with our own app listed first and flagged. Ratings and review counts are a snapshot and will drift.
| App | Publisher | Rating | Reviews | Entry price | On the App Store? | Listed since |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FeeLayerOurs | MerchantLayer | No listing | No listing | $9/mo | No (early access) | n/a |
| Upcharge Surcharge Fees Tariff | UC Lab LLC | 4.7 | 170 | $9.99/mo | Yes | January 22, 2016 |
| Magical Surcharge + Extra Fees | Magical Apps | 4.9 | 102 | $9/mo | Yes | January 7, 2022 |
| Feesly: Surcharge & Fees (POS) | Merchbytes | 3.6 | 15 | $0.99/mo | Yes | November 29, 2021 |
Sources: Shopify App Store listings for Upcharge, Magical Surcharge + Extra Fees and Feesly, all retrieved August 25, 2026. FeeLayer pricing is our own published price. App Store ratings and review counts change continuously.
The apps, one by one
Each section states what the app's own listing says. We have not run the competitor apps on a live store, so we make no claims about how they behave in checkout beyond what their publishers state.
Upcharge Surcharge Fees Tariff
The longest-listed app in this roundup by a wide margin, and the one with the most reviews. Its listing positions it around conditional and automatic fees: "apply conditional fees, late fees, and automatic fees" and "quickly add surcharge rules for a small order fee or one time fee." The tagline leans on tax add-ons, dynamic surcharges and product-level surcharges rather than card-fee recovery specifically.
Pricing is tiered by store type rather than by feature volume: Shopify Plus stores are routed to the $29.99 plan. If you are on Plus, budget for the higher tier.
We publish a direct FeeLayer vs. Upcharge comparison. It is written by us about our own product, so read it as a vendor comparison rather than a neutral review.
Magical Surcharge + Extra Fees
The highest-rated of the three listed apps, and the broadest in scope. Its listing describes adding "surcharges, tariffs, or credit card fees to any product or order", applying fees "automatically by location, product, payment method, or customer", and charging "fixed or percentage fees on Online Store, POS, and Draft Orders". It also advertises showing "every fee clearly on cart, checkout, and receipts" and keeping "a searchable audit log of every fee charged for tax time".
Two things stand out for a surcharging merchant. First, POS and Draft Orders are named explicitly, which matters if a meaningful share of your fee-bearing transactions happen in person or on manually created orders. Second, the higher tiers exist for a reason: the listing mentions PayPal, Shop Pay and COD transaction fees at the Plus tier, and the $79 tier adds unlimited fee history and export.
The listing does not describe the technical mechanism used to attach the fee in checkout. That is normal for App Store listings and is not evidence either way, but it is the question we would ask the vendor first (see the evaluation checklist below).
Feesly: Surcharge & Fees (POS)
The cheapest option on this page by a large multiple, and the most narrowly aimed. The name carries "(POS)" and the tagline is "automate your fee management on your mobile POS and web store fast and easily", so the center of gravity is in-person selling with the web store as a secondary surface. Listed features are simple: "create fixed or percentage fees" and "configure a list of the most-used charges for your POS and apply them automatically or manually", plus reporting.
The rating is the lowest here and the review base is small, at 15 reviews, so the average is volatile and one bad month moves it. Positive reviews on the listing emphasize price and support responsiveness; one describes recovering credit card surcharges at a pop-up event.
For a market-stall, pop-up or counter-service merchant who wants to add a card fee at the terminal and does not need checkout-side enforcement online, the price alone makes it worth a look.
FeeLayerOurs
FeeLayer is our card-surcharge module. It attaches the processing-fee line item using Shopify's Cart Transform Functions, with Checkout Validation Functions as a second enforcement layer, so the fee applies on Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay rather than only on the standard cart path. It enforces a 4% fee ceiling on every order and auto-waives in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine. A Theme App Extension adds the storefront disclosure, and the disclosure text is editable.
The honest caveat is the one in the banner at the top of this page: it is in early access and not on the Shopify App Store, so you cannot install it today, and it has no review history for you to check our claims against. If either of those is disqualifying, one of the three listed apps above is the right answer for you right now.
Where FeeLayer is not the right fit
Four situations where we would point you at something else. These are drawn from what our own site does and does not claim, not from a competitive weakness we are willing to concede grudgingly.
You need an app you can install today
FeeLayer is in early access and has no Shopify App Store listing. If your surcharge needs to go live this week, install one of the listed apps instead. Upcharge and Magical have been listed since 2016 and 2022 respectively and carry years of public review history; that is a real advantage and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Your fees are mostly in-person, at the POS
FeeLayer is built around Shopify's online checkout: Cart Transform Functions and a Theme App Extension. We do not claim Shopify POS support. Magical names "POS and Draft Orders" in its listing and Feesly is built around mobile POS, so a counter-service or market-stall merchant is better served there.
You want a general-purpose fee engine, not a card surcharge
Tariff line items, bottle deposits, rush fees, per-product handling charges, COD fees: those are fee-catalog problems. FeeLayer is a card-surcharge product with percent or fixed fees, eligibility rules, and region-aware behavior. Magical and Upcharge both market the broader catalog explicitly.
You want to buy on evidence rather than on architecture
A 4.7-star app with 170 reviews gives you something FeeLayer cannot give you yet: other merchants' experience. If your evaluation weights track record over enforcement design, the math does not favor us today. Ask us again when we have a listing.
How should I evaluate a Shopify surcharge app?
Ask four questions of any vendor, ours included: does the fee still attach on an express checkout started from a product page; what happens in states that prohibit surcharging; how is the disclosure rendered on the storefront and the receipt; and does the price stay flat as your order volume grows. Listings rarely answer any of them, so ask support before you install.
- The express-checkout test. Place a real order using the Shop Pay button on a product page, not from the cart. If the fee line is missing, the app is attaching the fee in storefront code and a share of your orders will arrive without it. Repeat with Apple Pay, which is the hardest surface to cover.
- Prohibited-state handling. Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine restrict or prohibit credit card surcharging. Ask whether the app waives automatically on shipping or billing address, or whether you are expected to manage it manually. See our surcharge legality section for the statutory citations.
- Disclosure surfaces. Card-brand rules require the surcharge dollar amount on the receipt and notice before the customer commits. Ask what the app renders on the storefront, in checkout, and on the order confirmation, and whether the wording is editable.
- Pricing shape as you grow. Tiered pricing that steps up with volume, order count or store plan behaves very differently from a flat monthly fee. Two of the apps here price by store type or feature tier; check where your store lands in twelve months, not today.
The full background on the rules those questions come from is in our Shopify surcharge guide, which covers the card-brand caps, the 30-day Visa notice requirement and the state landscape with citations.
Before you pick one
Whichever app you choose, the compliance obligations are yours, not the app's. You need to have given Visa and your acquirer 30 days' notice, you need to be in a jurisdiction that permits surcharging, and you need the disclosure in front of the customer before they pay. Our surcharge guide covers all three with the source documents linked.
Methodology: app names, publishers, star ratings, review counts, pricing plans and listing dates were read from each app's public Shopify App Store page on August 25, 2026. We did not install or test the competitor apps. Feature descriptions in quotation marks are the publishers' own listing copy. No vendor paid for or reviewed this page. FeeLayer is our product; see the disclosure at the top.