Shopify’s revenue grew 32 per cent in the third quarter to $3.74 billion USD (about $5.24 billion CAD), the company reported Tuesday. That was a little short of the $3.75 billion to $3.77 billion USD analysts expected, BetaKit reports, and Bloomberg called it Shopify’s first revenue miss in four years. Shares fell about 9 per cent at the open on the TSX and Nasdaq before recovering part of the drop.
The numbers
| Q3 2026 (USD) | Result | A year earlier |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $3.74 billion | $2.84 billion |
| Gross merchandise volume (sales on Shopify stores) | $119.1 billion | $92.0 billion |
| Operating income | $568 million | $343 million |
| Net income | $462 million | $264 million |
| Free cash flow | $816 million (22% of revenue) | $507 million (18%) |
Source: Shopify’s Q3 release. CAD conversion at the Bank of Canada’s Nov. 3 rate.
Most of the growth came from merchant solutions, which rose 35 per cent to $2.91 billion USD. Subscription revenue grew 20 per cent to $836 million USD. Gross merchandise volume, the value of everything sold through Shopify stores, rose 29 per cent, which BetaKit says was also slightly below expectations.
A miss, by how much?
Not much. Revenue came in about $8 million to $28 million USD under forecasts, less than 1 per cent. Operating income rose 66 per cent, and earnings per share beat projections, BetaKit reports. President Harley Finkelstein said Shopify “delivered exactly what we said we would.” BetaKit reports the growth matched Shopify’s own forecast.
For the current quarter, Shopify again expects revenue growth in the low 30s per cent and gross profit growth in the high 20s.
The agent bet
Finkelstein said this was the “first time we saw shoppers experimenting with delegated purchasing through personal agents,” according to BetaKit. In the release, he said Shopify is building commerce into “every surface, every agent, and increasingly, everywhere.” That’s a contrast with Canada’s big banks, which are blocking personal AI agents from customer accounts.
Why it matters: Shopify is growing at the pace it promised and is much more profitable than a year ago. The share drop says more about how high investors’ expectations are than about the business. For Canadian merchants who sell on Shopify, the bigger story is the push to let AI agents shop on customers’ behalf.