What You Can Customise at Checkout on Each Shopify Plan

On every Shopify plan you can customise the cart, run automatic discounts through apps that use Shopify Functions, and add app blocks to the thank-you and order status pages. Adding blocks to the checkout page itself, the pages where a customer enters shipping and payment details, requires Shopify Plus, because Shopify limits checkout extensions to Plus stores. This guide sets out the split, explains what it means for a store that is not on Plus, and gives you a way to check what any app needs before you install it.

What is the short answer?

Think of the purchase as four places, and ask who controls each.

• The cart: part of your theme. Yours to change on any plan.
• The price calculation: done by Shopify. Apps can add discount rules to it on any plan.
• The checkout page: Shopify's. Blocks from apps can be placed on it only by Shopify Plus stores.
• The thank-you and order status pages: Shopify's, but open to app blocks on any plan.

Three of the four are open to every plan.

What can every Shopify plan customise?

More than most merchants assume, because the cart and the discount logic are where most of the useful work happens.

The cart. The cart page and cart drawer belong to your theme, so they can be redesigned, replaced by an app, or extended with a rewards bar, upsells, add-ons, a note field and a discount box. No plan restricts this. If you are weighing how much attention the cart deserves against sending shoppers straight to payment, our guide on whether to skip the cart and go straight to checkout covers the trade-off.

Discounts. An app can add discount rules that Shopify applies automatically at checkout: tiered rewards, free gifts, bundles, quantity discounts. These run as Shopify Functions inside Shopify's own calculation, and an app's functions work for stores on any plan. Our plain-language explainer on Shopify Functions describes how.

The thank-you and order status pages. Apps can add blocks to both. That gives every store a place for delivery information, a post-purchase offer or a referral prompt.

Basic checkout appearance. Shopify's checkout settings let any store apply its logo and basic colours and fonts, so the checkout looks like part of the same shop.

What needs Shopify Plus?

Blocks on the checkout page itself. If you want an app to place something inside the steps where the customer types an address, chooses delivery and pays, such as an offer, a reward reminder or a custom message, the store has to be on Shopify Plus.

The reason is a platform rule, not a limit any app chooses: Shopify restricts checkout extensions to Plus stores. An app developer cannot work around it, and you should be wary of any that claims to.

Plus includes other capabilities too. They are outside the scope of this guide, and Shopify's own plan documentation is the place to compare them.

Do discounts need Shopify Plus?

No. This is a common misunderstanding, and it is left over from an older way of working. Custom checkout pricing was once done with Shopify Scripts, a tool for Plus stores. Functions are taking over that job, and the ones delivered through apps are not tied to Plus.

In practice this means a store on any plan can have:

• A discount that appears automatically when a cart qualifies, with no code to type.
• The same price in the cart and at checkout, because Shopify calculated both.
• Several kinds of offer running together, within Shopify's discount combination settings.

What you cannot do without Plus is display something new on the checkout page about that discount. The discount itself still applies and still shows in the order summary.

Where should a store that is not on Plus put its effort?

In the cart, then on the thank-you page. Anything you might want to say or offer on the checkout page can usually be said one step earlier or one step later.

• Before checkout: the cart is the last screen you fully control. Put the rewards bar, the upsell, the add-ons and the reassurance about delivery and returns there. A shopper who reaches checkout with those questions answered needs nothing extra on the checkout page.
• After checkout: the thank-you and order status pages take the post-purchase offer, the referral prompt and the support details. See our ideas for the thank-you and order status pages.

Marka Cart Drawer is built around this split. The drawer, rewards, offers, add-ons and the thank-you and order-status blocks work on every Shopify plan; only its checkout-page block requires Shopify Plus.

Is a checkout block reason enough to move to Plus?

Rarely by itself. Whether to upgrade is a decision about the whole plan, and a single block seldom settles it.

A reasonable way to think about it:

1. Write down what you would put on the checkout page if you could.
2. For each item, ask whether the cart or the thank-you page could carry it.
3. Try the cart version first and measure it.
4. If something remains that only the checkout page can do, and you can estimate what it is worth, weigh that against the difference in plan cost, alongside the other reasons you might have for Plus.

Often step two empties the list.

How do you check what an app needs?

Read the app's plan requirements feature by feature, not as a whole. Apps that work around checkout often have one feature that needs Plus and many that do not, and listings do not always make the distinction obvious.

Ask the developer:

• Which features work on my current Shopify plan?
• Does anything require Shopify Plus, and what exactly?
• Are discounts applied by a Shopify Function, so they hold at checkout on my plan?
• Where do thank-you and order status blocks appear, and how do I add them?

A short checklist

1. List what you want to change: cart, discounts, checkout page, thank-you page, order status page.
2. Mark anything on the checkout page itself as needing Shopify Plus.
3. For each of those, look for a cart or thank-you page alternative.
4. Check that any discount app applies its discounts through a Shopify Function.
5. Ask app developers which features need Plus, feature by feature.
6. Place a test order and confirm each customisation appears where you expect.

For what to put in the part every plan controls, start with our guide to Shopify cart drawers and order value. The plan-by-plan details for Marka Cart Drawer are on its page.