Shopify stores can offer a variety of payment methods, including credit cards, Shop Pay, PayPal, local payment methods, and buy now, pay later.
But with more payment method options available, it can be hard to know which ones to show, depending on your sales regions and customers. This is especially true for cross-border ecommerce, where commonly used payment methods vary by country and region, making it time-consuming to manage everything manually.
This is where Shopify's "Managed payment methods" comes in handy. It's a feature where Shopify automatically enables local payment methods based on your sales regions and optimizes the checkout display order for each customer.
This article explains what Managed payment methods can and can't do, points to check before using it, and how to set it up.
※ This article reflects information as of May 2026.
What Is Shopify's Managed Payment Methods?
Managed payment methods is a feature that automatically manages certain payment methods provided through Shopify Payments and optimizes the checkout display order for each customer.
For example, a customer in Belgium might automatically see Bancontact enabled, while a customer in Poland might see BLIK. The display order is also adjusted per customer, so for stores selling across borders, customers are more likely to find a payment method they're familiar with, helping prevent drop-off at checkout.
How It Differs from Regular Shopify Payments
With regular Shopify Payments, the store operator manually enables and disables payment methods one by one from the admin. With Managed payment methods enabled, Shopify automatically handles enabling local payment methods and optimizing the display order.
| Item | Regular Shopify Payments | Managed payment methods |
|---|---|---|
| Adding payment methods | Set up manually by the store operator | Some local payment methods enabled automatically |
| Display order | Shown according to your settings | Optimized per customer |
| Payment methods you've manually disabled | Stay disabled | Not re-enabled on their own |
| Third-party payment methods | Managed by the store operator | Not subject to automatic enabling/disabling |
What Managed Payment Methods Can Do
Managed payment methods can mainly do the following two things.
Automatically Enable Local Payment Methods Based on Your Sales Regions
When you enable Managed payment methods, whichever local payment methods provided through Shopify Payments are suited to your sales regions get enabled automatically.
Local payment methods are payment methods commonly used in a particular country or region. For stores selling across borders, this lets you show payment methods customers are familiar with, reducing friction at checkout. When a new payment method is added, it may also be enabled automatically if it's judged suitable for your customers.
However, if you've already introduced a third-party version of the same payment method, the Shopify Payments version won't be enabled automatically. For example, if you're using Klarna as a third-party payment method, the Shopify Payments version of Klarna won't be a candidate for automatic enabling.
Optimize Payment Methods to Match Each Customer
The order in which payment methods appear at checkout is optimized per customer. Based on the customer's location and regional payment tendencies, payment methods they're more likely to choose are shown first.
This optimization applies not just to local payment methods, but to the payment methods shown at checkout as a whole — credit cards, digital wallets, BNPL (buy now, pay later), and so on. Enabling or disabling third-party payment methods itself isn't covered by Managed payment methods, but their display order is included in the optimization.
Note that if you've already manually customized the display order of payment methods at checkout, that setting takes priority, and Managed payment methods won't override it.
What Managed Payment Methods Can't Do
Managed payment methods is a convenient feature, but it doesn't automate every aspect of payment management. Before adopting it, it's worth understanding what falls outside its scope.
It Requires Shopify Payments
To use Managed payment methods, Shopify Payments must be enabled. Stores in countries or regions where Shopify Payments isn't available, or stores mainly using a different payment provider, may fall outside the scope of Managed payment methods.
For more on Shopify Payments, see the article below.
Automatic Enabling Is Limited to Certain Local Payment Methods
What Managed payment methods automatically enables and disables is limited to certain local payment methods provided through Shopify Payments. The following are outside its scope and need to be managed by the store operator or an app as needed:
- Card brands (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, etc.)
- Cash on delivery
- Manual payment methods
- Gift cards
- Custom payment apps
- Third-party payment provider integrations
Introducing or discontinuing third-party payments, and changing integration details, continues to be managed by the store operator as before.
