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How to test a free delivery threshold, properly.

Updated 16 October 2026 · 5 min read

"Free delivery over £40" is one of the most common changes a Shopify store makes, and one of the least often checked. It usually lifts average order value. Whether it makes you more money depends on what it does to the number of orders and to your delivery costs. Here is how to test one so you know.

What a threshold is for

A free delivery threshold works by giving people a reason to add one more thing. Someone with £32 in their basket and free delivery at £40 will often find an £8 to £15 item rather than pay for delivery. That lifts average order value. Delivery costs are also one of the most common reasons people give for leaving at checkout, so a threshold can lift orders too.

The risks: customers below the threshold may now feel charged for delivery when they weren't before (if you used to offer it free to all), some will leave rather than top up, and every order over the threshold is one where you now pay the courier yourself.

Pick a threshold

1. Find your average order value. Use the last 28 days, after discounts and refunds. That Other Dashboard shows it on the free plan.
2. Look at your prices. The threshold should be reachable by adding one typical product. If your average order is £34 and most items cost £10 to £20, somewhere around £40 to £45 is within reach. At £60 most people won't bother.
3. Know your delivery cost. What you pay the courier per order, plus packaging. You'll need it for the maths below.
4. Check what competitors offer. Not to copy them, but because your customers compare.

Set it up in Shopify

1. In Shopify admin, go to Settings, then Shipping and delivery.
2. Open the shipping profile your products use and find the zone, such as United Kingdom.
3. Press Add rate, name it something clear like "Free delivery", and set the price to £0.
4. Add a condition based on order price with a minimum of your threshold, say £40.
5. Edit your paid rate and give it a maximum just under the threshold (£39.99), so customers over £40 only see the free option.

Then tell people. An announcement bar, a line on product pages and a note in the cart ("You're £8 away from free delivery") make a threshold work far harder than one buried in your delivery page.

You can do the same with a free shipping discount with a minimum purchase, under Discounts. Either works; a delivery rate is simpler to keep track of.

Run the test

Shopify can't show different delivery rates to different visitors at the same time without extra apps, so most stores test a threshold by comparing before and after. That works well if you're careful:

• Log it the day it goes live. In That Other Dashboard, press Log a change, title it "Free delivery over £40", choose the type Offer or price, set the day it went live and note what you expect: "AOV up, orders flat or up". It marks every chart on that day, and the card shows net sales in the 7 days after against the 7 before.
• Run it for two to four full weeks. Average order value is noisy on small stores, and some customers need a visit or two to notice.
• Change nothing else. No sale, no big new campaign, no price changes during the test. If something unavoidable happens, log that too.
• Avoid peaks. Don't start it the week before Black Friday or Christmas, when everything changes at once.

Check the maths, not just sales

One catch: Shopify's net sales leave out what customers pay for delivery. So when delivery becomes free, the money you used to take for it doesn't show as a fall in net sales. You have to add it in yourself. Here is a month before and after for a store with a 50% product margin, charging £3.95 delivery and paying the courier £3.50:

• Before: 500 orders at £36 average = £18,000 net sales. Product margin £9,000. Delivery charged on every order: £1,975 in, £1,750 out, so +£225.
• After: 480 orders at £43 average = £20,640 net sales. Product margin £10,320. 288 orders now go free, so delivery is charged on only 192: £758 in, £1,680 out, so −£922.

Net sales rose almost 15%. But product margin went up by £1,320 while delivery went from +£225 to −£922, a swing of £1,147. Profit rose by about £170 a month. Still positive, but nowhere near what the sales figure suggests, and with slightly thinner margins it would have lost money.

So compare all of these between the weeks before and after:

• Average order value, which should rise.
• Orders, which shouldn't fall much. If they drop, the threshold may be too high.
• Units per order (units divided by orders), which shows whether people are adding items.
• What sold. The products panel shows which items people added to reach the threshold. Cheaper add on items rising up the list is a good sign.
• Delivery cost and income, from your courier invoices and Shopify's shipping charges.
• Conversion rate, from Shopify's own analytics, if you have enough visits to read it.

Decide and record it

If profit clearly rose, keep it. If average order value rose but profit didn't, try a slightly higher threshold or check whether a cheaper courier service would make the sums work. If orders fell, try lower. Each new threshold is its own test: log it as a new change.

When you're done, write the result in the card's Outcome and close it, so it joins the decision log. Our guide to testing a change covers how to read the result and what can fool you.

Common questions

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