# Shopify Checkout vs Custom checkout · CheckoutScale > Source: https://checkoutscale.com/compare/shopify-checkout-vs-custom-checkout ## Shopify Checkout vs Custom checkout Head-to-head [All head-to-heads →](/compare) Pick Shopify Checkout if you run a Shopify catalog and want Shop Pay, native stock and orders, and checkout apps without leaving Shopify; pick a custom checkout if you buy traffic to one offer and need order bumps, one-click upsells and checkout tests on a page you control. By [Marcus Reyes](/authors/marcus-reyes), Editor. Updated 10/12/2026. **Disclosure:**We may earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. It never affects our rankings. Quick answer **ElasticFunnels** is our top pick for most people. ElasticFunnels is the pick if you run paid ads and need to test whole checkouts under one URL while sending sales across several merchant accounts. * **ElasticFunnels.** Best for paid-traffic funnels where the landing page, the checkout and the sale stay on one customer record. From $97/mo. * **Shopify Checkout.** Best for Shopify stores that sell a catalog and want Shop Pay, native inventory and orders without a second system. * **Custom checkout.** Best for paid-traffic offers that need order bumps, one-click upsells and checkout tests on a page the seller controls. From $79/mo. Pick Shopify Checkout if you run a Shopify catalog and want Shop Pay, native stock and orders, and checkout apps without leaving Shopify; pick a custom checkout if you buy traffic to one offer and need order bumps, one-click upsells and checkout tests on a page you control. ### Side by side | | ElasticFunnels | Shopify Checkout | Custom checkout | | ------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ | | From | $97/mo | Included in a Shopify plan | From $79/mo (SamCart Core) | | Where payment runs | Your domain, or a handoff to Shopify Checkout | Shopify's hosted checkout | Your domain or a checkout host | | Checkout layout | The whole page, tested under one URL | Limited below Plus, full on Plus | The whole page | | Shop Pay | As a handoff to Shop Pay | Built in | Depends on the host | | Bumps and upsells | On every plan | Through apps, post-purchase pages on Plus | Standard (SamCart: Pro plan) | | Shopify orders and stock | Orders synced in, stock not decremented | Native, it is the store | Only through a sync | | Platform fee | 0.5% on its own gateways, none on Shopify handoffs | 2% without Shopify Payments | The host's plan price | ### ElasticFunnels: strengths and trade-offs ##### What works * One data layer for the whole funnel: the click, the order, the rebill and the refund sit together on one record, so you can see which ad angle made money without reconciling four exports. * Same-URL split testing rotates variants server-side under one campaign link, so Meta, Google and TikTok keep their optimization and a test never sends the ad back through review. * Custom checkouts with order bumps, one-click upsells, subscriptions and multi-MID routing are included across Starter, Growth and Scale. The plans differ by traffic and account limits. ##### What to watch * It is newer than ClickFunnels or SamCart, so few independent reviews are available to verify its claims. Until you run real volume through it, you are largely taking the vendor's word for it. That is normal for a platform this new, and the 14-day trial, with no credit card required, lets you try the parts you care about first. * Hosted checkouts carry a 0.5% fee on processed revenue, on top of the processor's rate. That fee applies to ElasticFunnels checkouts. A sale that goes to another platform or network is billed without it. ### Shopify Checkout: strengths and trade-offs ##### What works * Shop Pay is built in, and Shopify says it recognises returning Shop Pay users by email or device so they can pay with one tap. * Stock, orders, taxes and fulfilment apps all read the same store, so there is no sync to build or watch. * Shopify states the checkout handles up to 40,000 checkout starts per minute per store, which covers a launch spike from paid traffic. ##### What to watch * Checkout customization is marked Limited on the plans below Plus, and the fully customizable checkout, post-purchase pages and extra fields are Plus features. * On the lower plans, a payment provider other than