Shopify Checkout Settings That Affect Conversion

Quick answer: For most Shopify stores the checkout settings worth checking are these: let customers check out as guests (do not require sign-in), keep the contact method to email unless you have a reason to take phone numbers, remove optional fields you do not use, leave address autocompletion on and test it, make sure Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay actually appear and work, and name shipping rates in plain words with delivery times. Shopify’s pages state no plan limit on these basics; what it restricts to Plus is the advanced customisation. None is a guaranteed lift, so change one at a time, write down the date, and measure.

Checkout is where people who have already chosen a product finish or leave.

This guide uses Shopify’s own Help Center and developer documentation for what each setting does and Baymard Institute’s published research for what shoppers say and do, and it names the source and date beside every number. Where there is no evidence that a setting lifts conversion, I say so.

This is the configuration guide. Finding where your own shoppers drop out is a different job, covered in the checkout leakage audit we run before touching a store. Do that first if you do not yet know which step loses people.

A note on dates: Everything below was checked against Shopify’s documentation as at 31 October 2026. Shopify renames menus and moves settings often, so confirm paths in your own admin.

Where these settings live

• Settings > Checkout: contact method, customer information fields, marketing opt-in, and under Advanced preferences, address collection.
• The checkout and accounts editor (Settings > Checkout, then Edit next to your configuration): layout, branding, the address autocompletion toggle and the discount code field.
• Settings > Shipping and delivery: rates, free shipping and transit times.
• Settings > Payments and the theme editor: which wallets you offer, and whether express buttons show on product pages.

Shopify says checkout setting changes can take up to 30 seconds to take effect. Wait that long before you test.

1. Guest checkout versus customer accounts

The setting: under Customer contact method in Settings > Checkout there is a toggle, “Require customers to sign in to their account before checkout.” Shopify’s Help Center says that when it is active, customers can only use an email address to check out, and accelerated checkouts such as Apple Pay are not shown in the online store cart. So requiring sign-in does not just add a step. It removes the express buttons from the cart.

What the research says. Baymard Institute’s article “Checkout UX 2025: 10 Pitfalls and Best Practices” (published 13 November 2024, updated 25 November 2025) reports that 18% of respondents in a Baymard survey of 1,026 US adults who had shopped online in the previous three months said they had abandoned an order because they did not want to create an account. That is a self-reported answer, not a measured rate on a live store. The same article says 62% of the sites Baymard reviewed fail to make guest checkout the most prominent option, and Baymard’s piece on form fields recommends delaying account creation until the confirmation step.

How accounts work now. Shopify’s customer accounts support passwordless sign-in: when sign-in links are on, a customer enters an email address and receives a one-time 6-digit code. Shopify says sessions can last up to 365 days and details stored in the account are auto-filled at checkout. “Sign in with Shop” needs Shop Pay activated.

One dated note. Shopify’s changelog of 26 February 2026 says legacy customer accounts are deprecated, with no further feature updates or technical support, and that a final sunset date would be announced later in 2026. I did not find one as at 31 October 2026, so check the changelog if you are still on legacy accounts.

My decision rule. Leave “Require customers to sign in” off unless the account is the product, such as a trade-only or members-only store. Then open your store in a private window, add a product and check out. Nothing should ask you to sign in before you can pay, and the cart should still show express buttons.

2. Contact method: email, or phone or email

The setting: Settings > Checkout > Customer contact method, with two options, “Phone number or email” and “Email.” Shopify says Email is selected by default on new stores. You cannot require both. If you want a phone number as well, keep Email and set “Shipping address phone number” to Required.

The trade-off. Phone-only checkout looks like less friction, but Shopify documents what you give up:

• A recovery email cannot be sent if the customer enters a phone number instead of an email address (Shopify’s abandoned checkouts page), and Shopify’s SMS notifications page says you cannot recover an abandoned checkout that began with a phone number.
• A phone-only customer gets one order confirmation SMS, and only if your business address is in a supported country. They do not get shipping notifications by SMS.
• Shopify’s Shop Pay page says customers must enter an email address at checkout to save their payment information; phone-number-only customers are not prompted to save it.

