Get paid: the complete guide

Every step of getting paid on ShopFast, with a screenshot of each: where things are in Money, connecting your own gateway, test mode, and what to do when a payment does not arrive.

Everything about getting paid lives in the dashboard’s Money section. This guide walks through it screen by screen. In each screenshot, the control the step is about has an outline around it.

The guide has three parts:

• 1. The complete guideThis page: what is where, connecting a gateway step by step, test mode and troubleshooting.
• 2. Gateway by gatewayWhat each gateway needs, where its setup differs, and the warnings the dashboard shows.
• 3. Checkout rules and your moneyCheckout order and limits, failover, refunds, manual methods, Balance, Financials and Fees.

What is where

Open Money in the sidebar. Its four tabs sit above every Money page.

The old addresses Settings → Payments and Settings → Billing open these pages now.

Payments has three views. Ways to pay is where you connect gateways. Checkout rules sets the order buyers see them in and when each one shows. Refunds turns on refunds as store credit. The header has a Read the guide link (to this page) and the Test mode switch.

The two ways to get paid

The first card on Ways to pay, Who takes your buyers’ payments, is where you choose how buyers pay you, and it is always there. Its headline tells you where you stand: Buyers pay through your own gateways, Buyers pay through ShopFast Pay, or, on a new store, Your checkout cannot take payments yet until it has a way to get paid.

• Under the headline: the ways to pay buyers see at checkout right now.
• Two options, Your own gateways and ShopFast Pay, each with one line on what it means. The one taking payments now is selected and marked Taking payments.
• Under each option: what it means for your store now, and what you keep on a $24.00 sale through it (the example sale is in your store’s currency).
• An option you cannot pick yet says why. Your own gateways needs a gateway first (Connect one takes you to the gallery). ShopFast Pay shows the state of your application, such as Not applied or In review, with a link to the application.
• To switch, pick the other option. A short confirmation says what happens to new checkouts; orders already placed keep the way they were paid. The options work with the keyboard too: Tab to them, then the arrow keys or Space.

There are two ways to get paid. You can set up both.

Your own gateways

Buyers pay your own account and the money never passes through ShopFast. ShopFast takes no fee on these orders. You connect a gateway with your own keys, or with just an email or a $Cashtag for some of them. The next section shows how.

ShopFast Pay

ShopFast Pay is ShopFast’s own way to collect payments. Its card shows your plan’s rate (in the picture, 15% commission, paid out in crypto), and the line Apply to sell with ShopFast Pay. ShopFast reviews every application by hand. The four tiles below it say what ShopFast Pay covers: tax, chargebacks, cards and wallets, and crypto payouts.

ShopFast Pay is available by application, and ShopFast decides on each one. Until your store is approved, the ShopFast Pay option cannot be picked and says where your application stands. Your own gateways need no approval, so you can sell with them in the meantime. How ShopFast Pay works, what it costs and how applying works: ShopFast Pay.

Connect your own gateway, step by step

The steps are the same for every gateway connected with its keys. The screenshots use Stripe. What differs per gateway is in Gateway by gateway. The same gallery is also in Get started → Choose how you get paid.

1. Pick a gateway

Scroll to Your own gateways on Ways to pay. Under Connect one, the gallery shows the gateways most sellers pick first. Filter it with All, Cards, Crypto, Person to person and Other, and open the rest with the more button under the first two rows.

Each tile shows:

• you keep: what stays with you from a $24.00 sale before tax, at the provider’s typical rate (the footer says so);
• what buyers can pay with, and the logos of those payment methods;
• where the provider works, or Not for EUR prices (your currency) when it cannot take your store’s currency.

Click a tile to open its panel. Crypto to your wallet and Payment plugins open their own pages, Manual methods scrolls to its card on the same page, and BTCPay Server opens a short wizard.

2. Follow the steps in the panel

The panel starts with what the gateway does: Buyers pay your own Stripe account. ShopFast takes no fee and never holds the money. Below, Set it up in Stripe lists the steps. Open Stripe opens the right page of your provider’s dashboard in a new tab.