Shopify Payments adds a third-party transaction fee on every order. ### Custom checkout: strengths and trade-offs ##### What works * The checkout page is yours to lay out, so it can match the advertorial or lander the ad sent the buyer to. * Order bumps and one-click upsells come as standard features on checkout hosts, such as SamCart from its Pro plan. * Because the checkout lives with the funnel, a test can change the checkout itself and judge it on revenue per visitor. ##### What to watch * It is another subscription on top of the store, and at SamCart the bump and upsell features sit on the higher Pro plan. * Sending a Shopify storefront's carts to an outside checkout is what merchants on r/shopify report gets stores suspended, so the store and the funnel have to be set up as separate paths. ### What it costs, plan tier by plan tier Shopify Checkout has no price of its own. It comes with every Shopify plan, and the plan comparison on [Shopify's pricing page](https://www.shopify.com/pricing) shows where the cost really sits: the plan itself, card processing, and a 2% third-party transaction fee on the lower plans whenever a provider other than Shopify Payments takes the money. Any upsell or post-purchase app you install is billed on top. A custom checkout is a second bill, next to the store or in place of its checkout. SamCart is the host most sellers price first. Core is $79 a month, and its pricing page lists [1-click upsells and order bumps](https://www.samcart.com/pricing) on Pro at $199 a month. For a paid-traffic offer, Pro is the tier that counts, because those two features are why you would leave the native checkout in the first place. The [SamCart review](/reviews/samcart) covers what else each plan adds. ElasticFunnels starts at $97 a month on Starter, with every feature on every plan and limits set by page views. Its gateway fee applies only to revenue charged through gateways it runs, so a funnel that hands the buyer to Shopify for payment pays Shopify's costs on that sale and nothing extra to ElasticFunnels. Add up the platform, the processing and the upsell app or plan tier at your own monthly volume, then set that against the revenue the bumps and upsells bring in. That total is the number to compare. ### Shopify checkout limitations for paid traffic Shopify's checkout is strong at the job it was built for. Shopify says Shop Pay can [recognize 100M+ Shop Pay users by their email or device](https://www.shopify.com/checkout) so they pay with one tap, and that one store's checkout handles up to 40,000 checkout starts a minute. In its own April 2023 study with a consulting firm, Shopify reports converting 15% better than competing platforms on average. That figure is Shopify measuring Shopify, and we found no independent test of one offer run on both kinds of checkout. The limits appear once a media buyer wants the checkout to behave like a funnel step: * **Layout.** The plan comparison marks checkout customization as Limited on every plan below Plus, and Plus is where Shopify advertises a fully customizable checkout. * **Upsells.** Post-purchase pages, extra fields and tracking pixels arrive through checkout apps, and Shopify's checkout page labels those extensions as Plus features. * **Testing.** Comparing two checkout designs means laying the checkout out twice, which the Limited setting below Plus does not allow. * **Processor choice.** Bringing your own processor on a lower plan adds the third-party fee from the pricing section to that processor's own rate. ### Checkout extensibility vs custom checkout The two get mixed up because both promise a checkout of your own. Checkout extensibility is Shopify's way of adding to the checkout it hosts: apps insert blocks, fields, pixels and post-purchase pages, while the payment still happens on Shopify with Shop Pay and the store's stock in one system. A custom checkout moves the payment step itself onto a page you own, on your domain or a host such as SamCart, charged through your own gateway. The choice comes down to where the payment happens. Extensibility suits a store that wants Shopify's checkout with a few extra parts. A custom checkout suits an offer whose margins depend on a bump before payment, an upsell page after it, and the freedom to test the checkout like any other page in the