I found no Shopify or Baymard evidence that “Phone number or email” lifts completion. So the decision is about what you lose. If your recovery depends on email, which it does for most stores, “Email” is the safer default. If your customers genuinely prefer giving a phone number, choose “Phone number or email” knowingly and accept that those customers cannot be recovered by email. Our guide to the abandoned cart flow in Klaviyo covers the mechanics. We do not run email or SMS at Prism3; this section is only about what your checkout collects.

Marketing opt-in boxes. Shopify lets you choose where the email consent checkbox appears (checkout, sign-in or both) and whether it is preselected, by region. The SMS checkbox cannot be preselected, and customers can also opt in to WhatsApp. Whether a preselected box is appropriate in Australia is a consent question for you and your adviser, not a conversion trick. This is not legal advice, and I have not stated what the law requires here. Our post on SMS marketing consent for Australian Shopify stores points to the regulator’s guidance.

3. Form fields: what each extra field costs

Baymard’s article “Checkout Optimization: 5 Ways to Minimize Form Fields in Checkout” (published 26 June 2024) puts the average checkout at 11.3 form fields in 2024 (12.7 in 2019) and says most sites need only 8. It argues that what matters is the number of form fields people must consider, not the number of steps. Several of its suggestions map to Settings > Checkout, using Shopify’s own option names:

Full name. Baymard’s testing found 42% of participants typed their full name into the “First Name” field at least once when a site had two name fields, and it reports 89% of the sites in its benchmark have more than one name field. Shopify’s second option, “Only require last name,” uses a single field. I would not switch blind: confirm your fulfilment and fraud tools do not need a separate first name, then place test orders with the single field.

Address line 2. In the same article, 30% of participants came to a stop at “Address Line 2,” and Baymard’s advice is to hide it behind a link. Shopify’s checkout form options page lists Don’t include, Optional and Required for this field, and Shopify warns that Required or Don’t include may block some customers, so Optional is the safe setting. Do not guess whether your customers use it. Pull your last 100 orders and count how many have anything in the second line. If almost nobody does, Optional costs you nothing.

Discount code field. In the editor’s order summary section there is an “Always show discount code field” option, which puts the field above the collapsed order summary on mobile in one-page checkout. Baymard’s suggestion goes the other way: hide the coupon field behind a link, and it reports that 35% of the sites with a promo field display it by default (June 2024). My judgement, not a measurement: if you rarely run codes, a prominent empty box invites a trip to a coupon site; if most customers arrive with a code, keep it easy to find. Check how many orders use one before you decide.

Billing address. By default Shopify fills the billing address from the shipping address, and customers can enter a different one. Leave that alone. “Don’t use shipping address as billing address by default” leaves the billing fields empty, which adds work, and Baymard’s research says to default billing to shipping (it found 24% of sites in its benchmark do not). Shopify recommends “Require shipping and billing address to match” only for stores with many fraudulent orders, alongside an Address Verification System, and says it stops customers sending gifts.

4. Address entry: autocompletion and validation

Address autocompletion. Shopify’s Help Center says customers see address suggestions as they type, from services such as Google Autocomplete rather than the customer’s browser. It is active by default. If it is off, or the customer’s country is not supported, they type the address by hand. Australia is on the supported list. You switch it in the checkout and accounts editor, in the Settings sidebar under Address autocompletion. Shopify’s changelog of 13 March 2026 says it improved its autocomplete and validation systems for Australia and four other countries and describes them as powered by Shopify, so the Help Center’s wording about third-party services may be behind. Either way, test what your customers actually see.

Shipping address validation. This is a separate setting (“Validate shipping address”, under Advanced preferences > Address collection). Shopify says it validates the address before the order is placed, and again after. Australia is on its supported list. Two cautions from Shopify: do not run its validation alongside a third-party validation app, because conflicting suggestions can lower conversion; and if an address fails the state or province and postal code checks, the customer must correct it before completing checkout. Those checks cannot be turned off unless the store is on Plus, which can also install a third-party autocompletion app instead of Shopify’s.

