Klarna vs Sofort vs SEPA on Shopify: Picking German Payment Methods in 2026

A Berlin streetwear brand told us last quarter they were losing 18% of checkouts because Klarna Pay in 30 days was their only buy-on-invoice option. Their German shoppers wanted Rechnungskauf, they wanted PayPal, and a meaningful slice still wanted SEPA-Lastschrift. The founder had assumed Klarna alone covered the German market, the drop-off heatmap said otherwise.

This is the post we wish that founder had read six months earlier.

Key takeaways:

• Rechnungskauf (buy-on-invoice) is non-negotiable in Germany. Around 28-30% of online purchases still settle this way, more than any other single method.
• Klarna acquired Sofort in 2014. Both run under the Klarna brand today. If you offered “Sofort by Klarna” historically, your checkout already routes through the Klarna app.
• Giropay was phased out at the end of 2024. Replace it with PayPal, SEPA-Lastschrift, or Klarna Pay Now depending on your customer mix.
• Credit card share in Germany sits well below UK and US levels. SEPA-Lastschrift and PayPal carry the volume credit cards do elsewhere.
• Fees range from roughly 0.35 EUR plus 0.50% on SEPA-Lastschrift to 3-5% plus a flat fee on Klarna invoice. Plan the mix around margin, not just acceptance.

Why this matters before you touch a single setting

We run Shopify builds for DACH brands as our shopify development company in Germany, and the single fastest revenue lift we ship is almost never a redesign. It is the payment method mix. A DACH checkout missing Rechnungskauf is a leaking bucket, and the German consumer market has trained itself for two decades on the assumption that you can receive the goods, try them, and pay by bank transfer within 14 days. Take that option away and a noticeable percentage of carts go quiet.

This guide walks through Klarna, Sofort (which is now part of Klarna), SEPA-Lastschrift, and the supporting cast you need around them. We finish with a recommendation framework you can apply in an afternoon.

How each one integrates with Shopify

Klarna on Shopify

Klarna installs through the official Klarna app from the Shopify App Store. Once connected, Shopify exposes Klarna as a payment method group inside checkout, and Klarna decides at runtime which product to offer the buyer: Pay Now, Pay in 30 days (the German Rechnungskauf product), Pay in 3, or financing. The decision happens server-side based on the buyer’s risk profile and order value.

In a German-language checkout you get the full Klarna widget translated to German, with Klarna’s own consent flow for the Schufa check (the German credit bureau lookup) on Pay in 30 days orders. Shopify keeps the buyer on your domain end-to-end for Pay Now and Pay in 30 days. Financing pushes the buyer to Klarna’s hosted page for the longer contract.

The placement we ship most often: Klarna sits below PayPal and above credit card in the checkout list. Klarna’s own data and ours both show that placement order matters more than most teams expect.

Sofort on Shopify

Sofort is no longer a separate product. Klarna acquired Sofort in 2014 and migrated it onto the Klarna brand. What used to be “Sofortüberweisung” is now Klarna Pay Now: the buyer is sent to Klarna, signs into their bank via Klarna’s interface, authorises an instant SEPA transfer, and the merchant gets near-instant settlement confirmation.

If you still have a legacy “Sofort” payment method showing in your Shopify checkout, it is almost certainly the Klarna app rendering it under the old label. We strip the duplicate copy and rely on the unified Klarna Pay Now flow.

SEPA-Lastschrift on Shopify

SEPA Direct Debit, called SEPA-Lastschrift in German, is offered on Shopify through Shopify Payments (where available) or via gateways like Mollie, Stripe, and Adyen. The buyer enters their IBAN, agrees to a SEPA mandate, and your store pulls the funds from their bank account.

For German buyers the mandate language matters. Shopify renders default mandate text in German when the locale is de, but we always review the wording for stores that ship into Austria and Switzerland as well, because the mandate text has to reference the merchant’s name and the SEPA Creditor ID. If you migrate gateways, your existing mandates do not transfer cleanly. Plan for a re-authorisation window when you switch.

Fees and merchant cost

Published rates move every year, and most merchants negotiate from the rack rate once volume crosses about 50,000 EUR per month. The 2026 ranges we see for German Shopify stores look roughly like this.

