Shopify has spent years scaling back employee perks and benefits as it continues to trim costs, current and former employees have told The Logic.

The cuts have hit everything from monthly internet stipends for remote workers to reduced parental leave top-up payments in Canada, sources said. “They were taking away our benefits all the time,” said one former staffer. “Every time you turned around, [there was] something else we weren’t getting anymore.” The Logic spoke to 10 current and former Shopify employees. The sources are not being named because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

Shopify’s head of external communications, Ben McConaghy, said that “fixating on tweaks to individual perks misses the point” and said the firm continues to have “a strong rewards and benefits foundation.” 

One of Shopify’s most eye-catching perks, a $1,000 gift for new parents, was amongst the cuts. Employees celebrating the arrival of a baby now receive a onesie and a children’s book co-authored by president Harley Finkelstein, sources said. The Yous That You’ll Be encourages children to consider becoming entrepreneurs. “And next time you’re asked, ‘What do you want to be?’ consider ‘entrepreneur’ and start living your dream,” reads a line. The book is not available for sale to the public.

As part of the cuts to perks and benefits for parents, Shopify also changed its parental leave top-up benefit in Canada to a smaller payout, current and former employees said.

McConaghy did not address the baby bonus, but said the company offers “globally consistent maternity and parental leave top-ups at 100 per cent of salary.” He did not answer further questions about how many weeks of top-up parents in Canada receive. The current parental leave benefit is significantly shorter than the one previously offered, according to sources, meaning it amounts to less money.

Shopify has also eliminated an internet stipend for remote employees, former employees said. The stipend, which was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, varied in amount, though sources said it was between $40 and $60 per month.

McConaghy said, “Employees now receive thousands of dollars in flex funds annually.” He declined to answer when this benefit started or if it referred to a $5,000 flex spending account employees receive, which sources had told The Logic has been in place for years, including while the internet stipend was paid out.

Other cuts, while to less work-critical benefits, have left a sour taste, sources said. A $25 voucher to spend with a Shopify merchant, given to employees on their birthdays, was cut recently. “It is the smallest, but the biggest sign of cheapness,” said one former employee.

Another once-a-year perk, a voucher to spend at a merchant store on Black Friday—one of Shopify’s biggest revenue-generating weekends of the year—was also cut, according to sources. 

McConaghy said that Shopify finds “new ways to recognize” staff each year and said for the last three years, the company has “offered employees the ability to purchase a holiday gift from Shopify merchants.” He declined to provide the monetary value of the offer. Sources told The Logic that staff are now asked to choose from a range of merchant goods selected by Shopify.

The changes mark a shift from the early years of Shopify, when perks were plentiful, sources said. In the earliest reviews on Glassdoor, Shopify employees mentioned a home cleaning service, a seemingly never-ending supply of food at the company’s Ottawa headquarters and funds for everything from child care to sports equipment.

Then came the cuts and layoffs. More than 3,000 people lost their jobs across two major rounds in 2022 and 2023 alone, with Shopify continuing to lay off staff in smaller rounds ever since. 

Amidst the cuts and layoffs, Shopify has prospered. Since 2020, its revenue has grown from nearly US$3 billion to nearly US$9 billion in its last full financial year, and its share price now trades close to a five-year high. Shopify’s roughly $300-billion market capitalization means it now jostles with RBC for the title of Canada’s most valuable firm.

That growth has partly been spurred by Shopify’s focus on adding big-name brands to its roster of merchants. The firm has also made big bets on AI and is using the technology to work out how clients can make more money and how it can operate more efficiently. Executives have told analysts about their plans to keep headcount stable, in part, through AI use.

Still, the cost-cutting appears to have touched nearly all aspects of work life, sources said. Budgets for staff events have also seemingly been cut, sources said. One former employee recalled annual, multi-day trips to conferences put on by Shopify for its staff. Flights and meals were all covered by the company, and there was plenty of Shopify merch. “It was work, but it felt like a nice little vacation,” they said. After the mass layoffs of 2022 and 2023, Shopify scaled back the number of in-person events and started sending fewer staff, the source said.

Another source said Shopify’s in-person events used to take place in faraway locations and included team-building activities. Now, they are mostly local and mostly designed for completing work, they said. Another source said in-person meetings were once “a free-for-all” with teams travelling to Europe, Hawaii and other destinations. For a while, there appeared to be a freeze on these types of meet-ups, they said. When they returned, spending was more controlled.

McConaghy said “there is no company-wide limit” on the frequency of in-person off-sites, but that most teams meet twice a year. He declined to answer questions about changes to off-site budgets, including where they are permitted to take place.

“They used to be so generous,” a source said of Shopify’s perks and benefits, remembering how staff would push hard to work through busy periods, such as Black Friday, with Shopify rewarding them for the extra effort. “You worked for a reason, not just a paycheque; and they saw you as human beings, not just robots,” they said. “And then they just stopped doing all of that stuff.”