Checkout Buddy adds four kinds of things to your store. Knowing which one you’re using tells you where to set it up and whether you need Shopify Plus. Without Shopify Plus you get most functions and the blocks outside checkout; checkout blocks and checkout branding need Plus. See which Shopify plan do I need?
Checkout blocks
Things customers see and use in checkout: upsells and free gifts, checkout fields such as a gift message or a delivery date, banners, trust badges, and progress bars such as a free shipping bar. You create a block in Checkout Buddy, then place its app block with Shopify’s Checkout Editor. Shopify Plus only.
Functions
Changes to how checkout behaves: discounts, bundles, hiding or renaming payment and shipping methods, purchase limits, and blocking checkout. They work as soon as you save them, and most work on every Shopify plan.
Blocks outside checkout
Product offers on product and cart pages, shown through a block you add to your theme, thank you page blocks and customer account blocks. They work on every Shopify plan except Starter.
Checkout branding
Colors, fonts, logo, corners and layout for checkout, customer accounts, and sign-in pages. Shopify Plus only.
Shopify decides which stores can change checkout, and Checkout Buddy follows those rules.
| Shopify Plus | Other Shopify plans | Shopify Starter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Checkout blocks: upsells and gifts in checkout, checkout fields, checkout content | ✓ | Not available | Not available |
| Checkout branding | ✓ | Not available | Not available |
| Product offers on product and cart pages | ✓ | ✓ | Not available |
| Thank you page blocks and customer account blocks | ✓ | ✓ | Not available |
| Most functions: discounts, bundles, payment and shipping methods, purchase limits, checkout and address blockers | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hide express checkout buttons, B2B order review, price changers | ✓ | Not available | Not available |
Shopify shows app blocks on checkout’s information, shipping and payment steps only on Shopify Plus stores. If your store isn’t on Plus, Checkout Buddy shows you what you can use: discounts, bundles and checkout rules, the Upsells tab for Product offers on your product and cart pages, and thank you page and customer account blocks, but no Fields or Content tab. Product offers reach product and cart pages through your theme, not checkout, which is why they don’t need Plus. Shopify Starter has no theme blocks and no thank you page or customer account app blocks, so Starter stores get the functions.
Development stores and Shopify Plus sandbox stores are treated like Plus stores, so you can build and test everything before going live.
The tour stops at each thing Checkout Buddy does, in the order the app lists them, with a real result each time: upsells and gifts, discounts, bundles, checkout fields, checkout content, checkout rules, the thank you page and customer accounts. To watch a volume discount and a Product offers block set up step by step, see the setup video.
Checkout Buddy’s menu in Shopify admin has Customizations, Analytics, Branding (Shopify Plus stores), Plans and Help. Clicking the app’s name opens Home, which has a setup guide for the first thing you want to add. Shopify Plus stores with checkout blocks made the older way before November 11, 2026 have App settings in place of Plans (on the Free plan, beside it): it holds Plans and Translations.
Blocks and functions are both called customizations in the app, and so are bundles, thank you page blocks and customer account blocks. You’ll find them on the Customizations page:
The tiles at the top of Select customization are Upsells and gifts, Discounts, Bundles, Checkout fields, Checkout content, Checkout rules, Thank you page, Customer accounts, Templates and All, which holds every template and customization. Each one lists its customizations, then its templates; Templates has every template in one place. Without Shopify Plus, there’s no Checkout fields or Checkout content tile.
wholesale. The Wholesale checkout recipe sets up a company order minimum, a PO number field and no card payments for companies. Without Shopify Plus, it has two steps: the order minimum and no card payments.The buttons next to the search show the cards as big cards, compact cards (hover one to see its picture), tiles or a list. All starts with compact cards.
| Checkout blocks | Functions | Blocks outside checkout | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What they change | What customers see and fill in | Prices, discounts, and which options customers can choose | What buyers see on product and cart pages, the thank you page and customer accounts |
| Setup | Create it, then add its app block in the Checkout Editor | Create it; it’s live when saved | Create it, then add its block in Shopify’s theme editor (Product offers) or the checkout and accounts editor (thank you page, customer accounts) |
| Where they run | In the customer’s browser | On Shopify’s servers | In the buyer’s browser |
| Conditions | Content rules under Who sees it; blocks made before the Content block have over 120 conditions | A shorter list of conditions per function | Who sees it |
| Turn off | Switch its Status to Draft (older blocks: disable it), or remove the app block in the Checkout Editor | Disable or delete the function | Switch its Status to Draft |
Many setups combine the two. A free gift, for example, is a Product offer that adds the product plus a product discount function that makes it free.