How to Edit and Customize Your Shopify Checkout Page

Your Shopify checkout page is where a browsing shopper turns into a paying customer, so small changes there tend to matter more than changes anywhere else on your store. Get your Shopify checkout page right and more carts convert. Leave it looking generic and people abandon their order at the last step.

Two different jobs hide behind the same request. “Editing” the checkout usually means the quick, built-in changes: your logo, colors, and the basic look. “Customizing” the checkout means going further, such as changing what fields appear, adding trust badges or upsells, reworking the thank you page, or altering the layout. How far you can go depends almost entirely on your Shopify plan and on whether you use the checkout editor, checkout extensions, or an app.

This guide walks through the simple edit first, then the parts most other guides skip: what each Shopify plan actually lets you change, where the branding editor lives, how to customize the thank you and order status pages, what happened to checkout.liquid, and when an app is the right answer.

Shopify Checkout Customization: What a Custom Shopify Checkout Can and Cannot Do

Shopify checkout customization covers two very different jobs, and mixing them up is why so much advice online misses. Light branding, meaning your logo, colors, fonts, and background, is open on every paid plan through the checkout editor. A truly custom Shopify checkout, meaning reordered sections, custom fields, and back-end logic, is a Shopify Plus feature or an app job. The plan table further down shows exactly where your store sits before you start.

Because we fingerprint the apps running on live Shopify storefronts, we can show which checkout and upsell apps merchants actually keep installed rather than which ones market the hardest. FoxKit Upsell Bundles holds a 4.9/5 rating across 379 reviews and runs on 0.3% of the stores in our dataset. For cash-on-delivery checkouts, Kwik COD Checkout sits at 4.7/5 from 449 reviews, and for post-purchase upsells Wiser AI Upsell Cross Sell carries a 4.9/5 rating from 561 reviews. Those are the blocks store owners add when the built-in editor stops short.

How to Edit Your Shopify Checkout Page

If all you need is the basic edit, the built-in flow takes a couple of minutes. These are the five steps, start to finish:

1. Login. Log into your Shopify admin using your credentials.
2. Online Store. Go to your online store, then enter the theme section within the Shopify store admin panel. Click on the ‘Customization’ option to make changes.
3. Checkout. You then must select the Checkout from the left-hand side of the theme navigation.
4. Update. Now you can make the changes that you want. You can update the banner, logo, main content area and other areas of the page. However, you’re limited unless you’re a Shopify Plus customer. For instance, Shopify Plus customers can edit the layout as well.
5. Save. When you’ve finished, you can save to complete the edits and push them to your site.

That covers the surface-level look. The rest of this guide is about the changes those five steps cannot reach, and how to make them.

What Each Shopify Plan Lets You Change at Checkout

This is the part that trips most people up. The checkout is one of the most locked-down areas of Shopify, and what you can touch is tied to your plan. Here is the honest breakdown, from the lightest plan to the top tier.

• Starter: The Starter plan is built for selling through links, social, and messaging rather than running a full online storefront. Checkout is Shopify-hosted and close to fixed. You can set core brand details like your business name and logo, but the checkout editor and app-based customization are not really on the table here.
• Basic: This is where real checkout branding begins. Basic gives you the checkout editor, so you can set your logo, colors, typography, and background, and you can add blocks from checkout apps. What you cannot do is rearrange the underlying layout or add custom code.
• Grow: The Grow plan behaves like Basic for checkout purposes. You get the same checkout editor and branding controls, plus the extra staff accounts and reporting that come with the higher tier. The checkout customization ceiling is the same as Basic.
• Advanced: Same checkout editor and branding again, with more advanced reporting and shipping features around it. Advanced still sits under the same customization ceiling as Basic and Grow. If you were hoping the price step up gave you deeper checkout control, it does not. That step comes with Plus.
• Plus: This is the tier built for heavy customization. Plus opens up the full checkout editor with drag-and-drop sections, custom fields, more checkout extension slots, and Shopify Functions for things like custom discounts, validation, and payment or delivery rules. Plus stores also get the branding controls at the API level for agencies that want to push things further.

The short version: branding is available on every paid plan, but deep structural control is a Plus feature. If you are on a lighter plan and hitting a wall, the two ways forward are moving up a plan or adding an app. If you do not have a paid plan yet, you will need one before any of the checkout editing above becomes available.

The Checkout Branding Editor: Logo, Colors, Fonts, and Background

The branding editor is the tool that handles the look of your checkout without any code, and it is the single most useful thing most stores are not using fully. You reach it from your Shopify admin under Settings, then Checkout, then Customize, which opens the checkout editor.

Inside it you can set:

• Logo: Upload your store logo and control its size and position at the top of the checkout so the page feels like a continuation of your store rather than a generic Shopify page.
• Colors: Set the accent color used for buttons and links, plus background and text colors, so checkout matches your brand palette.
• Typography: Choose the fonts and type sizes used for headings and body text.
• Background: Apply a background color or image to the main area and the order summary, and switch between one-column and two-column style layouts.

