How To Take Deposits On Shopify: Setup, Limitations, And App Comparison (2026)

Shopify doesn't have a built-in deposit feature. To take a deposit — a partial payment at checkout with the balance collected later — you need a Shopify deposit app built on the Selling Plans API, or you can handle each order manually through draft orders. This guide covers how the mechanism works, why it converts, what its limitations are, and how the main deposit apps compare on pricing and features as of mid-2026.

How Deposits Work On Shopify

The native mechanism is called deferred purchase options. A deposit app attaches a selling plan to your product — for example, "25% now, 75% later." From there:

1. Checkout charges only the deposit. Shopify displays the full payment terms on the checkout page, so the customer sees exactly what's due and when.
2. The card is vaulted. Shopify saves the customer's payment method with the payment provider. This is the part that makes long pre-orders possible: a regular card authorization expires within days, so any app that relies on capturing the original authorization can't collect a balance two months later. Vaulted cards can.
3. The order shows as "Partially paid" in your admin, with the outstanding balance tracked by Shopify itself — not in a separate dashboard.
4. The balance gets collected in one of three ways, depending on the app and your settings:
   • auto-charge the vaulted card a set number of days after the order or on a specific date
   • send the customer an invoice/payment link
   • collect offline (pickup, bank transfer, COD) and mark the order as paid in admin

Because this runs through the native checkout, it works with Shopify Payments and Shop Pay, and your reporting stays consistent. Support for third-party gateways varies by app — K1, for example, supports Shopify Payments, PayPal Express, Stripe, and Adyen on Shopify for native purchase options. Check your app's gateway list before installing; this is the most common incompatibility.

Why Offer Deposits At All

Roughly 70% of online carts get abandoned, and cost showing up at the wrong moment is the top reason. Asking full price today for something that ships in two months makes it worse. Deposits move the needle for three reasons:

• A smaller number feels safer. "$50 today" is an easier yes than "$300 today," even when the total is identical.
• You improve cash flow. You collect money upfront to fund production instead of waiting until fulfillment.
• You filter for serious buyers. A deposit signals real intent, so you get fewer flaky orders than a free "notify me" list.

This applies beyond classic "coming soon" pre-orders: made-to-order furniture, custom pieces, high-ticket electronics, and limited drops all convert better with a smaller first payment.

What You Can't Do

Worth knowing before you commit to the model:

• No app-free automation. Without an app, deposits only work through draft orders with payment terms — you create each order by hand and chase each balance yourself. Workable for a few B2B orders a month, not for a storefront.
• Online store only. Selling-plan deposits run through the online checkout; they don't work through Shopify POS.
• Failed balance charges are your problem. Cards expire and get declined between deposit and balance. Apps retry and send payment links, but expect a small percentage of orders to need manual follow-up.
• Deposit apps price by processed volume. Every major app caps monthly deposit revenue per plan tier (see table). If you sell high-ticket products, calculate which tier you'll actually land in before comparing base prices.

Choosing A Deposit App: Comparison (Verified July 2026)

All data below is taken directly from Shopify App Store listings, checked in July 2026. Prices change; re-verify before deciding.

How they differ in practice:

K1 PreOrder Now & Deposit combines pre-order management and deposits in one app, which matters because the two usually go together: most deposit use cases are pre-orders, backorders, and made-to-order products. It carries the Built for Shopify badge and is the only app in the table with a free plan usable on a live store (10 pre-orders, all features). Balances auto-charge on schedule with no invoice chasing, and a Pre-orders dashboard covers the manual cases: charge now, reschedule or cancel a charge, refund, or create a pre-order for a specific customer via a checkout link. It also connects to Shopify Flow. It's the youngest app on the list (launched December 2024), so its review count is lower than the others'. Full feature breakdown is on PickYourApp's K1 page.

Downpay is the established option for custom and made-to-order stores. It integrates with Shopify Flow, APIs, and Hydrogen storefronts, and has a customer portal where buyers can update their card on file. It's also the most expensive entry point at $29/month, and there's no pre-order management — it does payments only.

SPD covers four payment models: deposits, installments, paying one order with two payment methods, and shareable payments where several people contribute to a single order. If you need installments rather than a single deposit + balance, it's the one to test. Its free plan works on development stores only.