That said, the overall checkout display order is subject to optimization, so it may affect the display order of third-party payment methods.
It's Not a Way to Fix the Display Order of Payment Methods
Managed payment methods is a feature that optimizes the display order per customer. Because of this, it's not suited to use cases like "I always want this payment method shown first" or "I want to fix this order." If you want fine-grained control over the display order, consider an app that supports checkout customization or payment customization.
It Can't Restrict Payments by Order Amount, Customer Tag, or Product Tag
Managed payment methods can't hide specific payment methods based on conditions such as order amount, customer tags, product tags, or login status.
For example, the following controls can't be handled by Managed payment methods alone:
- Hiding cash on delivery only when the order amount exceeds a certain threshold
- Hiding a specific payment method only for guest customers
- Allowing only customers with a specific customer tag to use bank transfer
- Restricting available payment methods only when a specific product is in the cart
If you want this kind of granular payment restriction, consider a Shopify app that supports payment restrictions. If you need granular payment hiding by condition, RuffRuff Order Limits, covered later, is a good option.
Requirements for Using Managed Payment Methods
To use Managed payment methods, in addition to having Shopify Payments enabled, you need to meet the following requirements.
Shopify Network Intelligence Is Enabled
To use Managed payment methods, Shopify Network Intelligence (SNI) needs to be enabled.
SNI is a mechanism Shopify uses to apply data accumulated across multiple stores toward features like personalization, improved discoverability, and ad optimization. Managed payment methods uses SNI to judge which payment methods suit each customer and to optimize the checkout display order.
You can check whether Shopify Network Intelligence is enabled from Settings > Customer privacy in the Shopify admin.
Shopify admin: Customer privacy
If SNI isn't enabled, you'll be asked to enable it when you turn on Managed payment methods. Also, if you disable SNI after enabling Managed payment methods, Managed payment methods will also be disabled. Re-enabling SNI won't automatically restore Managed payment methods — you'll need to re-enable it separately if needed.
For more details on Shopify Network Intelligence, see the article below.
Check the Scope of Impact If You Use Managed Markets
If you're selling across borders using Managed Markets, you need to pay attention to the scope of Managed payment methods' impact.
Orders from domestic customers are processed through Shopify Payments, where Managed payment methods applies. Orders from cross-border customers, on the other hand, are processed through Managed Markets, so Managed payment methods' impact may be limited mainly to domestic transactions.
Payment methods and fees for cross-border customers are covered in the Shopify Help Center's Managed Markets documentation.
How to Set Up Managed Payment Methods
You can set up Managed payment methods from the Shopify admin. The admin display may change depending on your store's status and Shopify updates, so please check against your actual screen.
Enable Managed Payment Methods
The basic steps to enable Managed payment methods are as follows:
- Open "Settings" from the Shopify admin
- Click "Payments"
- Enable Managed payment methods in the "Payment methods" section
- If SNI isn't enabled, follow the prompts to enable it
After enabling it, check whether any payment methods were added automatically and whether there are any issues with how they appear at checkout.
Disable an Individual Payment Method
Payment methods enabled by Managed payment methods can be disabled individually.
The basic steps are as follows:
- Open "Settings" from the Shopify admin
- Click "Payments"
- Open the payment methods admin screen
- From the menu for the payment method you want to disable, select "Deactivate"
Once you've manually disabled a payment method, Managed payment methods won't re-enable it on its own. If there are payment methods that don't fit how you run your store, disable them individually.
Disable Managed Payment Methods Entirely
You can also disable Managed payment methods itself. Select the option to disable it from "Settings" > "Payments" > "Payment methods" section.
However, disabling Managed payment methods doesn't automatically disable payment methods that were previously enabled automatically. If there are payment methods you no longer want, check and disable them individually after disabling Managed payment methods as a whole.
Points to Check for Shopify Stores in Japan
If you're using Managed payment methods on a Shopify store in Japan, it's important to check whether it fits your sales regions and payment operations.
