Shopify cash on delivery: set up COD, limit it, and confirm orders before you ship

How cash on delivery works in Shopify

Cash on delivery in Shopify is one of the manual payment methods, next to bank transfers and money orders. No money moves at checkout: the customer places the order, your courier collects the cash at the door, and the courier pays the money to you later.

That has four practical effects on how you run the store:

• Orders start as unpaid. Shopify lists orders that use a manual payment method as unpaid on the Orders page, so your order list mixes paid card orders with COD orders waiting for cash.
• No third-party transaction fee. Shopify’s pricing overview says manual payment methods, including cash on delivery, aren’t charged third-party transaction fees. Your courier may charge its own collection fee.
• No payment means no commitment. Anyone can place a COD order with a fake name or a friend’s number, so a share of orders will be refused or never answered. That is why confirming orders matters.
• Multi-currency has a condition. Manual payment methods show in each market’s currency only when you use Shopify Payments with Shopify’s international sales tools.

How to enable Shopify cash on delivery

You enable cash on delivery in a few minutes from the Payments settings, following the steps in Shopify’s manual payment methods guide:

1. 1

   Open the Payments settings

   From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Payments. On the Shopify mobile app, tap Menu, then Settings, then Payments.
2. 2

   Choose Cash on Delivery (COD) from the manual payment methods

   In the Payment providers section, select Cash on Delivery (COD) from the available manual payment methods.
3. 3

   Write the Additional details

   In Additional details, enter the text customers see next to COD at checkout. Say who collects the cash and where you deliver, for example “Pay the courier in cash when your order arrives. Delivery in 2 to 4 working days.”
4. 4

   Write the Payment instructions

   In Payment instructions, explain what the customer has to do to pay. Shopify shows them on the order confirmation page after checkout. Mention that you will message them on WhatsApp to confirm the order, so the message doesn’t come as a surprise.
5. 5

   Activate the payment method and place a test order

   Click the activate button. Then place a test order, ideally from a phone, and check how COD and your instructions look at checkout and on the confirmation page.

If you create a custom manual method instead, note that Shopify reserves the name “Cash on Delivery (COD)”, so a custom method needs a different name. Most stores should use the built-in COD option.

How to mark COD orders as paid

You mark a COD order as paid by hand after the courier pays you. Shopify’s steps for orders paid outside Shopify are:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders and open the order.
2. In the Payment pending section, click Collect payment.
3. Click Mark as paid.

If your courier sends a remittance report with each payout, match it against your unpaid orders before you mark anything as paid, so refused or lost parcels don’t end up recorded as revenue.

How to limit COD by country, order value or product

Shopify can’t limit COD from the COD settings themselves. The manual payment method has only two text fields, Additional details and Payment instructions, and no rules. To show COD only in some countries, only under a certain cart total, or never for certain products, you need a payment customization.

Payment customizations run on Shopify Functions. Shopify’s Payment Customization Function API lets an app rename, reorder or hide the payment methods shown at checkout. Here is what is native and what needs an app:

What to know before you set rules

• Plan: Shopify’s checkout customization guide says stores on Shopify’s Basic plan or higher can use payment customization apps from the Shopify App Store. You manage them in Settings > Payments.
• Checkout Blocks: Shopify’s own app can hide payment methods by minimum spend, shipping destination, customer tag or product collection, but this feature is available only on Shopify Plus. Other plans get only its content blocks.
• Limit: a store can have up to 25 payment method customizations active at once, across all apps.
• Country rules need an address. Shopify’s Checkout Blocks docs note that shipping-country rules only match after the customer enters a delivery address, and suggest a Shopify Market rule to target a country earlier. If you use another app, ask its developer how country rules behave before an address is entered.

How to add a COD fee in Shopify

Shopify has no built-in COD fee. The COD payment method has only two text fields, Additional details and Payment instructions, and no fee setting. Stores use one of three workarounds:

1. Price it into shipping. If most of your orders are COD, add the courier’s collection fee to your shipping rates. It needs no app and never surprises the customer at the door.
2. Use a COD form app with fees. Some COD order form apps add a fee to COD orders. For example, the COD King listing on the Shopify App Store lists COD fees and COD rules by location, cart value or product, on its paid plans (listing checked October 20, 2026).
3. Reward prepayment instead. Offer a discount code for card payment and promote it on the product page and in your order messages. It has the same effect as a COD fee and reads better to customers.

