Managing product pricing is a critical factor in running a successful online store. But there are also instances where you may need to add additional fees or surcharges to your product prices.
These product fees could include taxes, handling charges, industry-specific mandatory fees, or other fees necessary to cover specific costs associated with your products.
Fortunately, Shopify offers a diverse range of apps developed by third-party experts, allowing you to efficiently handle product fees and maintain greater control over your pricing structure.
In this blog post, we’ll explore the top six Shopify apps specifically designed to help you manage product fees effortlessly. Join us as we delve into their features and benefits, empowering you to maintain pricing accuracy, enhance profitability, and ensure compliance with any mandatory product fee requirements within your e-commerce business.
We have carefully installed and reviewed each of the apps below to help you find the best app for your store. We have compared them and ranked them based on a comparison of pros, cons and pricing to give you the information you need to choose the best product fee app for your Shopify Store.
Magical Product Fees is the best Surcharge Fee app for Shopify.
Magical Product Fees is our pick for the best surcharge fee with their perfect 5 out of 5 overall rating.
With its ease of use, customization, and customer support, integration with POS, this app checks off all the boxes as they continue to grow and expand. Read our full review below to learn why we picked Magical Product Fees as the best surcharge fee app for Shopify.
The Best Product Fees Shopify Apps:
- Magical Product Fees – Best overall app but doesn’t provide deactivation of fees
- UpCharge: Surcharges & Fees – Most customizable but isn’t integrated with POS
- Canteen ‑ Integrated with Zapiet and Recharge but requires HTML and CSS competency
- Pfand ‑ Deposit & Cart Fee – Prevents fees from removal but fees are visible as products in cart
- CHARGIFY Surcharge & Order Fee – More affordable but lacks customization
#1 Magical Product Fees
Best overall app
Starts at $9.99/mo with a 14-day free trial and $12.99/mo for their growth plan
| Magical Product Fees Pros | Magical Product Fees Cons |
| Easy to install and onboard Percentage-based fees Cart-based fees Location-based fees Integrates with POS Deep fee targeting options Display on product pages, cart, and checkout Fee conditions | No fee filtering No fee status options |
Magical Product Fees Overview
Magical Product Fees is one of the most popular Product Fee apps being used by Shopify merchants. It allows merchants to add and customize fees for products (all plans) or cart (Shopify Plus only). Included is a simple fee builder, with flexible rules allowing merchants to stay in control of when and how their fees are applied.
With 28 reviews, they are sitting at a perfect 5 out of 5 overall rating on the Shopify app store.
Magical Product Fees listens to service users to make improvements to their product and services. For instance, integrating with POS after some customers shared this concern, which shows that they value feedback and want to grow with their customers.
The app has an easy onboarding process supported with videos to help merchants start charging product fees quickly. If anything is missed during the onboarding process, a banner is displayed to alert the merchant of any incomplete step.
Merchants can use this app to set fixed fees for a specific set of products through specific collection, product, and variant selection options. Merchants can even apply a fee to all of their products; however, merchants cannot currently deactivate a fee and must delete it in order for it to be removed.
Magical Product Fees also has a user-friendly front-end display. Merchants can add an app block on their product and cart pages to ensure customers are made aware of any applicable fees before reaching the checkout.
With two pricing plans, which includes a free 14-day trial, merchants can choose what makes the most sense for their business. The available Growth Plan (limited to Shopify Plus merchants) includes powerful features like cart-based and location-based fees.
Magical Product Fees is easy to install and navigate for any merchant, and there is no coding required. However, it generally does not work with other apps that interact with the cart or checkout. This includes, but is not limited to bundle apps, other fee apps, and upsell apps.
But for merchants that do not use other apps like this, Magical Product Fees is an excellent option to seamlessly add product fees and collect additional revenue to make up for various business expenses.
Magical Product Fees Reviews
With a perfect 5 star overall rating, reviews are nothing but positive for Magical Product Fees with their support and functionality of the app as the top mentioned reasons why merchants love this app.
