Shopify Sanctions Screening Cost: Free Plans, Usage and Review Time | MatchAudit Learn
Shopify Sanctions Screening Cost: Free Plans, Usage and Review Time
Estimate screening volume, compare included allowances and usage charges, and budget for human review and evidence exports before choosing a Shopify app plan.
•4 min read
Estimate Shopify sanctions-screening cost from completed screening activity, plan allowances, usage charges and staff review time—not order count alone. MatchAudit offers a Free plan and paid plans with included volumes. Confirm current prices and billing terms on the app listing and Billing page before choosing a plan.
A free allowance can be useful for testing a workflow. A production budget also needs to cover what happens when volume rises or a case needs a person to investigate it.
Count the workflow that will run
Start with expected new orders, then identify other screening activity. Relevant name, company or address changes can create additional screenings. Separate customer checks, on-demand Directory checks and Flow screening actions can affect usage too.
MatchAudit avoids a separate customer charge when the checkout customer is covered by the order screening under its documented deduplication rules. Payment capture, fulfillment, notes and tags do not by themselves count as new screenings. Test orders count, so include launch rehearsals in your estimate.
Some app-initiated checks, including list-update rechecks and Retry failed checks, do not consume the allowance under the documented pricing rules. Check the Billing page and current terms rather than assuming every recheck is either free or billable.
Paid plans include evidence exports. Optional AI explanation allowances and usage charges are a separate part of the estimate. Do not confuse the Shopify app plans with MatchAudit's other products or website pricing.
For a plan with a flat extra-screening rate, calculate:
Screening estimate = base price + max(0, completed screenings − included screenings) × extra-screening rate
For an illustrative 600 completed screenings in an allowance period, with no extra AI usage:
Starter: $23 + 500 × $0.18 = $113.
Growth: $63 + 100 × $0.12 = $75.
Scale: $159, because 600 is within its included volume.
This example shows why the lowest base subscription need not produce the lowest bill. It is an allowance-period comparison, not a prediction of a particular invoice. Monthly allowance resets and Shopify's subscription and usage billing cycles can have different boundaries. Graduated high-volume rates need a tier-by-tier calculation.
Compare your normal month and a busy month. Include launches, address corrections and deliberate on-demand screening. Recalculate after observing actual app usage rather than permanently using the first estimate.
Budget for human review separately
Review time can be a larger operating cost than a small difference in subscription price. Use an internal estimate based on your actual queue:
For example, 12 cases at 15 minutes each total three hours. At an illustrative internal cost of $30 per hour, that is $90 in review labor. These are planning assumptions, not MatchAudit performance claims.
Track why cases appear. Poor buyer data, ambiguous names, country warnings and unavailable checks require different follow-up. Improving source information and routing can make the workflow easier to operate; lowering thresholds or skipping checks purely to cut cost can change the protection you intended to buy.
Understand the free-plan boundary
MatchAudit's Free plan includes 20 screenings. Once that allowance is exhausted, additional orders are not screened until the next monthly reset and are tagged matchaudit-not-screened. Do not treat those orders as cleared.
Paid plans continue screening beyond their included volume and apply the published usage rate. Define who monitors usage and how unscreened orders are handled before enabling a production dispatch workflow.
Optional AI explanations have their own allowance and, on paid plans, a merchant-set spend limit for extra analyses. That limit is not a sanctions-screening spend cap. Pausing AI explanations does not pause deterministic screening or make an unresolved case safe to release.
Choose a plan around the complete process
Compare expected screenings, peak volume, AI use, review staffing and evidence needs. Use the app-selection guide to assess coverage and workflow alongside price, and review the customer-data checklist before installation.
After launch, monitor actual completed screenings and unresolved cases. A sustainable plan keeps required checks running and gives staff enough time to make documented decisions.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free Shopify sanctions-screening plan?
MatchAudit's published Free plan includes 20 screenings and 20 AI explanations. Confirm current allowances on the app listing and Billing page before relying on them.
Does one Shopify order always equal one billable screening?
No. Relevant order updates, separate customer checks and some Flow or Directory actions can add screenings. Count the actual workflow rather than order volume alone.
What happens after MatchAudit's free screening allowance is used?
On Free, further orders are not screened until the next monthly allowance reset and receive the matchaudit-not-screened tag. Paid plans continue screening with published usage charges.
Put the workflow into practice
Install MatchAudit from the Shopify App Store to add sanctions and country-risk screening to your Shopify review process. Confirm current coverage, plan allowances and compatibility with your fulfillment or delivery workflow.
Published and checked 13 October 2026 by MatchAudit. Examples and cost calculations are illustrative; source links and current product terms govern their respective details.
Plan sanctions checks for digital orders and keep downloads, license keys and account access pending until the required screening and review finish.