Each step has a drawing of the provider’s screen: the address, the menu path to get there, and the rows that matter. The rows you act on are highlighted and say what to do:

• Click: a button or link to click there.
• Tick: a box or permission to turn on.
• Copy: a value to copy from the provider into ShopFast.
• Paste: a value to paste from ShopFast into the provider.

The drawings are not screenshots, so they never show anyone’s account. Providers change their menus from time to time: the step’s text names what to look for.

3. Copy ShopFast’s address when a step asks for it

Some providers need an address from ShopFast: a webhook address, a redirect address or your store’s address. The step shows it with a copy button.

The address belongs to your store, so copy it from your own dashboard rather than from an example.

4. Paste your keys and connect

Under Paste them here, paste what the steps told you to copy. Each field says where to find its value, and optional fields say optional. Then click Connect Stripe (the button names the gateway).

When you click it:

1. The panel checks each value has the right shape. A key of the wrong kind gets a message under its field.
2. ShopFast checks the keys with the provider. Keys the provider refuses, or test keys while checkout takes real payments, are turned down with a message (troubleshooting).
3. Where the provider allows it, ShopFast adds its webhook to your account for you.
4. Your keys are encrypted and never shown again, not to you and not to your team.

5. See who takes your payments now

The panel ends on a success state with the account that is now connected.

What it says depends on how your store is set up. There is nothing more to do in the panel:

• ShopFast Pay is not available for your store yet (a new store, or one not approved): connecting moved your store to your own gateways by itself, and the panel says Buyers now pay through your own gateways.
• Already on your own gateways: Buyers can pay with Stripe now.
• ShopFast Pay takes your payments: buyers keep paying through it. To have them pay your gateway instead, pick Your own gateways at the top of Ways to pay.

You can change who takes payments any time with that choice. Orders already placed keep the way they were paid. When ShopFast switches for you, and when it never does: payment models.

6. Check the connected gateway

Connected gateways are listed at the top of Your own gateways, above the gallery.

Each row shows:

• The badge: At checkout (buyers see it now), Connected (ready, but your store is set to ShopFast Pay) or Finish setup (one step left, such as Shopify’s approval).
• The account it is connected to, and what that means right now.
• Health: Healthy (how many checkouts were paid in the last 7 days), Quiet (no checkouts in the last 7 days), Needs a look (for example few checkouts paid, or a step left) or Down (it cannot take payments).
• you keep: what you keep on the $24.00 example sale through this gateway.
• Replace keys opens the panel again to connect with new keys. Person-to-person methods say Change details, and Cash App says Forwarding (its forwarding steps come first).
• Disconnect removes the keys, and the webhook ShopFast added where it added one. It asks first.

When the gateway is not your only way to get paid, the dialog says new checkouts stop offering it and paid orders stay as they are.

Test mode and a test purchase

Test mode

Test mode lets you try checkout as a buyer would without real money. Turn on the Test mode switch in the Payments header, pick 1 hour, 24 hours or 3 days, and click Turn on.

While it is on, the switch says until when. It turns itself off when the time is up. To end it sooner, turn the switch off: checkouts take real payments again.

In test mode, every way to pay at checkout runs on simulated payments. Your order and rules, delivery and the order page work as for real, and each order is recorded as a test. It does not use your gateway’s keys, so it does not check your gateway connection. That is the next step.

Simulate a sale from Get started

Home → Get started → Make a test sale → Simulate first sale runs one test order through checkout, delivery and your balance in a few seconds. Your store needs one active product.

When it is done, a panel shows What your buyer sees: the order page from the receipt email, marked as a test order.

More on the checklist and the test sale: Get started and your test sale.

Test your gateway with a real payment

To check the gateway itself, make sure test mode is off and buy something small on your own store with that way to pay. The order is marked paid, and delivered, as soon as the gateway confirms the payment. Then refund it from the order, or in your provider’s dashboard for gateways that refund there. The Cash App and PayPal Friends & Family panels suggest a $1 test purchase.

How every payment is checked

An order is made, and its keys or files delivered, only when the payment:

• comes from the provider itself, read back from the provider with your credentials;
• is for the checkout ShopFast created, at the provider the buyer chose;
• is complete, not pending or partly paid;
• matches the checkout’s total exactly, in amount and currency;
• has not been counted before.

