Shopify sells software that lets businesses set up and run online stores and also sell in physical shops, on social media, on AI platforms and elsewhere. Its customers, which it calls merchants, range from people just starting out to large companies that sell directly to consumers or to other businesses. At the end of 2025 it had merchants in more than 175 countries: 44% in the United States, 31% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 16% in Asia Pacific, Australia and China, and 5% each in Canada and Latin America.
It earns money in two ways. Subscription solutions, mostly fees for its monthly or yearly plans plus sales of apps, store designs and domain names, made up 24% of 2025 revenue. Merchant solutions, at 76%, are fees tied to what merchants sell, chiefly payment processing and currency conversion fees from Shopify Payments, plus lending, shipping labels, in-store payment hardware and advertising. Shopify calls its market competitive and highly fragmented. It says merchants may instead use ecommerce software vendors, payment processors, point-of-sale providers, lenders, shipping and fulfillment services, or marketplaces.
Shopify had about 7,600 employees worldwide at the end of 2025 and works mainly remotely. Outside developers offer more than 21,000 apps in its App Store. All merchants use the same, latest version of its cloud-based software, and Shopify runs most of the platform on Google Cloud.