If you’re a cross-border merchant looking to expand into Brazil, finding the right platform and payment setup is often the biggest obstacle. Many international brands want to sell into Brazil but underestimate how different the Brazilian payment ecosystem and consumer behavior are from the rest of the world.
This is where Shopify enters the conversation. With its reliable infrastructure, flexible storefronts, and a global ecosystem that removes much of the operational burden, it stands out as one of the most efficient ways to launch or scale a Brazilian operation.
But there’s a critical nuance: Shopify alone doesn’t solve Brazil’s payment realities. The platform’s default payment options are built for international markets, not for a country where the majority of shoppers pay with local methods. Without these, conversion rates drop sharply — something many merchants discover only after going live.
Whether you’re already on Shopify or considering moving to the platform, this article will help you understand what it can do extremely well — and where it requires a specialized partner to truly perform in Brazil.
In the sections ahead, we’ll break down how Shopify fits into the Brazilian payment landscape, why local methods are essential, and how PagBrasil’s Shopify App gives cross-border merchants the complete, localized checkout experience they need to succeed from day one.
What Should Cross-Border Merchants Know About Shopify Payments in Brazil?
Shopify Payments is the platform’s native solution — designed to make it easy for merchants in many countries to start accepting online payments with minimal configuration. For businesses selling domestically in supported markets, it’s a convenient, streamlined option.
Unfortunately, however, Shopify Payments is not available in Brazil. This means all merchants — local or cross-border — must use a third-party payment provider to process transactions.
This is where choice becomes critical: Brazil requires local payment methods, but most third-party providers are not tailored to the Brazilian market. They may allow you to accept payments on Shopify, but they do not solve the fundamental problem of conversions. Without locally preferred options and Brazil-specific fraud protection, even a well-designed Shopify store will underperform.
Whether you’re already on Shopify or evaluating it as your platform, the takeaway is the same: Shopify is an excellent platform for selling to Brazil, but only when paired with a payment solution purpose-built for the Brazilian market.
Why Are Local Payment Methods Essential for Shopping in Brazil?
Since Shopify Payments isn’t available in Brazil, every merchant must rely on a third-party provider. But as we noted above, many global providers lack local payment methods, leaving a major gap between what you can accept and how Brazilians actually pay.
This is why choosing a partner that supports local payment methods is critical. In Brazil, these methods aren’t a “nice to have”; they’re the core of the country’s e-commerce behavior.
Here’s what makes them so essential:
- International cards reach only a small portion of shoppers: A significant portion of Brazilians don’t have credit cards, and those who do use domestic-only cards. Without support for local cards, a large percentage of customers simply cannot complete payment — no matter how strong your product or traffic is.
- Pix is now the default way Brazilians pay online: Pix, Brazil’s popular instant-payment system, has become the country’s dominant payment method. Merchants who don’t offer it to customers see immediate conversion loss.
- Installments (“parcelas”) unlock higher-value purchases: Brazilian shoppers expect to be able to divide payments into monthly installments on local cards. Without installments, higher-ticket items become much harder to sell.
In other words, local methods are the gateway to Brazil’s real buying power. A provider that doesn’t offer them will face difficulty in converting most shoppers, even if everything else is optimized.
This is why the right payment partner matters just as much as the platform itself. Shopify gives you the storefront; local payments give you the conversions.
How Does PagBrasil Solve These Shopify Payment Challenges?
Since 2015, PagBrasil has offered an all-in-one solution that gives international merchants everything they need to sell effectively in Brazil through Shopify — without complexity, delays, or the need for local infrastructure. It handles all the heavy lifting behind the scenes — local payment processing, compliance, settlement, and regulatory requirements — so you can go live quickly and start selling without opening a local entity.
Our Shopify app makes the experience even simpler. With a single integration, you instantly add all the essential local payment methods Brazilian shoppers expect. The result: a checkout fully aligned with how Brazilians pays today, powered by a solution tailored for high performance.
What Are the Key Payment Features in PagBrasil’s Shopify App?