What to test. On a phone, place a test order with a real address, then awkward ones: a unit in an apartment block, a rural address, a street in a recent subdivision. Does validation block an address you know is real?

5. Express payment buttons: Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay

What they are. Shopify calls them accelerated checkouts: Shop Pay, plus other providers’ buttons such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay and PayPal. They appear in an “Express Checkout” section at the start of checkout, ordered dynamically to show the fastest option for each customer. On product pages they sit next to or below Add to cart, depending on your theme and the customer’s device.

What has to be true for each to appear.

• Shop Pay: Shopify says it is included with Shopify Payments, and its Australia payment methods page says Apple Pay, Google Pay and Shop Pay are activated automatically when you use Shopify Payments there. On a third-party payment provider, Shop Pay can be activated if your store is located in Australia, France or the United States and meets Shopify Payments requirements for that country.
• Apple Pay: a card provider that supports it, SSL on your domain, and compliance with Apple’s Acceptable Use Guidelines. Customers must use Safari on a compatible device (Shopify’s page notes other browsers are coming).
• Google Pay: a card provider that lists Google Pay. Shopify says you can use Shopify Payments with it in all regions except France.

What you control. You cannot choose which branded buttons display on a product page. You can show or hide the set, and what each customer sees depends on your payment settings, Shop Promise, their browser and device, and their payment history. In the theme editor the control is “Show accelerated checkout buttons” under Buy buttons on the product template, and older themes may label it “Dynamic checkout buttons.”

Shopify’s listed limits: the buttons buy only a single variant of a product (a quantity selector lets the customer buy more of that variant); they do not support cart attributes such as terms checkboxes, gift wrapping or delivery date pickers; currency converters, apps that interact with the cart and apps that send customers to an external checkout may affect compatibility; and an Add to cart button already labelled “Buy it now” can confuse people.

Should you ever hide them? Shopify’s page says hiding accelerated checkout options might have a negative impact on conversion rates, with no figure attached. If your store depends on a gift message, a delivery date or a terms checkbox, the buttons skip those steps, so weigh that. Otherwise leave them on.

What to test. Use a real iPhone in Safari with a card in Wallet and an Android phone with Google Pay set up. Note which buttons appear on the product page, in the cart and at the top of checkout.

6. Shipping rates: names, thresholds and delivery times

Cost and delivery speed sit at the top of the list of reasons shoppers give for abandoning carts. Baymard’s page “50 Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics 2026” (last updated 22 September 2025) lists them after removing the “just browsing” group, and the page frames its figures around US online shoppers. It states no sample size or survey date for the list, so read it as a pattern, not a measurement of your store:

• 40% said extra costs were too high (shipping, tax, fees).
• 20% said delivery was too slow.
• 12% said they could not see or calculate the total order cost up front.

This is the reasons list, not an overall abandonment rate. For late-appearing costs, see why surprise checkout costs push shoppers out of carts.

What the shipping settings control (Settings > Shipping and delivery):

• Rate name and details. The name you enter is displayed to customers at checkout, and you can add delivery details such as “Tracked shipping.”
• Display order and timing. Shopify’s setup page says customers are not offered any shipping rates until they enter a delivery address, that each customer sees only the rates that apply to their order, and that the cheapest rate displays as the default. So a rate setting cannot show shipping cost before the address. Showing it earlier has to come from your theme, cart or on-page messaging.
• Free shipping. Set with a minimum order amount. Shopify warns to leave the Maximum field empty on your highest tier so larger orders are not left without a rate. Choosing the threshold is a margin question, covered in our free shipping threshold guide.
• Transit time. For flat rates you can add a predefined transit time (Standard, Express or Economy) and checkout shows it under the rate name, for example “Express (1 to 2 business days).” Custom flat rates can have a custom description but no calculated delivery date. Carrier-calculated rates include transit time automatically. It covers pickup to delivery only, not your processing time.