Check the Difference in Necessity Between Cross-Border and Domestic Sales
The payment methods commonly used by customers overseas vary by country and region. Showing payment methods that customers find familiar at checkout can ease payment concerns and lead to more completed purchases. The more your sales regions expand, the bigger the benefit of streamlining payment method management.
On the other hand, for stores focused mainly on selling within Japan, the change from Managed payment methods may be limited. If you've already built a good purchase experience with credit cards, Shop Pay, PayPal, and buy now, pay later, enabling it may not change much at checkout.
If you're planning to expand overseas in the future, it's reassuring to understand how this works ahead of time.
Check Which Payment Methods Get Automatically Enabled for Stores in Japan
For Shopify Payments in Japan, Bancontact and iDEAL | Wero are offered as local payment methods for customers in Europe. These are only available when the customer is in Belgium (Bancontact) or the Netherlands (iDEAL | Wero) and paying in EUR — note that they aren't payment methods intended for customers within Japan.
For stores selling only within Japan, there are essentially no payment methods that Managed payment methods will enable automatically. If you also sell into Europe as part of cross-border ecommerce, these payment methods may get enabled automatically.
What's Excluded from Automatic Enabling
- Card brands such as Visa, Mastercard, and American Express
- Manual payment
- Gift cards
- Custom payment apps
- Third-party payment provider integrations
- Accelerated checkouts (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Shop Pay, etc.)
Check the Fees for Managed Payment Methods
There's no additional usage fee for Managed payment methods itself.
However, when an order is placed using a payment method enabled by Managed payment methods, the regular Shopify Payments transaction fee applies.
You can check the fees for each payment method in the "Payments" settings in the Shopify admin. Since fees can vary by local payment method, check the fees in advance for any payment methods that were enabled automatically.
For More Granular Payment Control, Use RuffRuff Order Limits
When you need more granular payment restrictions than Managed payment methods alone can provide, consider a Shopify app that supports payment restrictions, such as "RuffRuff Order Limits."
Restrict Payments by Order Amount, Customer Tag, or Product Tag
With RuffRuff Order Limits, you can restrict any payment method based on conditions such as cart amount, products, product tags, customer tags, and login status. What sets it apart is its ability to control which payment methods appear, tailored to your store's own operating rules — something Managed payment methods can't do.
For example, restrictions are possible under conditions such as the following:
- Guests or registered customers
- Specific languages
- Specific collections, specific products, pre-order items
- Specific orders (minimum amount, maximum amount)
You can check the detailed conditions in the RuffRuff Order Limits Help Center's "Payment Rules (Payment Restrictions)" page.
How It Works Alongside Managed Payment Methods
Managed payment methods is a feature that automatically enables and optimizes payment methods that are easy to use, based on sales regions and customers, whereas RuffRuff Order Limits is an app for restricting payment methods you don't want shown, based on your store's own conditions.
For example, in cross-border ecommerce, you could use Managed payment methods to show local customers payment methods that suit them, while using RuffRuff Order Limits to restrict cash on delivery or buy now, pay later for high-value orders.
RuffRuff Order Limits: hiding a specific payment method
Checkout screen: hiding convenience store payment for guest customers (logged in)
Checkout screen: hiding convenience store payment for guest customers (as a guest)
Existing customizations (hiding, reordering, renaming) take priority over Managed payment methods, so Managed payment methods won't override those settings.
Summary
Using Managed payment methods can help reduce drop-off at checkout and improve the user experience. It's especially useful for cross-border ecommerce, making it easier to show payment methods suited to your sales regions and improving the checkout experience. That said, for stores selling only within Japan, the current benefit may be limited, so it's also a reasonable option to consider it once you start planning to expand overseas.
Before enabling Managed payment methods, check your Shopify Payments and Shopify Network Intelligence settings, along with which payment methods are currently enabled.
