BigCommerce and Authorize.Net in Canada: what works, what it costs, and when it fits.

The short answer

• It works in Canada. BigCommerce lists Authorize.Net among its Canadian gateways, and its help article names Canada as a supported country.
• It now costs extra on self-serve plans. BigCommerce calls it the Open Payment Provider fee. Core pays 2.0%, Growth 1.0% and Scale 0.6% of the orders it covers.
• The fee is on top of processing. BigCommerce says it is separate from any fees your payment provider charges, and you may not pass it on to shoppers.
• Performance plans are treated differently. BigCommerce says Performance stores on contracted terms do not pay it.
• Offline orders count too. BigCommerce applies the fee to orders paid outside its platform, including purchase orders, whatever gateway you use.

How a payment travels

A shopper pays at your BigCommerce checkout. BigCommerce sends the card to Authorize.Net with your API keys. Authorize.Net passes it to the processor behind your merchant account, which settles to your bank.

What BigCommerce does with Authorize.Net

Canada and Canadian dollars

BigCommerce's help article lists Canada as a supported country for its Authorize.Net connection. Its Canada gateway page also lists Authorize.Net. That page still says you can grow "without penalty fees", which was written before the June 2026 change.

On currency, BigCommerce says you need a new merchant account for each currency you offer. Authorize.Net says each gateway account is set to one currency, so a second currency needs a second account. Read together, selling in CAD and USD means two of each. See one currency per account on our main Authorize.Net page.

CleverPays can open both, a CAD Authorize.Net account and a USD one, and add American Express to them.

The Open Payment Provider fee, in numbers

BigCommerce works out the fee per order. If Authorize.Net processed the order, the order counts. It starts from your gross order value, takes off 10% (BigCommerce calls the result Inclusive GMV, or gross merchandise value), then removes orders paid through Embedded providers. The fee is billed monthly in arrears, on the prior calendar month, as its own line on your invoice.

An example only, not a quote. Say a store has $100,000 a month of orders that count toward the fee, after BigCommerce's 10% reduction. That is about $111,000 of gross orders.

This is on top of your card processing costs and your plan price. Plan limits matter too. BigCommerce sets a yearly sales limit of $30,000 on Core and $100,000 on Growth, so a store this size would sit on Scale. Scale also charges 0.9% on GMV above $33,333 a month. That overage applies whatever provider you use.

When Authorize.Net still makes sense on BigCommerce

• You are on Performance with contracted terms. BigCommerce says those stores do not pay the fee.
• The fee is smaller than the cost of switching. BigCommerce itself says this is true for some stores. It puts a switch at two weeks to four months.
• You need one gateway across several systems. Your ERP, phone orders and BigCommerce may already share one Authorize.Net account and one set of reports.
• You rely on an Authorize.Net feature. For example, saved CIM profiles your team already uses.

When it may not

• Most of your volume is card orders on Core or Growth. You pay 2.0% or 1.0% of those orders to BigCommerce, on top of processing.
• You are a growing Scale store. At 0.6%, the fee rises with every dollar of card sales.
• You expect a switch to clear the fee on purchase orders. It will not. Offline orders carry the fee on any gateway.

Limits to know before you rely on it

• No 3D Secure. BigCommerce says its Authorize.Net connection does not support 3DS, the extra cardholder check some banks ask for.
• Refunds wait for settlement. Authorize.Net settles in a batch every 24 hours. A failed refund cannot be retried in BigCommerce. You wait 24 hours and retry in Authorize.Net.
• Stored cards need CIM. Without it, the stored card setting will not work.
• Security code on digital goods. Authorize.Net always asks for it on orders with digital products, even if you turned it off.
• The Embedded list can change. BigCommerce says changes apply to future orders, with advance notice.

Who this fits

These are hypothetical examples, not customers.

Changing the processor behind BigCommerce

You can keep Authorize.Net and change the processor behind it. Authorize.Net says this does not touch your API set-up, so your BigCommerce keys stay as they are. Plan for refunds on older sales and keep the old merchant account open for a while. The steps are on our main page under keep Authorize.Net, change the processor.

A processor change does not take you off the Open Payment Provider fee. Authorize.Net is still the provider BigCommerce sees. Moving to an Embedded provider is a different job, and cards saved in CIM do not move by themselves.

Where CleverPays fits

BigCommerce owns its Authorize.Net connection and sets the Open Payment Provider fee. Authorize.Net runs the gateway. The processor approves and settles your payments. CleverPays does not make or support BigCommerce, and we cannot change or waive BigCommerce's fee.

We can review your current statement and your BigCommerce invoice together, so you see processing and the platform fee side by side. We can open the Authorize.Net account and the Canadian merchant account behind it. We can connect it to BigCommerce with you, test payments, refunds and the first deposit, and stay your contact after launch, in English and French. We can also open a USD account and add American Express.