An Australian availability note. Shopify says transit time is available only for fulfilment locations in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia and the United Kingdom, so an Australian location qualifies, and that apps which manage fulfilment can deactivate it on existing rates, so set up apps and locations first. Stores on Basic or higher can use a delivery customisation app (Settings > Shipping and delivery); custom Functions apps are Plus only.

My decision rule for rates. Give every rate a plain name with timing (“Standard, 3 to 6 business days”), not an internal label. If you offer free shipping over a threshold, say so on the product page and cart. And make sure promised times match what the carrier delivers. Our post on shipping and returns messaging for Australian stores covers where to put it. How and when fees must be shown is a consumer-law question. This is not legal advice, and I have not stated what the law requires; the ACCC’s price display guidance is the source to read.

7. Payment methods and their order

Baymard’s reasons list has two more lines: 19% said they did not trust the site with their credit card information, and 9% said there were not enough payment methods (same caveats as above). Shopify documents that stores on Basic or higher can sort, reorder, hide or rename payment methods through a payment customisation app. Whether to add buy-now-pay-later is a margin and customer-mix decision, covered in our guide to Afterpay, Zip and Shop Pay instalments for Australian stores.

8. Checkout layout: one page or three

Shopify’s Help Center says the default layout is one-page checkout. The three-page version collects the same customer information and supports the same checkout analytics and customisation options. You switch in the editor’s Settings sidebar, under Checkout layout, and the editor preview does not update in real time, so save and look at the live checkout.

Shopify’s page makes no conversion claim for either layout, and I found no research that does, so I would not switch for a hoped-for lift. If you do, do it on its own, and recheck any checkout background image, because Shopify notes the one-page header differs.

A plan-gate note on customisation. Shopify says advanced customisation is available only on Plus: the Checkout Branding API, and eligible apps on the information, shipping and payment pages. Shopify’s developer documentation also says checkout.liquid is no longer supported for those steps, so on any plan the supported route is the editor, apps and extensions. If a developer quotes you for “editing the checkout code,” ask which of these they mean.

What is plan-gated, in one table

Source: Shopify Help Center pages on checkout form options, address collection preferences, accelerated checkouts, checkout customisation and customer accounts, read on 31 October 2026. Where a page was silent about plans, I have not guessed, so the left column means “Shopify’s page states no plan limit,” not “free on every plan.” Confirm against the page before paying for an app or upgrade.

How to test and measure a checkout change

1. Write down the baseline first. Shopify’s “Conversion rate over time” report has columns for Sessions, Sessions with cart additions, Sessions that reached checkout, Sessions that completed checkout and Conversion rate. Shopify defines “reached checkout” as a session with user input, such as a key press or mouse click, during checkout. The Conversion rate breakdown report shows the same steps as a funnel. Screenshot both before you change anything.

2. Mind the September 2026 measurement change. Shopify says its session measurement rollout ran from 21 to 23 September 2026. Sessions no longer end at midnight UTC, some sessions without a pageview now count, identified bot sessions are filtered out by default, and a session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity. Conversion rate, reached-checkout rate and checkout conversion rate can differ before and after, while Shopify says orders, sales and customer counts are not affected. Its advice is to use post-update data as the new baseline for session-based metrics, so do not compare checkout conversion after a change with a period before that update.

3. Change one thing at a time and log the date. Change several settings in one afternoon and you will never know which one moved the number.

4. Keep sale periods out of the comparison. A Christmas or Boxing Day sale changes who arrives and how they behave.

5. Be honest about volume. Illustrative arithmetic: if 1,000 sessions a month reach checkout and 400 complete it (40%), a change that took that to 42% would be 20 more orders a month. Whether 20 orders is signal or a normal swing depends on your own month-to-month variation, and a before-and-after comparison is not a controlled test. Our guide to A/B testing with low traffic on Shopify covers what small numbers can and cannot tell you.

