Setting up tipping options for online orders

Online tipping gives your customers the option to add a tip to their order on the payment page when they check out. Customers can add the tip as a percentage of the order total or as a custom amount. You can change the labels and descriptions to customize the online tipping experience to suit your goals, such as supporting your business financially, or collecting donations for a charity.

Considerations for tipping options in your online store

Before you set up tipping options, consider the following requirements:

  • Tipping options for your online store checkout must be set up using your Shopify admin, even if you have set up tipping options previously for your Shopify POS.
  • The tip is calculated on the cart's subtotal before taxes and shipping. However, tips are subject to credit card fees or third-party transaction fees because they’re part of the order total.
  • Customers can't tip more than 100% of the order total.
  • Tips are limited to 1000 USD for both pre-selected and custom tip options.
  • Customers can't add tips when they place orders using Shop Pay Installments.
  • The Subscription API doesn't support tipping. You can't add a tip at checkout to a cart that contains an item with a selling plan.

Using online tipping with offsite payment gateways

If you use offsite payment gateways, then you should test the online tipping experience thoroughly before you add online tipping to your store. For example, some offsite payment gateways might not recognize the tipping line item.

If you discover that the tipping experience doesn't work as expected for a specific offsite payment gateway, then contact support for that gateway.

Set up tipping options from your Shopify admin

You can create up to three tipping options that are a percentage of the order's subtotal. Alternatively, customers can add a custom amount.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Checkout.

  2. In the Tipping section, select Show tipping at checkout.

  3. In the Preset 1, Preset 2, and Preset 3 fields, enter your tipping options in percents.

  4. Optional: To hide tipping options until your customers choose to add a tip, select Hide tipping options until customers choose to add a tip.

  5. Click Save.

Change the labels for tipping online

You can change the tipping labels that display during the checkout process. For example, if your goal is to collect money for a charity, then you could indicate that you're collecting donations by changing some of the labels to be similar to the following example:

  • Title: Donations
  • Description: Please donate to a good cause
  • Custom Label: Add a custom donation
  • Update tip: Update donation
  • Tip label: Donation

The following table lists the fields that you can change to suit your goals. You edit the labels in the Themes section of your Shopify admin or Shopify app. These fields are located on the Checkout & system page.

Online tipping labels
SectionFieldDefault label
Checkout tipsTitleAdd tip
DescriptionShow your support for the team at {{shop_name}}
Preset label{{tip_percent}}%
Custom labelAdd a custom tip
MessageThank you, we appreciate it
Update tipUpdate tip
Checkout order summaryTip labelTip
Checkout field errorsTips invalid tip amountEnter a tip no more than {{amount}}

Steps:

  1. Log in to your store as a user with Settings permissions.
  2. From your Shopify admin, under SALES CHANNELS, click Online Store, and then click Themes.
  3. In the Current theme section, click the button > Edit default theme content.
  4. Click Checkout & system, and then scroll to the field that you want to change.
  5. Enter the label text that you want to display on the checkout page.
  6. Click Save.

Refund a tip

To include the tip portion in a refund, you must add the tip amount manually. You can edit the amount of the refund up to and including the tip amount.

For more information about refunding orders, refer to Refunding and canceling orders.

Steps

  1. From your Shopify admin, under Orders, click the order that you want to refund.
  2. Click Refund.
  3. Enter the quantity of the items in the order that will be refunded.
  4. Under REFUND AMOUNT, enter an amount that includes the tip amount.
  5. Click Refund.

Tip reports

In your Finances report, you can view the total amount of tips that were collected.

Steps

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Analytics > Reports.
  2. Optional: Click the Categories filter and select Finances to display only the Finances reports.
  3. Click Tips.
  4. To limit the amounts to your online sales, from the All channels drop-down list, select Online Store.

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