The full list, and what happens to late or second payments: How every payment is checked.

Troubleshooting

Your checkout cannot take payments

Who takes your buyers’ payments says Your checkout cannot take payments yet when no way to pay is live. Check that:

• at least one gateway is connected, with no Finish setup badge;
• your store uses its own gateways: if the gateway’s badge says Connected rather than At checkout, pick Your own gateways on that card;
• the gateway takes your store’s currency (below);
• on Checkout rules, the way to pay is Shown and its rules and order limits fit the order. The preview there shows what a buyer in a given country, paying a given amount, sees.

Keys refused

A value of the wrong kind gets a message under its field before anything is sent, for example when you paste Stripe’s publishable key instead of a secret or restricted key.

When the provider refuses the keys, the message shows above the buttons, such as Stripe did not accept these keys. Check that you copied the live keys of the right account. Copy them again from the provider’s live mode. For Stripe, a restricted key needs write access to Checkout Sessions, Refunds and Webhook Endpoints.

Test keys while checkout takes real payments

Where a provider marks its test keys (Stripe, Mollie, Razorpay, Paystack, Paddle), ShopFast refuses them while checkout takes real payments: These are Stripe test keys. Checkout takes real payments, so paste your live keys. SumUp, Authorize.Net and NMI accounts in sandbox or test mode are refused too. To try checkout without money, use test mode instead.

Currency not supported

Each gateway takes payments only in the currencies it supports. The gallery says Not for EUR prices (with your currency) on the tile, and the panel says so before you connect.

You can still connect it, but checkout skips it. Pick a gateway that takes your currency, or change your store’s currency. Shopify and Square take the currency of your Shopify store or Square location, which must be your store’s. Each gateway’s currencies are in the table.

A payment did not create an order

If a buyer says they paid but no order appeared:

• Check the payment in your provider’s dashboard. A payment that is short by any amount, or in another currency, does not count. Refund it there and ask the buyer to check out again.
• PayPal can hold a payment as pending (an eCheck, a currency your PayPal account does not accept on its own, a review). The order waits until PayPal completes it.
• Crypto may still be confirming, or arrived short. See Crypto payments on the Crypto to your wallet page.
• A second payment for the same cart never makes a second order. It is refunded where the provider allows it, or you get a notice with the payment to refund.

Person-to-person payments that paid no order

Cash App and PayPal Friends & Family payments are matched by their order code and exact amount. One with the wrong amount, no code, two codes, or the code of a checkout that expired shows under its row as 1 payment paid no order, with the amount, the sender, the note and the reason. Sort it out with the buyer: refund it in Cash App or PayPal, or make the order by hand. See Payments that paid no order.

Shopify not approved yet

After you paste Shopify’s keys, the row says Finish setup until you approve your app on Shopify. Click Approve on Shopify on the row. Shopify asks you to approve the app and brings you back to ShopFast, which finishes the connection. If you come back without Shopify’s approval, the page says Shopify did not connect.

Click Approve on Shopify to try again. Check that the app’s redirect URL in Shopify’s Dev Dashboard is exactly the one the panel gave you. More: Shopify.

Webhook not delivering

Payments are confirmed by the provider’s notification. When those do not arrive, checkouts are started but never marked paid, and the row’s health says Needs a look, for example Only 1 of 6 checkouts were paid in the last 7 days. Check that payments confirm.

• Where you add the webhook yourself (Razorpay, Paystack, NMI, Skinloop and PayPal Friends & Family), check the address is exactly the one in the panel, the events the step lists are ticked, and the secret you pasted matches. After you connect, the panel says Payments confirm once the webhook you added in Razorpay delivers its first event.
• Where ShopFast adds the webhook (Stripe, PayPal with keys, Square, Paddle, Authorize.Net), connect again with Replace keys: ShopFast adds its webhook again. Shopify’s webhooks are added when you approve the app.
• Your provider’s dashboard lists each delivery attempt and its answer.
• For Cash App, the row says Waiting for the first Cash App receipt. until a forwarded receipt arrives. Check the Gmail forwarding and filter (Cash App).