Checkout Blocks 101: Customize Shopify Checkout Without Code

Shopify Scripts are gone, custom Functions require building an app, and somewhere between those two facts sits the question every merchant actually has: how do I just change my checkout? For a lot of stores the answer is Checkout Blocks, Shopify's own free app for code-free checkout customization.

This is the honest 101: what it does, what your plan actually unlocks, and how to place your first block.

What Checkout Blocks is

Checkout Blocks is a free app, built by Shopify, that adds customization powers to the checkout and accounts editor. Per Shopify's documentation, it covers:

• Content blocks: dynamic and static content placed into checkout, Thank you, and Order status pages
• Custom fields: collect order notes, gift messages, delivery instructions
• Payment and delivery customizations: hide, rename, and reorder methods conditionally
• Order value limits and custom discounts with conditional rules
• Display rules that control exactly when a block appears

Under the hood, the customization features run on the same Shopify Functions machinery a developer would use. That's the point: it's the no-code interface to a system that otherwise requires an app build.

The plan table nobody puts up front

This is the part that surprises people, so it goes first, not in a footnote. Shopify's docs state it plainly: merchants on Basic or higher get the dynamic and static content blocks, placeable only on the Thank you and Order status pages. Everything else is Shopify Plus only.

If you're not on Plus, don't close the tab: the Thank you and Order status pages are genuinely valuable real estate (more on that below), and for payment or delivery rules specifically, public Functions apps from the App Store work on every plan. Our Functions overview maps that landscape.

Setting up your first block

1. Install Checkout Blocks from the App Store. You'll need to be the store owner, or staff with metaobject permissions and access to the app.
2. Open Settings → Checkout and click Customize to enter the checkout and accounts editor.
3. Add a block to a supported page. On any plan, start with the Order status page: it's the page customers revisit for tracking, which makes it the highest-traffic page most merchants have never customized.
4. Configure the block's display rules so it appears only when relevant.

A practical first block for any plan: a dynamic content block on the Thank you page pointing first-time customers at your best-selling collection, or setting delivery expectations for preorder items, shown only when the order contains one.

What to build by plan

On Basic, Grow, or Advanced: treat the Thank you and Order status pages as your conversion surface. Reorder instructions, care guides keyed to what was bought, support contact details that cut "where is my order" tickets, a referral nudge after delivery.

On Plus: the full toolkit opens up, and the highest-value moves in our experience are the payment and delivery customizations, hiding what shouldn't be offered and putting the right option first. That's the next post: hiding and reordering payment and delivery options without code.

When Checkout Blocks isn't enough

Display rules cover a lot, but they're a fixed vocabulary. When your logic needs data the rules can't see, or math they can't express, that's the line where a custom Functions app starts, which also requires Plus. We keep a running catalog of what's buildable there: The Shopify Functions Playbook, free, 25 ideas with the constraints stated.

And if you're not sure which side of the line your idea falls on, ask us. Telling merchants "you don't need a custom build for that" is a service we provide happily and often.