The test-order checklist

Shopify’s test orders page lists three ways to place one: the test payment gateway, Shopify Payments test mode, or a real payment you then cancel and refund (which may carry processor fees). Customers cannot place live orders while your payment providers are in test mode, so switch back to live when you finish.

On a phone, on mobile data, in a private window:

1. Check out as a guest. Nothing should ask you to sign in.
2. Count the fields you must fill in. Remove any you cannot justify.
3. Type a normal address, then an awkward one.
4. Look for express buttons on the product page, in the cart and at the top of checkout, and pay through each wallet you offer. Shopify says you cannot simulate a test order through Shop Pay, so test it with a real order that you then cancel and refund.
5. Check every shipping rate: name, price and timing.
6. Apply a discount code, and an automatic discount if you run one.
7. Confirm the thank you page loads and the confirmation email arrives.
8. Start a checkout with an email, leave it, and confirm your recovery message arrives.

If something is wrong, fix it. If everything passes and shoppers still leave, the problem is probably not a setting. That is what the checkout leakage audit and our guide to mobile conversion are for.

Key takeaways

• Do not require sign-in before checkout unless the account is the product. In Baymard’s survey, 18% of respondents said they abandoned an order because they did not want to create an account (self-reported, US adults).
• Choose “Email” as the contact method unless you have a reason not to: Shopify says abandoned checkouts that start with a phone number cannot be recovered by email.
• Every extra field has a cost. Check company name, address line 2 and a required phone number against your own orders.
• Address autocompletion is on by default and covers Australia. Test it on a phone, and do not run Shopify’s validation alongside a third-party validation app.
• Leave express buttons on unless your store depends on cart attributes such as gift wrap or delivery date pickers.
• Name shipping rates in plain words and add transit times where Shopify supports them.
• Change one thing at a time, log the date, and do not compare checkout conversion across Shopify’s 21 to 23 September 2026 session measurement update.

FAQs

What Shopify checkout settings improve conversion?

No setting is guaranteed to, and be wary of any article that gives you a percentage. Check guest checkout, the contact method, optional fields, address autocompletion, express buttons and shipping rate names with delivery times, one at a time against your own baseline.

Should I require customers to create an account on Shopify?

Not unless the account is central to your model, such as trade or members-only pricing. Baymard’s survey reported 18% of US respondents abandoning an order because they did not want to create an account, and Shopify says requiring sign-in limits checkout to email and hides accelerated checkouts such as Apple Pay in the cart.

Is it better to collect phone number or email at Shopify checkout?

Email is the safer default. Shopify says a recovery email cannot be sent to a checkout that began with a phone number. You cannot require both as the contact method, but you can keep Email and set the shipping address phone number to Required.

Are Apple Pay and Google Pay available on every Shopify plan?

Shopify’s Help Center lists provider and device requirements, not plan requirements. Apple Pay needs a supporting card provider and a customer on Safari with a compatible device. Google Pay needs a provider that lists it. In Australia, Shopify says Apple Pay, Google Pay and Shop Pay are activated automatically with Shopify Payments.

Which Shopify checkout settings need Shopify Plus?

The advanced customisation: the Checkout Branding API, apps on the information, shipping and payment pages, a third-party autocompletion app, turning off state and postal code matching, and custom payment or delivery apps. Shopify’s pages state no plan limit on the basic settings in this guide.

Does one-page checkout convert better than three-page checkout?

I could not find evidence either way. Shopify’s page on the two layouts makes no conversion claim, and one-page is the default. If you switch, do it on its own and measure against the post-September 2026 baseline.

Settings checked and shoppers still leaving?

If you have worked through this list and checkout still leaks, the next step is to find out where and why, using your own numbers. The Shopify CRO service starts with a six-phase audit that includes a tracking check, and some checkout changes are restricted by Shopify on certain plans, so what is possible is confirmed before it is recommended. The quickest way to see whether it is worth doing is to book a free 30-minute diagnostic or tell us about your store. We share your Shopify store on screen and name two or three conversion leaks live, and tell you whether they are worth fixing. No pitch.