Depo is the pick for two specific cases: taking deposits on draft orders created in the admin, and COD workflows (deposit online, rest on delivery) to cut return-to-origin rates. Its pricing model is different — low base price plus a per-transaction fee — so run the math against your volume. Its rating is the lowest of the four, with reviews mentioning theme compatibility issues alongside praise for support.

Setting It Up

The flow is similar in all four apps. Here's what it looks like in K1, step by step:

1. Install the app and approve permissions. Deposit apps request access to purchase options and payment terms — that's the Selling Plans machinery, not something to be alarmed by. Then enable the app embed in your theme so the widget can render.
2. Create a pre-order rule and select the products or collections it applies to.
3. Add a Partial payment (deposit) option. Set the deposit as a percentage of the product price or a fixed amount, then choose when the balance is charged: a set number of days after the order, or a specific date.
4. Check the product page wording. The widget should state the terms plainly. In K1, the option name and description support dynamic variables — {payment}, {remaining}, {date} — so a single template renders as "Pay 25% today, $150 charged on Sep 1" with the actual numbers for each product. Add an order tag to the payment option so deposit orders are easy to filter in admin. Checkout will show the terms anyway, but a customer who first learns about a future charge at checkout is a future chargeback.
5. Place a test order and verify three things: only the deposit was charged, the order shows "Partially paid," and the tax on the deposit is proportional. Then test the balance charge.

Mistakes That Cost Money

• Setting up deposits as a separate product or duplicate variant. Some merchants improvise a "deposit product" instead of using selling plans. The predictable failure: the customer eventually pays the full price plus the deposit and you're processing refunds. If an order total ever exceeds the product price, this is why.
• Assuming the balance can be captured from the original payment. It can't, past the authorization window. The app must vault the card. All four apps above do; some smaller ones don't.
• Ignoring the volume caps. A store doing $8,000/month in deposit orders isn't comparing $9.99 vs $29 — it's comparing $49.99 (K1 Pro) vs $49 (Downpay Standard/SPD Growth). Base prices are meaningless without your volume.
• Not testing tax proration. The deposit should carry its share of tax. If it doesn't, the remaining-balance amount will be wrong and you'll find out from an angry customer.

FAQ

Can Shopify take deposits without an app?

Only manually: draft orders with payment terms, one order at a time. There's no storefront-facing native option.

Which deposit app should you choose?

Match the app to your use case. K1 PreOrder Now & Deposit for pre-orders, backorders, and made-to-order products — plus the only free plan usable on a live store. Downpay for deep custom workflows, SPD for installments and split payments, Depo for COD and draft-order deposits. All four vault the card and collect the balance automatically.

Do deposits work with Shop Pay?

Yes — deposits run through the native checkout, and the payment method is vaulted for the balance charge. Third-party gateway support varies by app; K1 supports Shopify Payments, PayPal Express, Stripe, and Adyen on Shopify.

What deposit percentage do merchants use?

Typically 20–50%. Made-to-order sellers who buy materials upfront tend toward 50%; pre-order stores optimizing for order volume tend toward 20–25%.

What happens if the balance charge fails?

The order stays "Partially paid." Apps retry the card and email a payment link; unresolved cases need manual handling. K1, for example, retries the charge up to five times, marks the pre-order "Past due" in its dashboard, and lets you charge the balance manually or send the customer a secure card-replacement link. Don't fulfill until the order is paid — "Partially paid" status makes this easy to filter.

Is a deposit the same as Buy Now Pay Later?

No. BNPL providers (Klarna, Afterpay) pay you in full immediately and charge you 4–6% per transaction for taking on the credit risk. With deposits there's no intermediary and no extra fee — you just collect the money in two parts and carry the risk of the balance not being paid.

Can the customer pay the balance in cash or by transfer?

Yes, if the app supports manual collection: take the deposit online, collect the rest offline, and mark the order as paid in Shopify admin.

Bottom Line

Deposits on Shopify are a solved problem, but only through Selling Plans — either hand-built with draft orders or automated with an app. Match the app to your use case: pre-orders point to K1 PreOrder Now & Deposit, deep custom workflows to Downpay, installments to SPD, and COD or draft-order deposits to Depo. Whichever you pick, run the volume math and place a test order before going live.