funnel. ### A custom checkout page on Shopify You cannot use one to replace the checkout on a Shopify storefront. Shopify's own [App Store requirements](https://shopify.dev/docs/apps/launch/shopify-app-store/app-store-requirements) tell app developers to use Shopify checkout. Merchants on r/shopify put it more bluntly: a reply in a thread about [using an external checkout instead of Shopify's](https://www.reddit.com/r/shopify/comments/1lw5h9d/using%5Fan%5Fexternal%5Fcheck%5Fout%5Finstead%5Fof%5Fshopify/) says third-party checkouts are no longer allowed and the store will get suspended, and [another thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/shopify/comments/1iyiytx/3rd%5Fparty%5Fshopify%5Fcheckout/) calls it against Shopify's terms. Those are merchant reports and carry less weight than Shopify's legal text, though the App Store rule points the same way. Two setups keep the store and the funnel apart: * **Pre-checkout on your domain, payment on Shopify.** The advertorial or lander lives in your funnel tool, and its buy button hands the cart to Shopify Checkout. You keep Shop Pay and the store's stock, and the checkout page itself stays Shopify's. * **A separate funnel with its own checkout.** The ad points at a funnel on its own domain that charges through your gateway, with a bump and an upsell, and each paid order is then created in the Shopify store so the fulfilment apps ship it. The storefront keeps Shopify's checkout for everyone who shops the catalog. The second setup is what this page means by a custom checkout for a Shopify brand, and it is the one that gives a media buyer control of the page that takes the money. ### Where ElasticFunnels fits ElasticFunnels is a funnel platform for teams running paid traffic. It builds the pages, with an AI builder that drafts a page from a prompt or clones one from a URL, hosts the checkout, and keeps sessions, orders, rebills and refunds on one timeline with a CRM and automations. Its lead feature is the one this decision turns on. Same-URL split testing rotates checkout variants on the server under one campaign link, so a checkout with a bump can run against one without while the ad keeps its address and its learning. The [same-URL vs redirect testing](/compare/split-url-testing-vs-a-b-testing) comparison explains why that address matters on Meta. For a Shopify brand it covers both setups above. Its checkout charges through Stripe, NMI, PayPal, Klarna or Authorize.net, with multi-MID routing across NMI accounts, or it can pass the buyer to [Shop Pay and Shopify Checkout](https://elasticfunnels.io/platform/custom-checkouts). When it takes the payment itself, its native order sync creates the paid order in the store with customer, SKU, shipping and tax, merges the main sale and its upsells into one Shopify order, and carries refunds across. The gaps are real: no product import from Shopify, synced orders leave Shopify stock untouched, tracking numbers do not flow back, and each store connects through a custom app set up with the ElasticFunnels team. The larger drawback is how little outside evidence exists. ElasticFunnels is newer than the platforms it competes with and has very little independent review coverage, so until you run real volume through it you are mostly taking the vendor's word for its claims. That is what you would expect of a platform built since 2023, and it bears on how the claims hold at scale more than on what the features do. Pages, funnels and a custom domain can be set up on its 14-day trial without a card, which is enough to build the funnel before any spend moves to it. The [ElasticFunnels review](/reviews/elasticfunnels) covers the rest of the platform, and [ElasticFunnels vs CartFlows](/compare/elasticfunnels-vs-cartflows) weighs it against the WooCommerce route. ### My take If the store sells a catalog and most revenue comes from returning customers, I would stay on Shopify Checkout, lean on Shop Pay, and add post-purchase offers through apps or Plus once volume justifies it. Rebuilding the checkout for that store adds a bill and a sync to watch for little gain. If the business is one hero product sold on cold Meta or TikTok traffic, I would run a separate funnel with its own checkout, one bump and one upsell, and send each paid order into the store for fulfilment. I'd