COD form apps vs the Shopify checkout

A COD form app replaces Shopify’s multi-step checkout with a one-page order form on the product page. It suits stores that send ad traffic straight to a product page. Two widely reviewed examples are Releasit COD Form & Upsells (2,461 reviews) and EasySell COD Form & Upsells (992 reviews). Their listings describe OTP phone verification, upsells and rules that block suspicious orders, and EasySell lists partial COD deposits on its ADVANCED plan (listings checked October 20, 2026).

Form apps check the phone number at the moment of ordering. They don’t ask the customer, a few minutes later, to confirm they still want the parcel, so a form and a WhatsApp confirmation do different jobs and work well together. Our page on using Whapi with Releasit, EasySell and other COD form apps explains what to check so the customer’s phone number reaches the WhatsApp confirmation.

How to stop fake and refused COD orders

To cut refused COD deliveries, confirm every order with the customer before it reaches the courier. A refused parcel costs you the outbound shipping, often a return fee, and stock that sits in transit. A cancelled order that never ships costs one message.

Combine confirmation with a few simple rules:

• Confirm every COD order on WhatsApp and ship only the confirmed ones.
• Call only the customers who don’t reply, instead of every customer.
• Ask for prepayment or a deposit above an order value you set, using an app.
• Hide COD for products or areas with a history of refusals, using a payment customization app.
• Track your refusal rate by city and product every month, so you can see where the losses are.

Our article on how to stop fake COD orders on Shopify covers each fix in detail, and the COD profit calculator shows what refused orders cost your store each month.

How to confirm COD orders on WhatsApp with Whapi

Whapi confirms Shopify COD orders by sending each customer a WhatsApp message with Confirm Order and Cancel Order buttons, then tagging the order in Shopify with their answer. It works on Meta’s official WhatsApp Business API from your own number.

1. A customer places a COD order on your Shopify store.
2. After the delay you choose, Whapi sends a WhatsApp message with the order number, the total and two buttons.
3. The customer taps Confirm Order or Cancel Order. You can send a different follow-up for each answer.
4. Whapi adds the tag you chose, such as Confirmed or Cancelled, so your team filters orders and ships the confirmed ones.

The message is a WhatsApp template with Shopify variables such as {{customer_first_name}}, {{order_number}} and {{total_price}}. Meta usually puts order confirmations in the Utility category, and Meta decides the category when it reviews the template. The COD order confirmation templates page has copy-ready versions in English, Arabic and Roman Urdu.

What each confirmation costs

Each confirmation costs one Meta Utility message at the rate for the customer’s country, paid to Meta with no markup from Whapi. Since October 1, 2026, Meta charges Utility templates even when the customer messaged you in the last 24 hours, unless the message falls inside a free entry point window from a Click to WhatsApp ad.

COD confirmation is included in Whapi Pro ($18.99 per month) and Team ($45 per month), both with a 7-day free trial. The COD confirmation feature page shows the full flow.

Shopify COD launch checklist

Before you switch on cash on delivery, run through this list:

• COD is active in Settings > Payments, with clear Additional details and Payment instructions.
• Your checkout collects a phone number on every order, so you can reach each COD customer on WhatsApp.
• Your courier collects cash in the cities you sell to, and you know its collection fee and payout schedule.
• You have decided whether COD has an order value cap or excluded products, and installed an app if it does.
• The cost of cash collection is in your shipping rates, or a COD fee app is set up.
• Every COD order gets a WhatsApp confirmation before it is handed to the courier.
• Customers get WhatsApp shipping updates from your Shopify fulfillment and tracking data once the parcel ships.
• Someone marks orders as paid when each courier remittance arrives.

Selling in a specific market? See the country guides for Shopify in Pakistan, Shopify in the UAE and Shopify in Saudi Arabia.