Once PagBrasil is connected to your Shopify store, you’re not just adding payments —you’re unlocking a checkout fully optimized for how Brazilians buy online. Our app brings together the most important local payment methods, conversion-boosting features, and Brazil-specific optimizations in a single, lightweight, and plug-and-play integration.
In the next sections, we’ll break down exactly how these capabilities help you drive higher authorization rates, reduce friction at checkout, and scale your cross-border operation with confidence.
Achieve Higher Conversions with PagBrasil Pix
Pix is Brazil’s instant payment system, created by the Central Bank and now used by nearly every adult in the country. It’s fast, free of charge, convenient, and available 24/7, making it the preferred way Brazilians pay online.
PagBrasil enhances this already powerful payment method with PagBrasil Pix, an optimized version designed specifically to improve checkout performance for international merchants selling through Shopify.
One of the biggest conversion drivers is our exclusive 1-Click Pix. After a shopper pays with Pix once, they can authorize future purchases in a single tap — no QR code, no copy-and-paste, and no switching to their banking app. This frictionless checkout dramatically decreases drop-offs and encourages repeat purchases.
For shoppers, it feels seamless. For merchants, it delivers significantly higher conversion rates — above 90% — compared to the market average and a smoother path to scale in Brazil.
Reach More Customers with Local Cards and Installments
Although Pix continues to grow, credit cards remain a dominant payment method, with well over 200 million active credit cards in the country. But Brazil’s card ecosystem is unique: most shoppers use local-only card brands or cards that aren’t enabled for international purchases.
That’s why offering true local card processing is essential. Without it, even legitimate customers may have their payments declined.
PagBrasil’s Shopify app solves this by processing all major local cards, including domestic-only brands, ensuring far higher authorization rates for cross-border merchants. On top of that, you can offer installment payments (parcelamento) — a core expectation in Brazilian e-commerce that increases affordability and boosts average order value. Installments are fully configurable, allowing you to define the maximum number of installments, set a minimum amount per installment, and even choose whether to pass interest fees on to the shopper.
Appeal to Brazil’s Mobile-First Population with Digital Wallets
Beyond Pix and local cards, digital wallets are increasingly shaping how Brazilians pay online, with 84% having used them within the last year. To help merchants stay aligned with this shift, PagBrasil’s Shopify app offers both Apple Pay and Google Pay with the option to pay in installments — delivering a seamless, localized, tap-and-go checkout experience powered by the only Brazil-focused payment processor certified to enable both wallets as plug-and-play solutions directly on Shopify.
Offering wallet payments gives your store broader reach, faster checkout flows, enhanced security, and a more convenient experience — especially for shoppers who prefer not to type in their card information. This is a major advantage in Brazil, where customers are 1.5 times more likely than the global average to manually enter card details at checkout, according to PYMNTS Global Digital Shopping Index. By eliminating this step, Apple Pay and Google Pay significantly reduce friction and increase approval rates, since they rely on stored, pre-verified credentials.
By adding digital wallets through PagBrasil, you give shoppers more flexibility and reduce friction, ensuring your checkout meets the expectations of Brazil’s rapidly evolving payment landscape.
Unlock a Superior Boleto Experience with Boleto Flash®
Boleto is one of Brazil’s most traditional payment methods. While not as popular since the rise of Pix, it still represents a share of e-commerce transactions and should not be overlooked. One of its biggest drawbacks, however, is speed: boletos can take 1–3 business days to confirm, delaying order processing and delivery.
Boleto Flash® solves this. Developed by PagBrasil, it’s a proprietary enhancement to boleto that delivers payment confirmation within one business hour, or instantly when paid with Pix. This means merchants can ship orders faster, reduce customer support cases related to slow confirmations, and offer a smoother buying experience — especially for shoppers who rely on boleto as their primary way to pay.
For cross-border merchants selling on Shopify, Boleto Flash® adds a level of agility that standard boleto simply can’t match.
