If Shopify causes you financial harm, the most you can recover is either $100 or the total fees you paid Shopify over the past 12 months, whichever is greater. You also cannot recover for lost profits, lost data, or indirect damages.
This analysis describes what Shopify's agreement states, permits, or reserves. It does not constitute a legal determination about enforceability. Regulatory applicability and practical outcomes may vary by jurisdiction, enforcement context, and individual circumstances. Read our methodology
The clause defines the maximum financial exposure Shopify accepts for service-related claims and narrows the categories of damages recoverable. This structure allocates risk by excluding entire classes of damages and establishing a monetary ceiling on liability regardless of actual harm incurred.
The updated terms clarify the legal identity of the Shopify entity you contract with and establish which courts have exclusive jurisdiction to resolve disputes, depending on your store's billing address. Previously, the terms specified exclusive jurisdiction by region (Ontario for US/Canada, Singapore for Asia Pacific, Ireland for EMEA and other areas). The revised structure presents this information in a table format and adds explicit language stating that disputes can only be brought in the courts listed for your region, with those courts having exclusive jurisdiction. Shopify Inc. may act as a billing agent for other Shopify entities to collect fees and remit taxes in some jurisdictions. You can review the contracting party and forum table in Section 13 to confirm which entity and courts apply to your store based on your billing address.
View change record →A merchant experiencing a major platform outage, data breach, or wrongful account termination that causes tens of thousands of dollars in business losses would be limited to recovering at most their annual Shopify subscription fees, and could not recover for lost profits or other consequential damages.
How other platforms handle this
If you knowingly misrepresent that any activity or material on our Services is infringing, you may be liable to ActiveCampaign for certain costs and damages.
A party's liability for any Liability under these Terms will be reduced proportionately to the extent the relevant Liability was caused or contributed to by the actions (or inactions) of the other party...
The Netflix service and/or some of the Netflix content may not be available at any time as a result of events beyond our reasonable control...we will not be held liable should such events occur.
"In no event shall Shopify, our officers, directors, employees, partners, agents, suppliers, or affiliates, be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, including without limitation, loss of profits, data, use, goodwill, or other intangible losses, resulting from your access to or use of (or failure to access or use) the Service or any conduct or content of any third party on the Service. In no event will Shopify's aggregate liability to you exceed the greater of one hundred dollars ($100) or the amount you have paid Shopify in the last 12 months.Excerpt from Shopify's Terms of Service
REGULATORY LANDSCAPE: Limitation of liability clauses are standard in commercial SaaS agreements and are generally enforceable in most US jurisdictions for business-to-business contracts.
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The clause defines the maximum financial exposure Shopify accepts for service-related claims and narrows the categories of damages recoverable. This structure allocates risk by excluding entire classes of damages and establishing a monetary ceiling on liability regardless of actual harm incurred.
A merchant experiencing a major platform outage, data breach, or wrongful account termination that causes tens of thousands of dollars in business losses would be limited to recovering at most their annual Shopify subscription fees, and could not recover for lost profits or other consequential damages.
ConductAtlas has identified this type of provision across 287 platforms. See the full comparison.
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