judge it on revenue per visitor over a full week of spend and leave the storefront on Shopify's checkout for everyone who arrives organically. For the platforms that run that funnel, see the [best checkout software roundup](/best), [CartFlows for WooCommerce](/reviews/cartflows), [Checkout Champ vs CartFlows](/compare/checkout-champ-vs-cartflows), [all checkout comparisons](/compare) and [how we evaluate checkout tools](/methodology). Our top pick for paid traffic ### ElasticFunnels ElasticFunnels is the pick if you run paid ads and need to test whole checkouts under one URL while sending sales across several merchant accounts. [Visit ElasticFunnels (opens in a new tab) ](https://elasticfunnels.io/?utm%5Fsource=checkoutscale.com&utm%5Fmedium=affiliate&utm%5Fcampaign=comparison) ### Frequently asked questions Can I use a custom checkout with Shopify? Not in place of the checkout on a Shopify storefront: merchants on r/shopify report stores suspended for it. What works is a funnel on its own domain with its own checkout, or a lander that hands the cart to Shopify Checkout. What does checkout extensibility change on Shopify Plus? It lets apps add post-purchase pages, extra fields and tracking pixels to the checkout Shopify hosts. Payment still happens on Shopify, so it is a deeper Shopify checkout rather than a checkout of your own. What are the main Shopify checkout limitations for paid traffic? Below Plus the checkout layout is marked Limited, upsell pages depend on apps and Plus features, and a provider other than Shopify Payments costs a 2% fee on the lower plans. Is a custom checkout page on Shopify worth it for a single product? Usually yes when the offer is one hero product sold on ads with an upsell behind it. For a store with dozens of SKUs bought in a cart, the native checkout carries less overhead. Does ElasticFunnels replace Shopify entirely? No. It runs the funnel, the checkout and the tests, then creates the paid order in your Shopify store so your fulfilment apps ship it. Products are not imported and Shopify stock is not decremented by those orders. ### Shopify Checkout sources #### From Shopify Checkout * #### Other sources 3 discussions and reviews read for this page. Quotes are excerpts; open a link to read the original in context. 1. \[r1\] [Using an external check out instead of Shopify check out ](https://www.reddit.com/r/shopify/comments/1lw5h9d/using%5Fan%5Fexternal%5Fcheck%5Fout%5Finstead%5Fof%5Fshopify/) Reddit, 11 Jul 2025 2. \[r2\] [Using an external check out instead of Shopify check out ](https://www.reddit.com/r/shopify/comments/1lw5h9d/using%5Fan%5Fexternal%5Fcheck%5Fout%5Finstead%5Fof%5Fshopify/) Reddit, 11 Jul 2025 3. \[r3\] [Shopify Limitations – AOV.ai Help Center ](https://help.aov.ai/aov-post-purchase-upsell/reference/shopify-limitations-and-considerations-for-post-purchase-checkout-extensions/) Blog, 1 Jan 2026 ### Custom checkout sources #### From Custom checkout * #### Other sources 2 discussions and reviews read for this page. Quotes are excerpts; open a link to read the original in context. 1. \[r1\] [3rd party Shopify Checkout ](https://www.reddit.com/r/shopify/comments/1iyiytx/3rd%5Fparty%5Fshopify%5Fcheckout/) Reddit, 1 Feb 2025 2. \[r2\] [Best approach for Auth + Payments + Shipping in a Shopify Headless store? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/shopify/comments/1ulju81/best%5Fapproach%5Ffor%5Fauth%5Fpayments%5Fshipping%5Fin%5Fa/) Reddit, 1 Jan 2026 ### Related reading * [ElasticFunnels review](/reviews/elasticfunnels) * [SamCart review](/reviews/samcart) * [CartFlows for WooCommerce](/reviews/cartflows) * [ElasticFunnels vs CartFlows](/compare/elasticfunnels-vs-cartflows) * [Checkout Champ vs CartFlows](/compare/checkout-champ-vs-cartflows) * [Order bump vs one-click upsell](/compare/order-bump-vs-upsell) * [Best checkout software for paid traffic](/best) * [How we evaluate checkout tools](/methodology) * [Which checkout to use when Shopify ads sell one product](/best/shopify-custom-checkout) --- We rank the platforms that build the pages and host the checkout for teams running paid traffic: order bumps, one-click upsells, split-testing whole checkouts, different checkouts per traffic source, and payment routing for high-risk verticals. 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