Shopify’s Q3 Revenue Reaches $3.74 Billion as Operating Profit Grows 66%

Payments help explain the gap between merchant sales growth and Shopify’s revenue growth. Its quarterly filing shows Shopify Payments handled 68% of GMV, compared with 65% a year earlier. Payment-processing and currency-conversion revenue increased by US$619 million.

Merchant solutions revenue grew 35% to US$2.906 billion, while subscription solutions rose 20% to US$836 million. That mix has a cost.

Shopify says payments carry lower gross margins than subscriptions because of third-party processing expenses, although they require comparatively less sales, marketing and product-development spending.

Subscription growth also reflected more merchants and a greater contribution from higher-priced plans, rather than a single measure of new-store demand. The distinction is visible in the financial supplement…