With an unmatched support program, this app has earned rave reviews from merchants who appreciate its responsive customer service team and commitment to continue adding value to their product. One user, Beau Dégât Bièrerie de Quartier, said, “The technical support provided by the application team is remarkably prompt and efficient. Their assistance in setting up our online store and integrating it with our point-of-sale system was amazing. Highly recommend this app to get those bottle deposits added..”
But it’s not just the support that’s winning over merchants–the app itself is a game changer for businesses who are striking out with other apps. Duurzaam leasen noted that it has “Great app! I highly recommend this app. This is the only app that is able to charge one time fees like deposits.” Out of the 50 Shopify apps they used, they consider Magical Product Fees their favourite.
What sets Magical Product Fees apart is that it allows merchants to separate their product price with product fees so that taxes can be easily calculated for the business and follow local laws. Mas Lieferdienst said, “The app works great and is very simple to use. For me in Germany it is critical to add deposits to bottles. The tax rate depends on the product that I’am selling. So it is great to see that every fee is a new product and I can adjust the tax rate.”
#2 UpCharge: Surcharges & Fees
Most customizable but isn’t integrated with POS
Starts at $9.99/mo with a free option for stores on development plans
| UpCharge: Surcharges & Fees Pros | UpCharge: Surcharges & Fees Cons |
| Unlimited number of product fees Custom fee pricing Percentage-based fees Convenient fee management tools | Doesn’t work with POS Incompatible with directly going to checkout page |
UpCharge: Surcharges & Fees Overview
UpCharge: Surcharge and Fees allows merchants to attach fees to specific products or entire carts. Over the 7 years it has been live on the app store, Mageworx has built in a wide range of customization and functionality into the app. And, the app boasts 125 reviews with a decent 4.1 out of 5 overall rating on the Shopify app store.
The onboarding process seems pretty straightforward with support documentation provided and videos for more complicated aspects of the app around customization and fee setup. This allows them to learn how the app functions and take advantage of their convenient management tools. UpCharge applies fees by creating a product that represents a fee which cannot be edited and it seems a little confusing but they do have video guides to explain the process.
What makes UpCharge stand out is the amount of customization it allows merchants; for creating basic fees, customers can apply fixed price fees or percentage-based fees that can be mandatory or optional to best suit the merchant’s use case. This enhanced customization can be especially valuable for merchants who offer services like rush delivery, special handling or processing, gift wrap, insurance, order personalization, etc.
However, another limitation this app has is a lack of integration with POS. As a result, businesses with brick and mortar stores need to spend additional resources to ensure that their in-person store is charging the same fees.
Offering only one pricing plan, UpCharge does provide a 14-day free trial and free use for any development store.
UpCharge: Surcharges & Fees Reviews
Accumulating up to 125 reviews, UpCharge stands strong with 91 five star reviews for an overall rating of 4.1 out of 5. With 7 years of service, customers for this app rave about the support and functionality of the app.
UpCharge’s experience shows with so many reviews about their great customer support. Planet Tone shares, “Love this app! Perfect for our Cart Fees. Customer service and support is top notch and amazing! Thank you for a great app!”. Digital Printing also said, “Any time we have an issue with the processing fee we reach out to Mageworx. They are always quick to respond and are very timely in helping out with any issues that may be happening.”
On top of their terrific customer support, another common review you find is about the customization it allows and how great it works. Reclaim Music Group expresses this by saying, “Works really well, lots of options and features to set up your service fees.“ and Vantage Northeast shares this sentiment by writing, “There are lots of options for ways you can utilize this app…”.
With an app being live as long as this one, there are bound to be some unhappy customers and there do seem to be some issues that customers face. Wilderdog left a 1 star review with the comment, “I thought this app would help me add a processing fee for specific items going to specific countries. Apparently testing for specific countries is impossible.” However, it is important to note that while there are quite a few reviews expressing frustrating about how their fees show up as products on the cart page and having many products with fees can be confusing; it seems that UpCharge has taken the lead from these reviews and resolved this issue so the customers cart is not filled with multiple fees that appear to be products.