Method	Typical merchant fee	Settlement	Notes
Klarna Pay Now (formerly Sofort)	1.4-2.0% + ~0.30 EUR	Next business day	Lower than Pay in 30 days because Klarna is not extending credit.
Klarna Pay in 30 days (Rechnungskauf)	2.5-4.5% + ~0.35 EUR	Within 2 business days	Klarna carries the credit risk. Premium for that.
Klarna Financing	2.0-3.5% + monthly admin	2-5 days	Long-tail risk priced into rate.
SEPA-Lastschrift via Shopify Payments	~0.30-0.50 EUR flat or 0.6% + small flat	3-5 business days	The cheapest method on the list at AOV above 60 EUR.
PayPal	1.99-2.49% + 0.35 EUR	Same day	Mentioned for context, dominates the long tail of German checkouts.
Credit card	1.5-2.5% + 0.25 EUR	2-3 business days	Visa, Mastercard. Lower share in Germany than elsewhere.

Klarna invoice is, honestly, the most expensive line on this list and the most likely to be non-negotiable for a German store. We have seen brands accept a 4% effective rate on Klarna invoice because removing it dropped revenue by more than 4%.

What German buyers actually expect at checkout

The German consumer market has its own checkout grammar. We tell every DACH client the same three things.

Rechnungskauf is the floor. Around 28-30% of German ecommerce volume still settles via buy-on-invoice, depending on the survey you trust. EHI Retail Institute and Statista both put it inside that band for 2024 and early 2025. If you are not offering at least one buy-on-invoice product, you are leaving that percentage of the cart on the table.

PayPal is the safety net. PayPal carries somewhere around 25-28% of German ecommerce volume. Buyers reach for it when they do not want to enter card details or IBAN, and they trust the buyer protection. PayPal is the single fastest method to enable and the cheapest insurance against checkout drop-off.

SEPA-Lastschrift is the quiet workhorse. Around 18-22% of German ecommerce still uses SEPA Direct Debit, especially on higher-frequency, lower-AOV stores. It is cheap, it is familiar, and it makes subscription billing viable without re-prompting the buyer.

Credit cards in Germany are nowhere near UK or US levels. Plan on something like 12-15% of volume, not 50%. This single fact changes the rest of the math.

The Giropay phase-out and what replaces it

Giropay shut down at the end of 2024 after the Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft (the German banking association) consortium chose not to continue funding it. The wind-down was orderly, but plenty of Shopify stores left dead Giropay tiles in their checkout into 2025. We saw three or four of them in audits this spring.

The replacement is not a single product, it is a small reshuffle.

• If Giropay was a meaningful share, route those buyers to Klarna Pay Now (instant SEPA transfer authorised through their bank login). The UX is closest to what Giropay offered.
• Add or strengthen SEPA-Lastschrift if you do not already have it.
• Lean harder on PayPal for the buyers who refuse to type IBAN.

We have not yet seen a serious replacement for Giropay’s brand recognition. The closest is Klarna Pay Now, and German buyers recognise the Klarna name well enough now that the loss of brand familiarity has been smaller than we expected.

SEPA-Lastschrift configuration on Shopify

A few things we check on every install.

Mandate language has to be in German for German buyers. Shopify renders the default mandate when the storefront locale is de, but you should review the text. It must include the SEPA Creditor ID (assigned to you by the Bundesbank or your gateway), the merchant name, and the agreement that the buyer can dispute the debit within 8 weeks (the standard SEPA rule).

The 14-day pre-notification rule has been relaxed in most cases, but the mandate text still needs to reference the merchant. Get the legal copy from your gateway, do not write your own.

For subscription stores using Shopify Subscriptions or Recharge, confirm that the SEPA mandate persists across renewals. We had a Düsseldorf supplements brand whose mandates re-prompted on every renewal because of a gateway misconfiguration. That single fix recovered roughly 11% of subscription revenue inside two months.

Klarna invoice for the German market

Klarna Pay in 30 days is the modern Rechnungskauf product. The buyer receives the goods, gets a Klarna invoice by email, and pays by bank transfer within 30 days. Klarna takes the credit risk, runs the Schufa check, and chases the buyer if they default.

