Shopify in Saudi Arabia: Payments, Arabic, Shipping and Setup

Yes, you can sell on Shopify in Saudi Arabia. Thousands of Saudi brands already do, and Shopify even charges Saudi-registered stores less than US ones.

There's one catch. Shopify Payments, Shopify's built-in checkout, isn't available in the Kingdom.

So you plug in a local payment gateway to take mada and Apple Pay. Shopify then adds a small fee on those orders, and that fee is easy to shrink once you know how it works.

By the end, you'll know what Shopify really costs in KSA, how to get paid and how to launch. You'll also know whether Shopify or a local platform like Salla fits you better.

Can you use Shopify in Saudi Arabia?

Yes. Saudi Arabia is a fully supported Shopify country. You can pick Saudi Arabia as your store address, price in riyals and sell to customers anywhere in the Kingdom.

The Saudi market is ready for you. Most Saudis now pay by card or phone, with SAMA reporting that 85% of retail payments were electronic in 2025. Shoppers are young, mobile-first and happy to buy from brands they find on Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram.

Here's what works differently from a US or UK store:

• Payments. No Shopify Payments, so you connect a Saudi gateway for mada (the national debit card network) and Apple Pay.
• An extra fee. Shopify charges a third-party transaction fee on gateway orders.
• Arabic. You need a right-to-left (RTL) theme and you translate the checkout yourself.
• Shipping. Local couriers connect through apps or aggregators, not Shopify's built-in carrier list.

None of these is a blocker. Each one takes an afternoon to a few days to set up.

How much does Shopify cost in Saudi Arabia?

Shopify sets prices by region, and Saudi stores pay some of the lowest rates anywhere. Register your store under your Saudi business so you get the KSA price.

	Basic	Grow	Advanced	Plus
Monthly price, annual billing	$19	$54	$299	From $2,300 (3-year term)
Monthly price, monthly billing	$27	$72	$399	$2,500 (1-year term)
Fee on gateway orders (not COD)	2%	1%	0.6%	0.2%
Staff accounts	None	5	15	Unlimited
Live courier rates at checkout		Add-on (free on annual)
Languages	20	20	20	30

That puts Basic at about SAR 71 a month on annual billing, close to Salla's and Zid's entry plans.

For most new stores, the real choice is Basic or Grow. The transaction fee decides it more than the plan price does.

Budget for a few extras too:

• A paid RTL theme, if the free ones don't suit you: $150–$420 one-off.
• Apps for COD verification, reviews and translation: often free to start, then about $10–$70 a month each.
• A ZATCA e-invoicing app, once you're VAT-registered: about SAR 100–300 a month.

Getting paid without Shopify Payments

Shopify Payments works in 41 countries. In the Gulf, only the UAE is on the list, so a Saudi store uses a third-party gateway.

That's normal here. Every serious Saudi Shopify store runs on one.

Which gateways work with Shopify in KSA?

A gateway is the company that processes card and wallet payments and pays the money into your bank. Pick one with a Shopify app, so customers pay inside Shopify's own checkout. Our Saudi Shopify gateway guide compares each one in depth.

	Shopify connection	mada + Apple Pay	Published KSA rates
Tap Payments	Native Checkout app		Quote
Amazon Payment Services	App Store app		mada 1%, cards 2.8% + SAR 1, SAR 200/month
HyperPay	App Store app		Quote
Geidea	App Store app (2025), includes Tabby and Tamara		Quote
PayTabs	Plugin from the PayTabs dashboard		Paymes: mada 1%, cards 2.25% + SAR 1, SAR 49/month
ClickPay	App Store app		Quote
Moyasar	No Shopify app	–	–

To sign up, gateways ask for your CR, a Saudi business bank account (IBAN), the owner's ID and a live website with a refund policy. Approval usually takes two to five business days.

Then install the gateway's app, add your API keys and switch on mada and Apple Pay. Show the mada logo at checkout, because Saudi shoppers look for it.

The third-party transaction fee, in plain numbers

On every order paid through a gateway, Shopify takes its own cut on top of what Saudi gateways charge. The rate depends on your plan, from 2% on Basic down to 0.2% on Plus.

For example, take a SAR 300 order on Shopify Basic using Amazon Payment Services' published rates:

Notice something? On a mada order, Shopify's fee is twice the gateway's.

That's why the plan matters. Moving from Basic to Grow cuts the Shopify fee from 2% to 1%.

On annual billing, Grow costs $35 more a month, about SAR 131. So Grow pays for itself once you process roughly SAR 13,000 a month through your gateway.

