Merivirta VAT Switcher On the Shopify App Store VAT Switcher FAQ and support
Merivirta VAT Switcher lets shoppers switch every price in your Shopify store between prices including and excluding VAT. Below are the most common questions, fixes for typical theme issues and how to reach us. New to the app? Start with the setup guide.
Frequently asked questions
Which prices are switched? All prices on the storefront page: product pages, collection and search grids, quick view, predictive search, the cart drawer, the cart page, line totals, the subtotal and the total. Prices that appear later (variant change, infinite scroll, cart updates) are switched too. Checkout is not changed: Shopify calculates the tax charged at checkout.
Do I have to tell the app whether my prices include VAT? No. The app reads it from Shopify (Settings → Taxes and duties) and from your Markets, including markets that add tax at checkout or adjust prices to each country’s VAT rate. The dashboard shows what was detected, and changes in Shopify are picked up automatically. You can override it under VAT rates if you need to.
Where do the VAT rates come from? The app includes a table of standard and reduced VAT and GST rates for 48 countries, including every EU country. Each country lists its sources, and we update the table when rates change. Your home country is read from your store address. You can override any rate under VAT rates.
Some of my products have a reduced rate (books, food, medicines). How do I handle that? Use Multi-VAT rules. Give a VAT category such as “Books” to a collection, tag, vendor, product type, product category or single products, and the app uses that category’s rate for each country. Scan my catalog suggests rules from your products’ Shopify categories. Multi-VAT rules are part of the Pro plan.
Can business customers see prices excl. VAT automatically?
Yes. Logged-in customers with tags you choose (for example wholesale) can see prices excl. VAT by default (Starter and Pro). On Pro, Shopify B2B company customers can be detected automatically, and you can hide the toggle from them or turn the app off for them.
What do visitors from outside the EU see? On the Pro plan you choose: the normal toggle, Shopify prices as they are, or prices excl. VAT only. Countries where you are VAT registered keep the normal toggle.
Can I ask visitors how they want to see prices? Yes. On the Pro plan, turn on Visitor popup in Settings. First-time visitors choose “Business” or “Consumer”, and the choice is remembered in their browser.
Does it work with my theme? The app works with Online Store 2.0 themes. It finds prices from the page itself, using your theme’s own money format, instead of relying on theme-specific code. If a price isn’t switched, see Troubleshooting below or contact us.
Does the app change my products, prices or theme? No. The app publishes its settings as app data, and the theme extension reads them. Product prices in Shopify and the tax charged at checkout stay the same. When you uninstall the app, Shopify removes the app embed and its blocks from your theme.
Does the app slow down my store? The storefront script is small, has no dependencies, loads asynchronously and reads its settings from your store, so it makes no requests to our servers. If our servers are down, the toggle keeps working.
Is there a free trial? Yes. Starter and Pro both start with a 7-day free trial. You are not charged during the trial, and if you cancel or uninstall before it ends, you pay nothing. Feature demo in the app also shows every feature in a simulated store before you choose.
Do I need a plan? Yes. You can activate the app and turn on the app embed right after install, but the toggle goes live on your storefront only once a plan is active.
How do I choose or change my plan? Open Plans in the app and choose a plan. After the trial, billing is handled by Shopify and appears on your Shopify bill, monthly or yearly. You can change or cancel at any time; uninstalling the app cancels the subscription.
What happens to my settings if I downgrade or cancel? They are kept. Features that are not part of your plan stop being applied on the storefront until you upgrade again. Without a plan, the toggle is hidden and prices show as in Shopify.
What happens when I uninstall? Price switching stops right away, and Shopify removes the app embed and its blocks from your theme. All of your store’s data in the app (settings, rules) is deleted 48 hours after uninstall. See our privacy policy.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | What to do |
|---|---|
| The toggle doesn’t appear | Turn on App embeds → VAT Switcher in the theme editor and save. Check Where to show the toggle: “In the header” needs a header the app recognises (otherwise it floats), and “Only where I add VAT Switcher blocks” needs a VAT toggle block or VAT bar section. |
| The theme editor shows “Open the VAT Switcher app in your Shopify admin and activate it” | Open the app and select Activate on the dashboard. |
| Prices don’t change when I switch | Check that Show VAT Switcher on your store is on in Settings and that the dashboard doesn’t show “Could not update the storefront”; if it does, select Try again in that banner. |
| An amount that isn’t a price is switched (for example a free-shipping threshold) | Announcement bars are excluded by default. Add other elements under Settings → Advanced → Never convert inside. No theme code changes are needed. |
| Cart line totals or the cart total don’t match the switched unit prices | Turn on Match cart line totals to the unit price in Settings. If a cart total still isn’t switched, add its element under Settings → Advanced → Extra price elements. |
| A price on my store isn’t switched | Some themes split prices into several pieces (for example superscript cents). Add the element under Settings → Advanced → Extra price elements, or contact us and we’ll set it up. |
| A product shows the wrong VAT rate | Check Multi-VAT rules → Active rules and the rates under VAT rates. The dashboard shows how many products have their own rate. Saved rules are published right away; new or changed products in Shopify are picked up within a few minutes. |
| A cart line total differs by a cent | Each price is rounded to cents. Turn on Match cart line totals to the unit price in Settings if you prefer totals that match the unit price. |
| Markets aren’t shown on the dashboard | Approve the app’s updated permissions when Shopify asks, then reload the app. |
| Plan features aren’t active after upgrading | Open Plans in the app; it re-reads your plan and republishes the storefront settings. |
If the problem continues, email jere@merivirta.com with the details listed above.
Contact support
- Email: jere@merivirta.com
- Response time: we reply within one business day, Monday to Friday, Finnish time (EET/EEST).
- Languages: English and Finnish.
- Setup help: we help with toggle placement and theme-specific price fixes free of charge.
To help us answer quickly, please include:
- your store’s myshopify domain (for example
your-store.myshopify.com); - a link to a store page where the problem shows (and the theme’s name);
- what you expected to see and what you saw instead, for example “the cart total stays incl. VAT”.
Never send us your Shopify password. If we need to look at your theme, we ask you for collaborator access through Shopify.
