What works in Shopify without Plus? Checkout rules, payment methods, shipping rates

In short

Most checkout customisations don’t need Shopify Plus. Hiding payment methods by country, product, customer tag or shipping method, reordering them or renaming them all works through public apps built with Shopify Functions — and those run on Basic, Shopify, Advanced and Plus alike. What’s Plus-restricted is Shopify’s own “Checkout Blocks” app where payment rules are concerned, plus the ability to run your own custom apps containing Functions. For shipping rates a different hurdle applies: not Plus, but enabling third-party carrier-calculated shipping.

The confusion behind the question

Historically, checkout logic really was Plus territory: Shopify Scripts, the predecessor, only ran on Plus. That association survives in forum posts and agency articles even though Shopify dissolved it with Shopify Functions. Since then a finer distinction applies — and it isn’t decided by the plan, but by who runs the Function:

• A public app from the App Store: runs on every plan.
• Your own custom app containing Functions: Plus.
• Shopify’s own “Checkout Blocks”, payment rules: Plus.

So using a payment rule needs no Plus. Building one and running it as your own app does.

What works without Plus

Goal	Without Plus?	How
Show/hide a payment method by country	yes	public app (Functions)
Block a payment method for a product or collection	yes	public app (Functions)
Tie a payment method to the shipping method	yes	public app (Functions)
Invoice payment for certain customers only	yes	public app, customer tag
Reorder or rename payment methods	yes	public app (Functions)
Local delivery by radius or postcode list	yes	native, every plan
Shipping rates by distance	yes, with a caveat	app via Carrier Service API — carrier-calculated shipping must be enabled
Shipping rates by postcode	yes, with a caveat	same; not possible natively on any plan

Where Plus really is required

• Your own custom apps with Shopify Functions. The Function itself is plan-independent; running it as a self-built app is not. When your own app is still worth it: Shopify app development.
• “Checkout Blocks” for payment rules. Shopify’s no-code route to conditionally hiding payment methods — with fewer conditions than most apps, and Plus only.
• Shopify Scripts. The predecessor to Functions, always Plus — and switched off since 30 June 2026. Shopify Functions replace them.
• Other Plus characteristics beyond checkout: the full scope of Shopify’s B2B features (the basics are now on every plan, with up to three catalogs), higher API limits, more staff accounts.

The hurdle that isn’t called Plus

For shipping rates, the more common blocker isn’t the plan name but a feature switch: third-party carrier-calculated shipping. Without it, an app using the Carrier Service API can’t return any rates at checkout.

• On Advanced and Plus the feature is included automatically.
• On Grow it’s available with annual billing or as a paid add-on for a monthly fee.
• On Basic it’s usually not available.
• Development stores meet the requirement too — useful when you want to test a setup before moving it to the live shop.

For apps this is spelled out in the Carrier Service documentation: one of those conditions is enough, otherwise creating the carrier service fails outright. And if a shop changes plan and no longer meets any of them, its association with the carrier service is deactivated — the app stops returning rates without anything changing in its own configuration.

That’s the point where a distance or postcode app fails, when it fails — not a missing Plus plan.

And what Plus doesn’t solve either

An upgrade doesn’t remove every limitation. Mapping shipping rates to individual postcodes or postcode prefixes isn’t natively possible in regular shipping zones on any plan; the finest level remains country, state or region. Merchants who need that need an app — on Basic exactly as on Plus.

The practical takeaway: check first whether the goal is a plan question at all. For most checkout topics, it isn’t.