Two more ways to keep the fee down:

• Push mada and Apple Pay. They cost far less than credit cards. Ask your gateway to price mada inside Apple Pay at the mada rate.
• Remember COD is free of Shopify's fee. Cash on delivery is a manual payment method, so Shopify doesn't charge on it.

Compare gateway costs with your own numbers

Enter your monthly sales, order count and payment mix. Then switch plans to see where your break-even sits.

Buy now, pay later: Tabby, Tamara and MISpay

BNPL lets shoppers split a purchase into interest-free instalments. It's popular in Saudi Arabia and tends to lift order values.

All three main providers have free Shopify apps: Tabby, Tamara Split Payments and MISpay, which launched its app in February 2026. You sign a merchant contract first, and the provider charges its fee per order, usually a few percent.

Two rules to know. Saudi BNPL must be priced in riyals, and Shopify's third-party fee applies to BNPL orders too.

Start with one provider at launch and add the second once you see your approval rates.

Cash on delivery on Shopify

COD is shrinking fast in Saudi Arabia, but new brands still need it. Shoppers who don't know you yet often want to see the product before they pay.

Sellers launching new direct-to-consumer stores report that COD can be 40–60% of their first orders. That share drops as reviews and repeat customers build trust.

Turning it on takes a minute. Go to Settings > Payments > Manual payment methods and add Cash on Delivery.

The work is in cutting refused deliveries. Here's what experienced sellers do:

• Use a COD form app with OTP. Releasit COD Form is the most popular, rated 4.9 from about 2,450 reviews and free up to 60 orders a month. COD-Verify and ClickFlow add OTP checks and partial prepayment.
• Confirm by WhatsApp before dispatch. One UAE courier reports this cuts returns by 10 to 15 percentage points.
• Charge a small COD fee and say so clearly. Saudi couriers charge you about SAR 3–14 per COD parcel.
• Reward prepayment. A small discount for mada or Apple Pay moves shoppers off cash.

Courier COD cash usually reaches you in one to two weeks, so plan your cash flow for it. Our cash on delivery guide shows how to keep refusals low.

Arabic and right-to-left on Shopify

Shopify handles Arabic storefronts well once two pieces are in place: an RTL theme and a proper translation.

Pick an RTL theme

Arabic reads right to left, so menus, galleries and carts must mirror. The Theme Store tags 24 paid themes as right-to-left, including Prestige, Impact and Symmetry. They cost $150–$420 one-off.

Shopify also says its free Horizon-family themes support RTL. Publish Arabic in a preview and check the header, menu drawer, product gallery, cart drawer and footer before you commit.

Translate the store and the checkout

Add Arabic in Settings > Languages. Shopify's free Translate & Adapt app machine-translates up to two languages, including Arabic.

Since October 2026, Shopify's checkout itself displays right to left. Here's the catch most sellers miss: Arabic still isn't one of the 33 languages Shopify pre-translates in checkout.

So translate the checkout text and order notifications yourself. Otherwise your Arabic customers hit an English checkout at the last step.

A few more habits pay off:

• Have a native speaker edit titles and navigation. Machine Arabic often reads stiff, and it misses the words Saudis search for.
• Use Western digits for prices, the same ones you see on Saudi price tags. Many Saudi stores show Eastern Arabic digits by accident.
• Use subfolders such as /ar-sa and /en-sa through Shopify Markets. They keep your SEO on one domain.

Need more than Translate & Adapt? Weglot starts at €15 a month and LangShop at $10, and our Arabic Shopify setup guide helps you choose.

Shipping orders across Saudi Arabia

Saudi delivery is fast and competitive. Riyadh alone accounts for about 44% of delivery orders, so most couriers invest heavily in the big cities.

The main couriers are Aramex, SMSA, SPL (Saudi Post), J&T, Naqel and iMile. A Riyadh to Jeddah parcel costs about SAR 14–22 through an aggregator.

Connecting them to Shopify takes a little planning:

• Official carrier apps are weak. Aramex's and SMSA's Shopify apps are both rated 1.7 out of 5.
• Aggregators are the easy route. OTO and Shipox connect several couriers in one dashboard, and many sellers use them for labels and COD tracking.
• Live rates need the right plan. Showing courier rates at checkout needs carrier-calculated shipping. It's included on Advanced and Plus, an add-on on Grow (free on annual billing) and not available on Basic.
• On Basic, use flat rates. A free-shipping threshold, such as SAR 200, works well and keeps checkout simple.

Make the phone number required at checkout, because Saudi couriers call or WhatsApp the customer before delivery.

