You can offer free shipping on Shopify by setting a $0 shipping rate in your store’s shipping settings, and the whole process takes about five minutes. The bigger question is how to structure it so free shipping doesn’t eat your profits. Here’s how to handle both the technical setup and the strategy behind it.
Set Up a Free Shipping Rate in Shopify Admin
To offer free shipping on all orders (or orders within a specific zone), you’ll configure it directly in your shipping profiles. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings, then Shipping and delivery. In the Shipping profiles section, click the shipping profile you want to edit.
For each shipping zone where you want to offer free shipping, click “Add shipping option.” In the Name field, type something your customers will see at checkout, like “Free Shipping” or “Free Standard Shipping.” Set the price to $0, then click Done and Save. That’s it. Every order shipping to that zone now qualifies for free shipping.
If you sell different types of products that ship differently (oversized items versus small accessories, for example), you may have multiple shipping profiles. You’ll need to set the free rate in each profile separately. Keep in mind that when an order contains products from multiple shipping profiles, Shopify combines the applicable rates. So if only one profile has a free rate, the customer could still see a charge from the other profile at checkout.
Offer Free Shipping Above a Minimum Order Value
Most Shopify stores don’t offer free shipping on every order. Instead, they set a spending threshold, which encourages larger carts while keeping margins healthy. Shopify has a built-in option for this: when adding a shipping rate, select “Offer free shipping” and enter the minimum order amount. Orders below that amount get charged your standard rate, and orders above it ship free.
You can layer this with other price-based rates to create a tiered structure. For example, you might charge $24.99 for shipping on orders under $100, drop to $9.99 for orders between $100 and $200, and offer free shipping on orders over $200. This graduated approach rewards bigger spenders without forcing you to absorb shipping costs on small orders.
How to Choose Your Threshold
Start with your average order value. If your typical customer spends $65, setting your free shipping threshold at $75 or $85 nudges them to add one more item. Set it too high and nobody reaches it; set it too low and you’re subsidizing shipping on orders that were already happening.
Next, factor in your actual shipping costs and your product margins. If your average shipping cost is $8 and your gross margin is 50%, you need roughly $16 in additional revenue to cover that $8. So a threshold about $15 to $20 above your average order value is a reasonable starting point. Test it for a few weeks, watch your average order value, and adjust.
Use Discount Codes or Automatic Discounts
Shopify also lets you create free shipping through its Discounts section rather than through shipping rates. Go to Discounts in your admin, create a new discount, and choose “Free shipping” as the type. You can make it a code customers enter at checkout (useful for promotions and email campaigns) or an automatic discount that applies when conditions are met.
Automatic discounts are particularly useful for threshold-based free shipping because the discount applies without the customer needing to remember a code. You can set minimum purchase requirements, limit the discount to specific countries, and control whether it combines with other active discounts using the Combinations setting.
One important distinction: discount-based free shipping overrides whatever shipping rates you’ve set in your profiles. This means you can keep your standard paid rates as the default and layer a free shipping discount on top for specific promotions, customer segments, or time-limited campaigns. It’s more flexible than editing your shipping profiles every time you run a sale.
If you use a third-party shipping provider, be aware of a known Shopify limitation. Third-party providers don’t always receive discounted cart totals during checkout, which can cause customers to receive free shipping when they shouldn’t qualify. Moving your free shipping logic into Shopify’s native automatic discounts (rather than configuring it in the third-party app) avoids this problem.
Show Customers How Close They Are
A free shipping threshold only works if shoppers know about it. A progress bar that updates as items are added to the cart is one of the most effective ways to increase average order value. If your threshold is $75 and a customer has $52 in their cart, a message like “You’re $23 away from free shipping!” creates a clear incentive to keep browsing.
Shopify doesn’t include a native progress bar, but several well-reviewed apps handle it. Hextom’s Free Shipping Bar is one of the most popular, with a 4.9-star rating across nearly 3,000 reviews and a free plan available. Good Free Shipping Bar is another option that lets you assign different free shipping messages to specific products, customer groups, or countries, and schedule campaigns around sales events. Both apps offer sticky banner displays that stay visible as customers scroll, and both are mobile responsive.
Beyond apps, make sure your free shipping offer appears in places customers naturally look: your homepage banner, product pages, and the cart page. A simple announcement bar at the top of your site costs nothing to set up using Shopify’s built-in header settings or a free announcement bar app.
Absorb Costs Without Losing Margin
Free shipping isn’t actually free for you, so you need a plan to cover the cost. The most common approaches work well individually or combined.
- Build shipping into product prices. If your average shipping cost is $7 per order, raising product prices by a few dollars across your catalog can offset it. Customers generally respond better to a $32 product with free shipping than a $25 product with $7 shipping, even though the total is the same.
- Limit free shipping to certain methods. Offer free standard shipping (5 to 7 business days) while charging for expedited options. This keeps your base cost low since ground shipping is significantly cheaper than express.
- Restrict by region. Shipping zones let you offer free shipping domestically while charging for international orders, where costs are substantially higher and harder to predict.
- Negotiate carrier rates. As your order volume grows, you gain leverage with carriers. Shopify Shipping also offers discounted rates with major carriers, which brings down your per-package cost and makes free shipping more sustainable.
Test and Measure What Works
Before committing to a permanent free shipping policy, run it as a limited promotion and track three numbers: your average order value, your conversion rate, and your profit per order. If average order value jumps by $15 but your shipping cost is $8, you’re ahead. If conversion rate rises but profit per order drops, your threshold may be too low.
Shopify’s analytics dashboard shows average order value over time, and you can compare promotional periods against your baseline. Some stores find that free shipping with a threshold outperforms a flat free-on-everything policy, while others discover their margins are strong enough to absorb shipping on every order. The right answer depends on your products, your customers, and your shipping costs, so let the data guide you.