What Does "SP" Mean on a Bank Statement?

Shopify's help documentation is explicit about the format: a purchase from a store that uses Shopify Payments appears on your statement as SP * followed by the store's name. Shopify is the e-commerce platform many independent online stores run on, so the charge is from that specific store — Shopify only processed the payment. One related descriptor is different: SHOPIFY * followed by a nine-digit number is Shopify billing a store owner for the platform itself, which you would only see if you run a Shopify store.

To identify the merchant, start with the name after the asterisk — it is usually a recognizable version of the store's brand. Then search your email for that name, the exact charge amount, or "order confirmation" near the charge date, and ask anyone who shares the card. Our answer at /answers/what-is-a-billing-descriptor explains how to read truncated or abbreviated descriptors when the store name is not obvious.

If the SP charge repeats every month, it is a subscription sold by that Shopify store — subscription boxes, replenishment orders, and memberships are common. The store controls the billing, so cancel there: sign in to your customer account on the store's own website and look for a subscription or manage-orders section, or email the store's support and ask them to cancel, keeping the written confirmation. Deleting an app or ignoring the emails does not stop it, and Shopify itself cannot cancel a merchant's subscription for you.

Treat it as possible fraud only after the identification steps fail: no matching receipt in any inbox, no household member recognizes the store, and the amount or cadence looks wrong. In that case contact your bank to dispute the charge as unauthorized and replace the card. But confirm which case you are in first — a dispute does not cancel a legitimate store subscription, so if you actually signed up, the charge can come back until you cancel with the merchant.