TL;DR
The honest answer most guides bury: on standard Shopify plans you can change how checkout looks, not how it behaves.
| What you want | Plan needed |
|---|---|
| Logo, colors, fonts, background | Any plan |
| Order notes field | Any plan — it's a cart setting, not checkout |
| Express checkout buttons on/off | Any plan |
| One-page vs three-page layout | Any plan — one-page is the default, and the editor toggles between them |
| Custom fields at checkout | Plus |
| Checkboxes, consent, terms | Plus |
| Custom messaging on checkout | Plus |
| Discount and shipping logic | Plus (Shopify Functions) |
| A custom checkout layout of your own design | Not available — section order and placement are Shopify's |
Shopify Plus runs roughly $2,300/month. Before you upgrade for checkout alone, check whether what you want is actually a cart change, a Settings change, or genuinely a checkout change. Most requests turn out to be one of the first two.
Shopify Checkout · Decision Path
Do You Actually Need Plus for This?
Four questions, in order. Most requests stop at the first two.
Is it a cart change or a checkout change?
Order notes, gift options, upsells and most custom fields can live in the cart.
Is it appearance or behavior?
Logo, colors, fonts, button styling, field styling, express checkout buttons, one-page or three-page layout.
Is your drop-off actually at checkout?
Check analytics before assuming. Most conversion loss happens on product pages, in the cart, or to site speed.
Does the math work at your revenue?
Plus runs roughly $2,300/month, about $27,600 a year.
Then the checkout capability is real and substantial: custom fields, consent checkboxes, conditional messaging, Shopify Functions for discount and shipping logic, payment method rules, and checkout validation. If any question wobbles, fix what's upstream first.
One thing no plan unlocks: a checkout layout of your own design. One-page and three-page are both available to everyone, but section order and placement stay Shopify's, and apps promising a bespoke layout are replacing checkout entirely.
Why checkout is locked down
Shopify hosts checkout on its own infrastructure, not your theme. That's why it's PCI compliant, why it doesn't break when your theme does, and why you can't edit it like a page.
Plus merchants used to edit a file called checkout.liquid. Shopify retired it in favor of Checkout Extensibility — a system of app blocks and UI extensions that survive platform updates. checkout.liquid stopped working for the in-checkout steps on 13 August 2024, and for the Thank you and Order status pages on 28 August 2025. More stable, less freeform.
For everyone else, checkout is configuration rather than code.
What you can change on any plan
- Branding. Go to Settings → Checkout → Customize. Logo, colors, typography, button styles, background images, form field styling. This is genuine control over appearance and it covers most brand-consistency requirements.
- One-page or three-page layout. One-page has been the default since October 2023. The checkout and accounts editor lets you switch between the two — gear icon, Settings sidebar, Checkout layout. Not plan-restricted.
- Express checkout buttons. Shop Pay, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay appear above the standard form. Toggle them under Settings → Payments, and control their appearance in the checkout editor. To remove PayPal Express specifically, deactivate PayPal as a payment method — there's no separate toggle for just the express button.
- Order notes. This is the one most people get wrong. The “special instructions” field lives in your cart, not checkout, so it's available on every plan. Enable it in your theme's cart settings, or add the field to your cart template if the theme doesn't include it. The note carries through to the order.
- Required fields. Under Settings → Checkout, control whether company name, address line 2 and phone are optional, required or hidden.
- Post-purchase upsells. Available on all plans through apps that use Shopify's post-purchase extension point.
What requires Shopify Plus
- Custom fields at checkout. Gift messaging, delivery date pickers, PO numbers, VAT registration. Built through Checkout UI Extensions and Shopify Functions, which are Plus-only.
- Checkboxes and consent. Terms acceptance, marketing opt-ins, age verification.
- Custom messaging. Banners, trust badges, delivery expectations, anything conditional on cart contents.
- Discount and shipping logic. Shopify Functions handles rules standard discounts can't express — buy-X-get-Y across collections, tiered thresholds, customer-tag-based pricing, hiding shipping methods by condition.
- Payment method rules. Hiding or reordering methods based on cart, customer or location.
- Checkout validation. Blocking checkout under specific conditions, like a B2B minimum order value.
The requests people actually make
“Add a note field.” Cart setting, any plan. Covered above.
“Add a custom field.” If it's genuinely at checkout, you need Plus. If it can live in the cart, any plan works — and cart-level often converts better anyway, since checkout is where you want fewer decisions rather than more.
“Add a checkbox for terms.” Plus. Worth checking whether your jurisdiction requires it at checkout specifically, since many stores satisfy it in the cart or footer.
“Make it one page.” Almost certainly already done. One-page checkout became the default for all merchants on 2 October 2023, and the checkout and accounts editor lets any plan switch between one-page and three-page. If yours still shows three steps, someone chose that.