#3 Canteen
Integrated with Zapiet and Recharge but requires HTML and CSS competency
Only one plan of $9.99/mo and comes with a 14-day free trial
| Canteen Pros | Canteen Cons |
| Works with POS Fee filtering Fee status options Price per quantity or one time Integrates with Zapiet and Recharge | Lack of onboarding and setup support No percentage-based fees Coding needed for front-end fee display |
Canteen Overview
Canteen is another Product Fee app that allows merchants to add various fees that Shopify doesn’t provide native support for. This app has a rule builder that allows businesses to create specific fees for their products and with 25 reviews Canteen has a solid 4.5 overall rating.
While this app does offer support documentation, it can take some troubleshooting on the merchant’s end if they run into issues. Especially since there are no videos to assist with enabling and configuring their app embed. Having to reach out to support just to get up and running can be a dealbreaker for some.
Once rules are set, Canteen automatically implements fees to the cart and checkout pages and these fees can be configured by product groups for a one-time or per quantity basis.Their separation of fees makes reporting a business’ collection of fees easy to report for accounting purposes. This app also works with POS so this can be especially useful for brick and mortar stores.
However, Canteen takes a different approach to displaying fee information and a merchant will require familiarity with HTML and CSS so this app may not be for businesses who don’t have the resources to support this. This app also displays fees as a product in the cart page and this can be very confusing for customers who will see at least double the amount of products they have selected in their cart. Additionally confusing, it may not be clear what fee applies to which product and this can cause a lot of frustration on the customer’s part.
For those interested in a more detailed comparison between Canteen and Magical Product Fees, please refer to The Best Shopify Product Fees Apps Reviewed (Magical Mandatory Product Fees vs. Canteen Fees).
Canteen Reviews
With 25 reviews for an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5, customers using Canteen do express how responsive the support is and how great the app works.
Ocean Beer shares, “We love this App. It 100% what we were looking for. It’s easy to install and to use.” Candyrbands also says, “Simply great! Solved all our Problems, for very little money! The support is also nice. Please continue the good work!”
On top of the great customer service users talk about, customers are also happy about how visibility of fees makes life much easier for a business to comply with legal requirements. RetailNow says, “Canteen is a helpful app for any company subject to the legal deposit requirement. Especially in Germany we have the problem that deposit values have to be shown separately. Here Canteen helps us with the implementation.“
Despite a large number of reviews sharing their great experience with support and how the app works, there have been some recent not so great reviews. Hell on Wheels Performance Ltd. writes, “We have uninstalled this app. We’ve had multiple issues with fees not being applied at checkout. Most recently, fee rules have been deleting themselves without explanation. Our biggest issue was poor customer support, they have not fixed the issue or gotten back to us. Now looking into other similar apps…”
#4 Pfand ‑ Deposit & Cart Fee
Prevents fees from removal but fees are visible as products in cart
Only one plan of $6.32/month with a 7-day free trial.
| Pfand ‑ Deposit & Cart Fee Pros | Pfand ‑ Deposit & Cart Fee Cons |
| Unlimited fees Works with POS Optional & mandatory fees Country based fees Fixed & % fees | Option to hide fees can be unethical Fee shows up as a product |
Pfand ‑ Deposit & Cart Fee Overview
Pfand – Deposit & Cart Fee is another product fee app with a perfect 5 out of 5 overall rating. But it currently has only 15 reviews. This app makes a point of mentioning that they prevent fees from being removed by customers from the cart, although this never seemed to be an issue with any of the other apps we reviewed, it never hurts to have some added assurance that customers are not gaming the system.
Pfand also provides the ability to add fees to individual products or the entire cart. Along with the functionality to charge fees on a one-time basis or quantity basis, they provide fees to be charged based on a customer’s geographical location to comply with EU GDPR compliance.
While this app seems relatively easy to set up and they have supporting documents and videos to assist merchants, their FAQ and guides are not the most user friendly. Another issue with this app is that fees show up in the cart as products and it may be confusing what fees apply to what product if there are multiple products in a customer’s cart.
Maybe this is why they also boast the ability for merchants to hide fees from being displayed in order to prevent losing customers. While this may sound appealing, this can raise some serious ethical issues in regards to transparency in pricing. Additionally, merchants wanting to use this feature would have to be comfortable working with code and follow very detailed steps.
