How Does the Usage Charge Work?

Every paid plan includes a number of orders per month. When your account has more orders than that, Profitario adds a per-order usage charge to your Shopify bill, up to a fixed cap. This article shows how the charge is calculated, which orders count, and when a larger plan costs less.

Where: Click your name at the bottom of the sidebar, then Billing. The Subscription page opens.
Who: Accounts on Starter, Growth, Pro or Enterprise. Free and Scale have no usage charge. Team members limited to selected stores do not see Billing.
Updates: Orders are counted per calendar month. New usage is billed once a day.

How the Usage Charge Is Calculated#

Orders are counted for the whole account, not per store. The orders of all stores connected to your account are added up and compared with the one allowance of your plan. Two stores with 400 orders each count as 800 orders.

The count runs per calendar month. It starts on the first day of the month and ends on the last. On the first of the next month it starts again at zero.

Only orders above the allowance are charged. Orders within the included amount cost nothing extra. Each order above it is charged at your plan's per-order rate.

New usage is billed once a day through Shopify. Once a day, Profitario compares your month-to-date order count with your allowance and bills the part that has not been billed yet. The charge goes to the Shopify bill of the store that pays for Profitario, with a description such as Usage charge · 25 orders.

The charge is capped. Each plan has a maximum for usage charges. Once it is reached, further orders cost nothing extra.

Nothing is billed during the free trial. Orders placed during the 14-day trial are never charged. In the month the trial ends, the count starts at the end of the trial and is compared with your full allowance. See How the 14-Day Trial Works.

Which Orders Count#

Counts	Does not count
Orders with the Shopify payment status Paid, Authorized, Pending, Partially refunded or Refunded	Test orders
Orders that were refunded after they were placed	Orders with any other payment status, for example Voided
Orders of every store that has the Profitario app installed and belongs to your account	Orders of a store where the Profitario app was uninstalled

An order counts in the month it was placed.

Plans, Prices and Usage Rates#

These are the plans on the Plans page. Prices are in US dollars.

Plan	Price per month	Included orders per month	Per extra order	Usage cap
Free	$0	50	No usage charge	None
Starter	$30	300	$0.30	$300
Growth	$55	600	$0.20	$500
Pro	$100	1,500	$0.10	$700
Enterprise	$200	3,500	$0.05	$1,000
Scale	$300	Unlimited	No usage charge	None

The app calls the per-order rate Overage rate and the cap Overage cap.

If you are on an older plan that is no longer offered, the Current Plan card shows a Legacy plan notice. Your included orders, rate and cap can differ from the table above. Click View Details in that notice to see your numbers.

Worked Example#

An account on the Growth plan has two stores. In September, the first store has 721 orders and the second has 283.

Step	Calculation	Result
Orders of the month	721 + 283	1,004
Orders above 600	1,004 − 600	404
Usage charge	404 × $0.20	$80.80
Total for the month	$55.00 + $80.80	$135.80

The second store alone is far below 600 orders, but that does not matter: the 1,004 orders of the account are compared with the 600 included orders.

On the Pro plan ($100, 1,500 orders included) the same month costs $100.00, which is $35.80 less.

How the daily billing looks. Say the account passes 600 orders on the 18th and ends that day at 640. The next day, 40 × $0.20 = $8.00 is billed. If the 19th brings 25 more orders, $5.00 is billed the day after.

How the cap works. A Growth account with 4,000 orders in a month is 3,400 orders above its allowance. 3,400 × $0.20 would be $680.00, but the cap limits the usage charge to $500.00.

When a Larger Plan Costs Less#

Paying the usage charge is fine for an occasional strong month. If you are above your allowance every month, compare with the next plan:

Your plan	Next plan	The next plan costs less from
Starter	Growth	384 orders per month
Growth	Pro	826 orders per month
Pro	Enterprise	2,501 orders per month
Enterprise	Scale	5,501 orders per month

Example for Growth: the price difference to Pro is $100 − $55 = $45. $45 ÷ $0.20 = 225 extra orders. At 600 + 225 = 825 orders both plans cost $100.00, and from 826 orders on Pro is cheaper.

Profitario points this out by itself. When your current pace leads above your allowance, the Subscription page shows the notice Projected to exceed your limit with a View plans button.

Where to See Your Usage#

Click your name at the bottom of the sidebar, then Billing.

The usage charges that were billed are listed under Billing > Billing History, one row per day with the date, the store, the description and the amount.

The Usage card on the Overview page shows the same numbers in short: Included is your order count against the allowance, On-Demand is the usage charge billed this month.

The Orders counter shows every order of the month. Test orders and orders with a payment status that does not count are left out when the charge is calculated, so the number that is billed can be a little lower than the counter.

The Cap and Your Shopify Billing Cycle#

The cap protects you in two ways:

Profitario never bills more than the cap for one calendar month.
Shopify never accepts more than the cap within one 30-day billing cycle of your subscription. The cycle starts on the day you subscribed, so it rarely matches the calendar month. Next billing on the Current Plan card shows when the current cycle ends.

Because the two periods differ, a usage charge that no longer fits into the current Shopify cycle is billed a few days later, after the cycle has renewed. The charge can arrive late, but it is never higher than what your orders and your cap allow.

Changing Plans Mid-Month#

An upgrade applies as soon as you approve it in Shopify. From then on the higher allowance is compared with your whole month-to-date order count. Orders that were above the old allowance but are within the new one cause no further charges.

Usage charges that were already billed stay on your bill. They are not refunded when you upgrade. They are deducted from any usage charge that comes up later in the same month under the new plan.

Usage charges are not refunded. If your order count is above your allowance most months, upgrade early in the month.

Emails About Usage#

The account owner receives an email when the first usage charge of a month is billed, and at most once a month a plan recommendation when a larger plan would cost less than the current one. To turn both off, click your name at the bottom of the sidebar, then Account settings > Notifications, and switch off Billing.

Troubleshooting#

I was charged although none of my stores is above the allowance. The stores are counted together. Add up the orders of all stores for the month and compare the total with your plan.

The charge does not match my order count. Check three things: test orders and orders with a payment status such as Voided are not billed, the cap limits the total, and each day's charge only covers the orders that were not billed before.

A usage charge arrived days after the orders. The cap of your Shopify billing cycle was reached, so the remaining amount was billed after the cycle renewed. See the section above.

I am on the Free plan and see "Plan limit reached". The Free plan has no usage charge. Accounts that average more than 50 orders a month are asked to start a subscription instead.

Still unclear? Write to support@profitario.com and include the email address you log in with, the month in question, and the rows from Billing History or your Shopify bill that you want checked.