Customize the Shopify checkout in 2026 without Shopify Plus

On a store without Shopify Plus, you can change the look of the checkout only a little and add app content only to the thank-you and order status pages; the information, shipping and payment steps stay as Shopify builds them. Full checkout customization is a Plus feature. If you need more than that, your options are to upgrade to Plus, or to send buyers to a different checkout that you control, with the trade-offs that come with it.

What changed: checkout.liquid is gone

For years, Plus stores customized the checkout by editing checkout.liquid, a theme file with the checkout's HTML. That route is closed. Shopify's documentation now says that checkout.liquid is unsupported for the Information, Shipping, and Payment checkout steps, and that checkout.liquid and additional scripts were sunset for the Thank you and Order status pages on August 28, 2025.

Script tags on those two pages followed on a separate timeline: they were sunset for Plus stores on August 28, 2025, and are sunset for non-Plus stores on August 26, 2026. If your store relied on "additional scripts" for tracking pixels or a thank-you page survey, that code no longer runs; it has to be rebuilt as an app extension or a web pixel.

The replacement is what Shopify calls Checkout Extensibility, or "Shopify Extensions in Checkout": apps add blocks through fixed extension points, logic runs in Shopify Functions, and styling goes through an API. Nothing runs as free-form code in the checkout any more.

What each Shopify plan allows (as of September 2026)

Shopify's developer documentation lists which checkout technologies are available on which plans. In short:

What you want to change	Basic, Grow, Advanced	Shopify Plus
App blocks in the information, shipping and payment steps (checkout UI extensions)	No	Yes
App blocks on the thank-you and order status pages	Yes	Yes
Post-purchase page between payment and thank-you page	Yes, beta, access on request	Yes, beta, access on request
Detailed styling through the branding API (colors, fonts, corner radius per component)	No	Yes
Shopify Functions (custom discounts, renaming or hiding payment and delivery options)	Yes	Yes
Web pixels for tracking	Yes	Yes

A few details matter here:

• Shopify Starter is excluded from thank-you page extensions, Functions and web pixels.
• Checkout styling beyond the basics is Plus-only. Shopify's styling guide opens with the line "Checkout styling customizations are available only to Shopify Plus merchants." For stores without Plus, Shopify's documentation points to the editor in the admin instead: "If your store isn't on Shopify Plus, then you can customize your checkout pages in the theme editor." That covers the basic look, not the structure.
• Post-purchase offers use a separate extension type that is in beta and needs access on request for a live store. They also do not show for every order; more on that below.

Your three options

Option 1: Stay on Shopify's checkout and use apps

This is the default and, for most stores, the right starting point. On a non-Plus plan you can:

• set the basic look of the checkout in the editor in your Shopify admin;
• add thank-you and order status page blocks from apps (surveys, reviews requests, upsells, order tracking);
• use Shopify Functions apps to add discount types or to hide, rename and reorder payment and shipping options;
• run a post-purchase upsell app, once your store has access to the post-purchase extension.

What you cannot do is add anything inside the checkout steps: no trust badges next to the pay button, no extra fields, no order bump checkbox, no reviews in the order summary. Apps that advertise "checkout upsells" usually mark that placement as Plus only.

Trade-off: you keep Shopify's checkout, Shop Pay and Shopify Payments, and you give up most control over the page where people actually pay.

Option 2: Upgrade to Shopify Plus

Plus unlocks checkout UI extensions in every step, the full branding API and the rest of the Plus feature set. As of September 2026 Shopify lists Plus pricing from $2,300 USD per month on a 3-year term, with a variable platform fee for larger businesses.

Trade-off: that is a large fixed cost if the checkout is the main reason you would upgrade. It makes sense when you also need the other Plus features, or when your revenue makes the cost small. You still work inside Shopify's extension points, so the checkout's structure and payment step stay Shopify's.

Option 3: Replace the checkout page

The third route is to keep Shopify for everything else and send buyers from the cart to a checkout hosted elsewhere. A line in the theme intercepts the Checkout and Buy now buttons; the other checkout quotes the cart from Shopify, takes the payment, and writes a paid order back into Shopify.

This gives you control over the whole page on any Shopify plan, including the steps that are Plus-only in Shopify's own checkout. It also comes with real costs:

• Shop Pay and the storefront express buttons go. They open Shopify's own checkout, so they have to be hidden or buyers would skip yours.
• Checkout apps stop running there. Apps that inject into Shopify's checkout have no place on a different checkout.
• Shopify's third-party transaction fee. When you do not use Shopify Payments, Shopify may charge a fee per order. As of September 2026, Shopify lists 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced.
• Platform risk. Full checkout replacement is officially a Plus capability. A theme-based hand-off works today, but Shopify may tighten what themes can do. Any tool you use should let you switch back to Shopify's checkout instantly.

Trade-off: full control of the page and the payment provider, in exchange for Shop Pay, some fees and a dependency on how Shopify treats themes.

How to decide

Ask three questions, in this order.

1. What exactly do you want to change? If it is branding, a thank-you page upsell or hiding a payment method, stay on Shopify's checkout and use apps. If it is content inside the checkout steps, you need Plus or a replacement.
2. Is the payment provider part of the problem? If Shopify Payments works well for you, replacing the checkout mostly adds fees. If you already use a third-party processor, you are likely paying the transaction fee anyway, and the math changes.
3. What would Plus cost you compared with a replacement? Put the yearly Plus fee next to the replacement's fees plus Shopify's third-party fee on your real order volume. Neither is automatically cheaper.

What to watch out for with any option

• Tracking. After the script sunset, pixels need to run as web pixels or server-side events. Check that purchases still reach your ad accounts after any checkout change.
• Post-purchase limits. Shopify's post-purchase page does not show for every buyer. Its documentation lists, among others, that it is not surfaced when the buyer pays with a wallet such as Apple Pay or Google Pay, or with an installment service, and orders must be placed through the Online Store channel.
• Test the whole path. Place a real, small order after every change and check the order, the confirmation email and the payout.

Where LatchPay fits

LatchPay is an example of option 3. It replaces only the checkout page and the card charge; products, discounts, shipping, tax, orders and customers stay in Shopify (see what LatchPay does, and what it does not and the Shopify integration). Payments land on your own Whop business, with Whop as merchant of record (see the Whop integration).

On that checkout you get a checkout editor with blocks in the steps Shopify reserves for Plus, an order bump, and a post-purchase offer on the thank-you page. The limits are the ones described above: Shop Pay and storefront express buttons are hidden (the checkout offers Apple Pay and Google Pay itself where Whop does, see express buttons), checkout apps do not run on it, and subscriptions are not supported. Pricing is on the fees page; as of September 2026 it is €100 per 30 days plus 0.5% of paid orders, or €299 plus 0.25%.

You can try the demo to see the checkout, or create an account when you want to connect a store. Switching it off brings Shopify's checkout back on the next page load.