It was also odd to visit this app’s poor demo store that doesn’t show how their app works. Maybe they have their demo store set up to hide the visibility of fees but if that is the case, they should have examples that show the various other options they boast to have.
Pfand ‑ Deposit & Cart Fee Reviews
Also with a perfect overall rating of 5 out of 5, Pfand – Deposit & Cart Fee’s 15 reviews all express how great the customer support is and how great the app works.
Brouwerij Troost talks about how easy it was to install and how much they appreciated the support, “Great app, great support. Hassle free installation in minutes. Saved me tons of time trying to fix it myself.” Furnirent also expressed the speed of customer support by writing, “Superb customer support for customization available. Fixing happened within minutes, not many business days waiting like most of the Apps.”
Bliss Artisan also shares how Canteen was the only app that was compatible with their custom-built Delivery Date selection app, “I have researched ad nauseam for an app that could create a specific fee and NOT conflict with my custom-built Delivery Date selection app. I FINALLY FOUND IT!” while also expressing that Canteen was the only app that allowed them to provide instructions to their customers on selecting fees for orders to be processed.
#5 CHARGIFY Surcharge & Order Fee
More affordable but lacks customization
Starts at $2.99/mo or $29.99/year and save 16%, with a 7 day free trial
| CHARGIFY Surcharge & Order Fee Pros | CHARGIFY Surcharge & Order Fee Cons |
| More affordable Fixed and % based fees Fees applied to entire cart Streamlined expense management Customizable surcharge conditions | Fees not applied to products individually Lacks customization |
CHARGIFY Surcharge & Order Fee Overview
As the newest product fee app from our list, CHARGIFY is another app that allows merchants to apply fixed or percentage-based fees but for only the cart. Fees can be customized based on the total amount the customer cart comes up to and merchants can provide details as to what the fee is pertaining to.
Chargify lacks the customization options that some of the other apps provide and maybe that is why the lower price point is suitable for this app. This app may be useful for smaller businesses that don’t require more complex customization for their product fees.
Unfortunately, Chargify doesn’t have a demo store for merchants to see how their app would work. They also don’t have an FAQ or support documentation to give more detail about the app. With zero reviews, there isn’t a lot of information given to the merchant before installation and they would have to install the app to find out what it’s actually capable of.
CHARGIFY Surcharge & Order Fee Reviews
Chargify has only been live since January 31, 2023 and currently has no reviews so it’s not possible to know what service users think. We are excited to see in the future how customers respond to this app and what they like and dislike about it.
Why Should You Care About Product Fees?
The Shopify App experts behind Magical Apps explain:
“It’s essential for Shopify merchants to care about disclosing product fees if they care about transparency and trust with their customers. Clear communication of fees eliminates surprises during checkout and fosters customer satisfaction and loyalty.
I personally find it infuriating when I’m hit with hidden costs at the checkout process that were not made clear on the product page. It really feels like the merchant is trying to pull one over on me and it’s a great way for me to never visit that store ever again.
Product fees also ensure accurate cost recovery and profitability, while offering flexibility in pricing strategies based on customer segments and market conditions.
By generating additional revenue streams through value-added services, merchants can enhance the customer experience and increase their average order value.
A common fee I have come across in my shopping are international custom fees and I have always found it helpful when those fees are mentioned explicitly with instructions on how I can avoid them through orders over a specific dollar amount.
Complying with mandatory fees demonstrates legal responsibility and protects businesses. Remember, product fee relevance depends on the business type, but it is crucial for transparency, profitability, and building customer trust as a Shopify merchant.”
– Saad Khalid
Conclusion
Applying mandatory fees on Shopify is a headache since there is no native functionality for stores to take advantage of. Merchants are often wearing a lot of hats and dont have the time to test a million apps to see which one is the best for their business. For many businesses that require mandatory fees for their products and services, a 3rd party app is their best solution. Our top pick was the Magical Product Fees app which we said was “Best overall app but doesn’t provide deactivation of fees”.
If you are interested in learning all about product fees and how you can add them to your Shopify store, check out our Ultimate Guide to Shopify Product Fees.
Magical Product Fees
The Magical Product Fees app is a fast and easy way to build, customize, and attach fees to products or entire orders.