For German shoppers the Klarna invoice experience is well-known. The label “Rechnung mit Klarna” registers immediately. We always render the label in German on a German-locale store rather than the English fallback.

The Schufa check is the one thing that surprises non-German operators. Some buyers get declined for invoice and shown Pay Now instead. This is normal. Your checkout should not treat a declined Klarna invoice as a hard failure; it should let the buyer pick a different method without restarting.

Apple Pay and Shop Pay coexistence

Apple Pay sits on top of an underlying card or bank credential. On a German Shopify store it usually wraps Visa, Mastercard, or sometimes a SEPA-attached card. Adding Apple Pay does not replace any other method; it speeds up the buyers who already wanted to use a card on mobile.

Shop Pay is Shopify’s accelerated checkout. It works well for repeat buyers who have used Shop Pay before, regardless of locale. It does not replace Klarna or PayPal in Germany, and we never position it as the primary method on a DACH store. We surface it above the form, let it catch the repeat buyers, and let the other German methods do their work.

Fraud, chargebacks, and settlement timing

Klarna carries the fraud risk on Pay in 30 days orders. If the buyer never pays, that is Klarna’s problem, not yours, which is part of what justifies the 3-4% take.

SEPA-Lastschrift carries chargeback risk on the merchant for 8 weeks after the debit, and up to 13 months if the buyer claims the mandate was unauthorised. This is a real cost. For low-AOV stores it is rarely material; for stores selling 300+ EUR items, build in SEPA risk monitoring or restrict SEPA to lower-risk customer segments.

Credit card chargebacks behave the way they do everywhere. PayPal handles its own disputes through the PayPal resolution centre. Klarna Pay Now (instant SEPA) carries no real chargeback risk because the bank transfer is authorised at the moment of payment.

Settlement timing also varies. Klarna Pay Now and PayPal hit your account fastest. SEPA-Lastschrift and credit card sit 2-5 business days behind. Klarna Pay in 30 days settles within two business days of the invoice clearing on Klarna’s side. Build your cashflow forecast against the slowest method, not the fastest.

When to offer which combination

The honest answer depends on two variables: how much of your revenue is DACH versus export, and your AOV.

Pure DACH, AOV under 80 EUR

Klarna (with Pay in 30 days enabled), PayPal, SEPA-Lastschrift, credit card, Apple Pay, Shop Pay. This is the baseline DACH stack. The Berlin streetwear brand we opened with moved to this stack and recovered most of the 18% checkout loss inside a quarter.

Pure DACH, AOV above 200 EUR

Add Klarna Financing for the longer instalment buyer. Keep SEPA-Lastschrift, but consider velocity checks on first-time buyers. PayPal and credit card stay in place.

Mixed DACH and export

Run the DACH stack on the German locale and a leaner global stack (Shop Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, credit card, Klarna Pay in 30 days where available) on other locales. Shopify Markets makes the locale-by-locale split clean. Do not show SEPA-Lastschrift on a US-locale checkout; it confuses the buyer.

Subscription-led store

SEPA-Lastschrift becomes the most important method, not Klarna. Subscription billing on Klarna invoice is operationally messy. Lead with SEPA, support card, support PayPal Reference Transactions, and let Klarna handle the one-off acquisition orders. We help DACH subscription brands rebalance this exact mix as part of our scale and retention work.

A recommendation framework you can apply this afternoon

Three steps.

1. Pull last quarter’s Shopify checkout data filtered to German buyers. Look at the abandonment rate by payment step. If abandonment spikes after the payment selector, the mix is wrong.
2. Audit the methods currently shown to a German buyer in a private window. Confirm Rechnungskauf is visible without scrolling. Confirm PayPal and SEPA-Lastschrift are both available. Confirm any Giropay or legacy Sofort copy is gone.
3. Map every method to its 2026 effective cost, including chargeback exposure on SEPA. Run the math on whether each method clears a 1.5% lift to justify keeping it.

The brands we work with on this almost always come out with a tighter, faster, cheaper mix. Sometimes we drop a method nobody was using. Usually we add Klarna invoice or SEPA-Lastschrift to a store that had been shipping without them. The lift is rarely small.

If you want a second pair of eyes on a German Shopify checkout, send the URL across. We come back inside 72 hours with the same map we just walked through, applied to your store. Same week, usually.