Optimize the Checkout Experience with Exclusive Features
Even with the right payment methods, many international merchants struggle with Shopify checkout performance in Brazil. Redirects, slow confirmation times, and limited customization options can all create friction — and even small hurdles can drastically reduce conversion rates in a price-sensitive and mobile-first market like Brazil.
PagBrasil’s Shopify app was built specifically to solve these issues. Beyond adding local payment methods, it introduces exclusive checkout enhancements designed to increase approval rates, reduce drop-offs, and give merchants more control over how customers interact with their store:
- Transparent Checkout: Payments are completed directly inside the store’s checkout with no redirects — creating a smoother, more trustworthy experience that reduces drop-offs, especially on mobile.
- Payment-Method Discounts: Easily offer automatic discounts for methods like Pix, a common practice in Brazil that boosts conversions and encourages lower-cost payment options.
- Enhanced Pixel Tracking: Built-in support for Meta’s Conversion API and advanced pixel tracking ensures more accurate attribution, better audience targeting, and stronger ad performance in a highly competitive market.
- Multi-Acquirer & Multi-Bank Stability: Our infrastructure routes transactions through multiple acquirers and banking partners, ensuring your payment methods remain available even if one provider experiences issues. This translates into higher uptime, more stable performance, and fewer lost sales.
These optimizations work together to increase conversions and deliver a checkout flow tailored to Brazilian consumer behavior.
Easily Manage Subscriptions with PagStream®
Subscriptions are becoming a core revenue driver for cross-border merchants, but Brazil’s recurring payment landscape has its own obstacles. International cards have low success rates, local cards may face recurring-charge restrictions, and traditional billing models often fail due to insufficient limits or outdated customer data.
PagBrasil solves this with PagStream®, our subscription-management and recurring payments solution built specifically for the Brazilian market and fully compatible with Shopify.
Not only does PagStream® support recurring billing through Brazil’s essential local payment methods, but it also gives merchants the tools they need to grow and manage a high-performing subscription business, including a subscriber portal where customers can update payment details, add or change products, pause subscriptions, and view billing history, as well as a promotion engine where merchants can create automated, personalized campaigns.
For cross-border Shopify merchants, PagStream® is the simplest way to launch a subscription model in Brazil that is reliable, optimized, and built for scale — without needing a local entity or building complex infrastructure.
Protect Against Fraud and Maximize Approvals with PagShield®
Brazil is one of the world’s most dynamic e-commerce markets—but it also has one of the highest rates of credit card fraud. Issues like friendly fraud, misuse of chargebacks, and patterns specific to the local payments ecosystem can create real risk for international merchants. Traditional, globally focused fraud tools often fail to catch these nuances, leading to unnecessary declines or costly disputes.
PagShield® solves this by using machine-learning models trained on Brazilian transaction data. It analyzes thousands of real-time signals — such as device behavior, purchase patterns, and geo inconsistencies — to accurately distinguish between genuine customers and high-risk activity. Because PagShield® evaluates credit card transactions in milliseconds, it protects merchants without introducing friction or slowing down the checkout experience.
And when a transaction is flagged as potentially high-risk, PagShield® is reinforced by specialized manual analysis from fraud experts who understand Brazilian patterns and issuer behavior. This human layer ensures that suspicious transactions receive precise evaluation.
The result is powerful: fewer chargebacks, fewer false declines, and higher approval rates, all while maintaining a smooth, friction-free checkout experience for legitimate shoppers. For cross-border merchants, this means more revenue captured and fewer operational headaches.
How Do I Get Started with PagBrasil on Shopify?
Getting started with PagBrasil is simple — and designed for the needs of high-volume cross-border merchants. Whether you’re already selling on Shopify or planning your launch in Brazil, the process is fast, guided, and requires no local entity.
- Speak with a PagBrasil expert to review your business model, volume expectations, and the local payment methods that fit your strategy.
- Install the PagBrasil Shopify app directly from the Shopify App Store.
- Configure your payment preferences and start accepting the methods Brazilians trust most.
With the right partner, entering Brazil doesn’t have to be complex.
Talk to a PagBrasil expert today and start converting more Brazilian shoppers with the localized payment experience they expect.