These settings apply to the checkout your customers see on Basic, Grow, and Advanced, and they are the fastest win available. A checkout that carries your logo, your colors, and your fonts looks trustworthy, and trust at the payment step is what keeps people from second-guessing the purchase.

A few things are worth checking while you are in the editor. Preview the checkout on mobile as well as desktop, because most Shopify traffic is mobile and a background image that looks good on a laptop can crowd the fields on a phone. Keep contrast high enough that the pay button is the most obvious thing on the screen. And save a copy of your settings, or note them down, before a big redesign so you can roll back if a change hurts conversions. Small, tested changes beat one dramatic overhaul that you cannot measure.

Customizing the Thank You and Order Status Pages

Most guides stop at the payment screen. That is a mistake, because the thank you page and the order status page are two of the highest-intent pages your customer will ever see. They have already paid, they are relaxed, and they are paying attention. That is the perfect moment for a follow-up offer, a survey, tracking details, or a nudge to create an account.

Both pages are customized through the same checkout editor and through checkout apps. You can add blocks for things like post-purchase upsells, order tracking, custom messages, and review or referral prompts. On Plus you get the most freedom here, but even on the standard paid plans, apps can add functional blocks to these pages.

If you are setting up the wider order flow at the same time, it is worth getting your payments, shipping, and order handling in order too, since those settings feed directly into what the customer sees after checkout. Our walkthrough on Shopify payments, shipping, and order setup covers that side.

checkout.liquid vs Checkout Extensibility

If you have searched this topic before, you have probably run into checkout.liquid. It used to be the file Shopify Plus stores edited to change checkout with raw code. It is now deprecated, and this is the single biggest source of outdated advice on the subject.

Shopify replaced the old code-file approach with what it calls checkout extensibility. Instead of one editable Liquid file, checkout is now customized through a set of safer, upgrade-proof tools:

• Checkout UI extensions: Small app-based components that drop into defined slots in the checkout, thank you, and order status pages. This is how apps add fields, banners, upsells, and custom content now.
• The checkout editor: The no-code drag-and-drop tool covered above, used to place branding and app blocks.
• Shopify Functions: Back-end logic for custom discounts, validation, and payment or delivery customizations, available on Plus.
• The branding API: Programmatic control over checkout styling for developers and agencies.

The practical takeaway: if a tutorial tells you to paste code into checkout.liquid, it is out of date. The current path is the checkout editor plus checkout extensions, delivered through apps or through a developer working with the extensibility tools. The upside of the change is that customizations no longer break when Shopify updates checkout, which was a constant risk with the old file.

When You Need an App to Customize Checkout

When the built-in editor runs out of room, an app is usually the answer, and this is where checkout customization actually happens for most stores below Plus. Because we detect the apps running on live Shopify storefronts, we can see which checkout and post-purchase apps merchants actually install rather than which ones market themselves the loudest.

A few patterns show up in our detection data:

• Checkout and post-purchase capture: Apps like Fullstory Checkout Capture add session and behavior tracking to the checkout so you can see where people hesitate or drop off.
• Cash-on-delivery and regional checkout: Kwik COD Checkout and Razorpay COD Magic Checkout add cash-on-delivery and faster regional flows, which matter a lot in markets where card payment is not the default.
• Checkout rules and protection: Blockify Checkout is used to add rules and controls to the checkout step.
• Cart and upsell blocks: Monster Cart Upsell, FoxKit Upsell Bundles, FoxKit Upsell Cross Sell, EcomRise Upsell Bundle, and Wiser AI Upsell add cart upsells, bundles, and cross-sells that lift average order value around the checkout moment.

The right app depends on the job. If you want more revenue per order, look at the cart and upsell tools. If you sell into cash-on-delivery markets, the COD apps solve a problem branding never will. If you want to understand why people abandon, a capture tool tells you before you guess.

Two cautions before you install anything. First, checkout apps work through checkout extensions, so an app has to be built for the current checkout to place blocks on the payment, thank you, or order status pages. An older app that only supported the retired checkout.liquid method will not do the job. Second, every extra block adds a little weight and one more thing that can go wrong at the most sensitive step of the sale, so add apps deliberately and test the full checkout on a real order after each one. The goal is a checkout that does more without feeling slower or busier.

Final Thoughts

Editing your Shopify checkout page is quick, and it is the right first step for logo, colors, and fonts. Real customization is a bigger question, and the honest answer is that it depends on your plan and on whether you reach for the checkout editor, checkout extensions, or an app. Branding is open to every paid plan, deep structural control belongs to Plus, and checkout.liquid is no longer the route for anyone. Start with the branding editor, extend the thank you and order status pages where the intent is highest, and add an app when the built-in tools stop short.