“Add a discount code field.” Already there by default. If yours is missing, check the checkout editor.
“Change the layout.” This is the real limit. Beyond the one-page/three-page choice and the options in the checkout editor, section order and content placement are Shopify's. Apps promising a layout of your own design are replacing checkout entirely — which breaks Shop Pay and usually costs more conversions than the layout gains.
How to test your checkout
Most merchants never do this properly, and it's where tracking problems hide.
Use Bogus Gateway. Under Settings → Payments, deactivate your real provider and enable “(for testing) Bogus Gateway.” Card number 1 succeeds, 2 fails, 3 triggers an exception. Any future expiry, any three-digit CVV.
Or use test mode if you're on Shopify Payments — same place, toggle test mode rather than swapping providers.
Place a real order with a real card before launch, then refund it. Test gateways don't exercise every code path, and some tracking only fires on genuine transactions.
What to verify each time:
- Order appears in admin with correct totals, tax and shipping
- Confirmation email sends and renders on mobile
- Discount codes apply correctly
- Every shipping method quotes as expected
- Analytics and pixels fire — particularly the Purchase event, which breaks at checkout more than anywhere else
- Any post-purchase upsell displays
Reactivate your real payment provider afterward. Stores have launched on Bogus Gateway. It's a bad morning.
If you're testing checkout as part of a rebuild, it belongs in a wider functionality audit — tracking scripts and app blocks break during a redesign more often than checkout itself does.
Should you upgrade to Plus for checkout?
Only after establishing three things.
Is it actually a checkout problem? Most conversion loss happens before checkout — on product pages, in the cart, or through site speed. Check where customers actually drop off before assuming the fix is downstream.
Can it live in the cart instead? Notes, upsells, gift options and most custom fields work at cart level on any plan, and often perform better there.
Does the math work? Plus is roughly $2,300/month. On $500k annual revenue that's about 5.5% of revenue for a feature set you may use a fraction of. On $5M it's 0.55% and the checkout capability is usually one of several reasons to be there.
If your answer to all three points at Plus, the checkout capability is real and substantial. If any wobble, fix what's upstream first.
Frequently asked questions
Can you customize the Shopify checkout page?
On any plan you can customize appearance — logo, colors, fonts, button styles, backgrounds — through Settings → Checkout → Customize, and choose between the one-page and three-page layout. Changing behavior, such as adding custom fields, checkboxes, conditional messaging or custom discount logic, requires Shopify Plus and Checkout Extensibility.
How do I edit the Shopify checkout page?
Go to Settings → Checkout → Customize in your admin. That opens the checkout and accounts editor, where you control branding and the one-page or three-page layout. Standard plans can't edit checkout code; the older checkout.liquid method was retired in favor of Checkout Extensibility, which is Plus-only.
How do I add a note field at checkout in Shopify?
The order notes field is a cart feature rather than a checkout feature, so it works on every plan. Enable it in your theme's cart settings, or add the field to your cart template. Notes carry through to the order in admin.
How do I add a custom field to Shopify checkout?
Custom fields at checkout require Shopify Plus, built through Checkout UI Extensions. On standard plans, add the field to your cart page instead — it captures the same information and works on any plan.
How do I test Shopify checkout?
Enable Bogus Gateway under Settings → Payments, or use test mode with Shopify Payments. Card number 1 succeeds, 2 fails, 3 throws an exception, with any future expiry date. Also place one real order with a real card before launch and refund it, since test gateways don't exercise every path. Reactivate your real provider afterward.
How do I enable or remove express checkout on Shopify?
Express checkout buttons — Shop Pay, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay — are controlled under Settings → Payments. To remove PayPal Express specifically, deactivate PayPal as a payment method; there's no separate toggle for the button alone.
Can you make a one-page checkout on Shopify?
Yes, and on most stores it is already what you have. Shopify made one-page checkout the default on 2 October 2023, replacing the old three-page flow. Every merchant from Basic upward can switch between one-page and three-page in the checkout and accounts editor, under the gear icon in the Settings sidebar. What no plan allows is a custom layout of your own design — section order and placement are Shopify's.
What replaced checkout.liquid?
Checkout Extensibility — a system of app blocks, UI extensions and Shopify Functions that survive platform updates rather than breaking with them. It's available to Shopify Plus merchants. checkout.liquid stopped working for the in-checkout steps on 13 August 2024, and for the Thank you and Order status pages on 28 August 2025.
Is Shopify Plus worth it just for checkout customization?
Rarely on its own. Plus runs roughly $2,300/month, and most conversion loss happens before checkout rather than during it. Check whether the change can live in the cart, and whether your actual drop-off is upstream, before upgrading for checkout alone.
Need checkout to do something it currently can't?
Tell us what you're trying to achieve and what plan you're on. If it's a cart change rather than a checkout change, we'll say so — that answer costs you nothing and saves you $27,600 a year.
