Let me tell you the full story.
Chapter 1: The Excitement A merchant installs your app. You’re happy. You tell your mom. She doesn’t understand what you do but says “that’s nice beta.” Life is good. 
Chapter 2: The Usage The merchant starts using your app like there’s no tomorrow. Every feature. Every third-party service. Your provider is billing you left and right. Your bank sends you a notification every 2 minutes.
But you’re smiling because — “business is booming!” 
Chapter 3: The Reality Check You open your Shopify Partner Dashboard.
Pending payouts: $0.00
You refresh. $0.00. You clear cache. $0.00. You restart your laptop. $0.00. You question your career choices. Still $0.00.
You tell yourself: “Maybe it just takes time. Let’s trust the process.” 
Chapter 4: The Plot Twist The merchant uninstalls your app.
You stare at the screen.
Your third-party provider already charged you $$$$$. Shopify charged the merchant: $. Your balance: negative infinity.
You open LinkedIn. You see other developers posting about their app revenue. You close LinkedIn. Slowly. 
Chapter 5: You Contact Support You raise a ticket. You explain everything. You share screenshots. You share a video. You practically share your life story.
Support responds:
“This is how Shopify’s Billing API works for all developers.”
You read it three times. You nod. You make yourself a cup of chai. A strong one. 
Chapter 6: You Look at How Others Do It
AWS — Pay as you go. Upfront. No balance? No service. 
Google Ads — Prepaid wallet. Empty wallet? Ads stop. Simple. 
OpenAI — Card charged in real time. No exceptions.
Shopify: 
“We’ll add it to the merchant’s next invoice. Whenever that is.”
Chapter 7: You Ask the Question Nobody’s Asking
If the merchant is using paid services right now — why isn’t Shopify charging them right now?
It could be this simple: 
Charge in real-time as usage occurs Require a prepaid balance before using paid features Hold the amount when the merchant subscribes Protect the developer when the merchant vanishes mid-cycle
Shopify, we genuinely love building on your platform. This isn’t a complaint — it’s a request from developers who want to keep building without worrying about absorbing costs for services already delivered. 
If you’ve experienced something similar — drop your story in the comments.
Let’s start a conversation that actually leads to change.
Tag someone who builds on Shopify. They should see this. 