Legal setup for a Saudi Shopify store

Shopify is just the software. The legal side is the same as for any Saudi online store, from your CR to ZATCA e-invoicing, and it's simpler than it sounds.

1

Get a commercial registration (CR)

A CR is your Saudi business licence. A sole establishment costs SAR 500 and the Ministry of Commerce decides complete applications within 10 days. Gateways and couriers ask for it.

2

Add your online store to the CR

The E-Commerce Law asks you to register your e-shop in your CR within 30 days of launch.

3

Open a business bank account

Gateways pay out to a Saudi IBAN in your business's name.

4

Register for VAT when you need to

Registration is mandatory above SAR 375,000 of sales a year and voluntary from SAR 187,500. Show prices including 15% VAT.

5

Set up ZATCA e-invoicing

VAT-registered stores issue compliant e-invoices. Wave 25 brings businesses above SAR 187,500 into full integration by 1 February 2027.

6

Publish the required store details

Show your CR number, contact details, prices with VAT, delivery times and your returns policy, including the 7-day cancellation right.

How to launch your Shopify store in Saudi Arabia

Here's the order that saves the most time. Start the slow steps, like gateway approval and translation, on day one.

Our full Shopify GCC setup guide walks through every setting step by step.

When Shopify beats Salla and Zid

Salla and Zid are Saudi platforms built Arabic-first. They bundle mada, BNPL, COD, couriers and ZATCA invoicing out of the box, with no extra transaction fee.

Shopify is the global platform. It gives you a far bigger app and theme ecosystem, and the best tools for selling in several countries.

	Shopify	Salla / Zid
Entry price	$19–27/month (KSA)	SAR 99/month
Extra fee on online payments	0.2–2% by plan	None
mada, Apple Pay, BNPL, COD	Via gateway and apps	Built in
Arabic dashboard and support	English-first	Arabic-first
ZATCA e-invoicing	Third-party app	Built in
Apps	8,000+	Hundreds, locally focused
Selling to other countries	Best: Shopify Markets	Mainly Saudi and GCC
Customisation	High	Medium

So who should pick Shopify?

• Brands selling beyond Saudi Arabia, to the UAE, Europe or the US, from one store.
• Global brands that already run Shopify in other countries.
• Stores that need custom design or features, or a big app ecosystem.
• Saudi brands planning to expand within the next year or two.

Pick Salla or Zid if you sell only in Saudi Arabia, want everything in Arabic and want the lowest running cost. For a store doing SAR 50,000 a month, one Saudi consultant puts Shopify Basic's first year at almost double the cost of Salla Pro or Zid.

The full head-to-head is in our Shopify vs Salla vs Zid comparison.

Notes for UAE-based companies

• You can use Shopify Payments. A UAE trade licence qualifies, at 2.9% + AED 1 per card payment on Basic, with no third-party fee. Our guide to Shopify in the UAE covers the setup.
• You can charge Saudi shoppers in SAR through Shopify Markets, with a 2% currency conversion fee.
• You won't get domestic mada. Saudi mada cards are charged as Visa or Mastercard, so expect some declines.
• Add a Saudi entity when sales grow. Many brands then run a second store with a local gateway.

Notes for foreign and Chinese brands

• The E-Commerce Law still applies. It covers sellers outside Saudi Arabia who sell to Saudi consumers, including the 7-day cancellation right.
• Domestic mada needs a Saudi entity. A foreign store takes Saudi cards through Visa and Mastercard, using gateways like Stripe or Checkout.com.
• Parcels under SAR 1,000 are duty-free, but 15% VAT applies at any value.
• A full Saudi trading company is a big step. A 100% foreign-owned trader needs SAR 30 million in capital, so most brands start with a local distributor, an importer of record or the marketplaces. Our guide to selling from China to Saudi Arabia compares each route.

Notes for Salla and Zid merchants moving to Shopify

• Products, customers and orders transfer. Themes, apps and payment settings don't, so you rebuild those.
• Plan two to four weeks for a standard store.
• Set up 301 redirects from your old URLs and keep them for at least a year to protect your Google rankings. Our Salla to Shopify migration guide has the full checklist.

Notes for larger brands

• Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 a month on a three-year term and cuts the third-party fee to 0.2%.
• Expansion stores let you run separate Saudi and UAE stores, each with its own currency and gateway.
• Plus unlocks checkout customisation, which some gateway and BNPL features need. See Shopify Plus in the GCC before you sign a long contract.

Get help with your Saudi Shopify store

Want a store that's built right first time? Gateway setup, Arabic checkout and courier apps are where most launches stall, and a local partner can save weeks.

Start with the payment gateways below. They were independently researched, and none paid to be listed.