About custom purchase options

Purchase option apps provide merchants and customers with various ways to sell and buy products, beyond the "buy now, pay now, and ship now" experience. For example, customers can place an order for an album before it's released or place a subscription order to receive a bag of coffee beans every month.

This guide describes what purchase options are, how they work, and some tools and resources to consider before you get started.

Anchor to What's a purchase option?What's a purchase option?

A purchase option determines how customers can buy products from a store. Purchase options can help merchants manage cash flow and inventory, have flexibility on product launches, and diversify marketing strategies.

Anchor to Purchase option typesPurchase option types

Purchase options include subscriptions and deferred purchase options.

Anchor to SubscriptionsSubscriptions

Subscriptions enable customers to purchase products on a recurring basis. For example, customers can do the following:

• Pay-per-delivery subscription: Pay for products for each delivery. New orders are created at regular intervals. This option is also known as "Subscribe and save".
• Pre-paid subscription: Make a single payment upfront and receive products on a regular cadence until the order is fulfilled.

Subscriptions can be sold through online channels and Shopify POS (requires POS app version 10.13+).

For more information, refer to Subscriptions.

Anchor to Pre-order and Try Before You BuyPre-order and Try Before You Buy

Pre-order and TBYB enable customers to purchase products with deferred payments or deliveries. For example, customers can do the following:

• Pre-order: Place an order for products or variants that haven't been released yet.
• Try before you buy: Try products before completing payment, and send back the products that aren't wanted.

You can enable deposits for pre-order and TBYB. Shopify stores a customer's payment method so that merchants can collect the remaining balance amount without contacting the customer.

For more information, refer to Pre-order and Try Before You Buy (TBYB) apps.

Anchor to How do purchase options work?How do purchase options work?

Anchor to Purchase options and selling plansPurchase options and selling plans

A purchase option defines how a product can be sold and specifies selling plan policies around pricing, delivery, and more.

For example, a subscription can include "Delivery every week, 15% off" and "Delivered every two weeks, 10% off" selling plans.

Anchor to Selling plans and policiesSelling plans and policies

Selling plans include configurations of the following policies:

• Pricing: Defines pricing changes on a given product variant.
• Billing: Defines the intervals of time between the placement of an order and payment collection.
• Delivery: Defines when the order should be fulfilled, from the time that the order is created to the time that it leaves the merchant's possession.
• Inventory: Defines whether the inventory is committed when the order is created or when the order is fulfilled.

• You can create subscriptions by configuring pricing, delivery, and billing policies.

• You can create deferred purchase options by configuring pricing, inventory, delivery, and billing policies.

  For more information, refer to Subscriptions and Deferred purchase options.

Anchor to GraphQL Admin API objects for purchase optionsGraphQL Admin API objects for purchase options

The following diagram illustrates the GraphQL Admin API objects for purchase options:

• The SellingPlanGroup object includes one or more SellingPlan objects.
• The SellingPlan object specifies how a product can be sold, such as "Weekly delivery" or "Monthly delivery". Policies are organized into SellingPlan.
• Each SellingPlanGroup includes products (Product), product variants (ProductVariant), and policy configurations (SellingPlan).

Anchor to Selling plans categorySelling plans category

The category field represents the selling plan category that's used to filter orders by selling plan category on the order page. The category field supports the following approved categories:

• SUBSCRIPTION

• PRE_ORDER

• TRY_BEFORE_YOU_BUY

  If you want to offer a category that isn't listed above, then set the category field to OTHER, and fill out our request form, where we'll review your request for a new selling plan category.

Anchor to Where you can buildWhere you can build

Purchase option apps extend multiple Shopify surfaces. Choose where you want to add functionality:

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Checkout

Let customers complete subscription and deferred purchase orders through Shopify checkout.

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Customer accounts

Let customers view and manage their active subscriptions and agreements from a customer portal.

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Admin

Let merchants create and manage selling plans on the product details page with purchase options and product subscription extensions.

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Point of Sale

Let merchants sell subscriptions in person (requires POS app version 10.13+).

Anchor to Shopify's principlesShopify's principles

The following are our principles for extending the Shopify platform to support purchase options.

Anchor to Selling and buying products in various waysSelling and buying products in various ways

Purchase option apps provide merchants and customers with various ways to sell and buy products, beyond the "buy now, pay now, and ship now" experience.

Anchor to Using checkout to ensure performance, integration, and sustainabilityUsing checkout to ensure performance, integration, and sustainability

Checkout determines charge amounts, payment terms, and payment and shipping methods. Checkout needs to be accurate and have the highest standards of performance and reliability at global scale.

Ensuring that merchants are using Shopify's checkout guarantees performance and integration with Shopify's core feature set and ecosystem of apps. As Shopify and its ecosystem evolve, checkout is crucial to ensure a sustainable long-term journey for merchants.

Anchor to Modeling and storing purchase option business data in ShopifyModeling and storing purchase option business data in Shopify

To maximize merchant success, Shopify models and stores business operational data related to purchase options. A centralized location for key purchase option business data can help merchants mitigate integrity risks and reduce synchronization costs.

Both Shopify and apps should be able to access the purchase option business data to help merchants understand and grow their business. The following are examples of purchase option business data:

• What purchase options are offered
• Who the purchase options customers are
• What products customers buy using purchase options
• How customers are paying for their purchase option orders
• How purchase option data changes over time

Anchor to Providing creative solutions for merchantsProviding creative solutions for merchants

Merchants can use purchase options in various ways depending on the industry, product type (physical or digital), and business size. Shopify's role is to create a platform where developers can provide creative solutions for merchants to effectively manage their purchase options.

Anchor to RequirementsRequirements

Anchor to Access scopesAccess scopes

To use the GraphQL Admin API for purchase options, your app needs to request the following access scopes:

Anchor to Developer tools and resourcesDeveloper tools and resources

To help you build and manage purchase options, Shopify offers the following developer tools and resources.

Anchor to UX guidelinesUX guidelines

For information on UX guidelines, refer to the following resources:

• Subscription UX guidelines
• Pre-orders and try before you buy UX guidelines

Anchor to Next stepsNext steps

• Learn about subscriptions
• Learn about deferred purchase options