Run holiday shipping as two scheduled discounts. The first makes Standard free until your last safe Standard ship date. The second starts the next morning and drops Express to a flat $9.95, so late shoppers can still get gifts in time. Shopify’s own free shipping discount makes every eligible rate free and can’t set a rate to a fixed price. RM: Advanced Free Shipping targets Standard and Express by name and switches each discount on and off by date. It costs $9.90 USD every 30 days, with a 7-day free trial, billed by Shopify.

Pick your cut-off

Your cut-off is the last day a Standard order can ship and still arrive before the holiday. Take it from your carriers’ published holiday dates and your own packing time. The dates below are examples. Use your own.

  • Discount A, free Standard: December 1, 12:00 AM to December 15, 11:59 PM.
  • Discount B, $9.95 Express: December 16, 12:00 AM to December 21, 11:59 PM.

What customers pay

The store’s rates are Standard at $8.50 and Express at $26.00. Both discounts need a cart of $50 or more.

  • December 10, $70 cart: Standard shows $8.50 Free. Express stays $26.00. With Standard, the customer pays $70.00.
  • December 18, $70 cart: Standard is back to $8.50, and Express shows $26.00 $9.95. With Express, the customer pays $79.95.
  • December 18, $40 cart: under $50, so no discount. With Express, the customer pays $66.00.

After Discount A ends, customers who pick Standard pay for it and see Express at nearly the same price, which steers late orders to the faster rate.

Set up Discount A: free Standard until the cut-off

  1. Click Create Shipping Discount and choose Automatic discount. Use a Title such as “Free holiday shipping”. It shows under the rate at checkout.
  2. Under Conditions, add Cart total Is at least 50.
  3. Under Discount setup, choose Shipping, Choose specific rates, pick Standard, and set Discount value to Free.
  4. Under Active dates, set December 1 at 12:00 AM. Tick Set end date and choose December 15 at 11:59 PM.

Set up Discount B: flat-price Express after the cut-off

  1. Create a second Automatic discount, titled something like “Last-minute Express $9.95”.
  2. Under Conditions, add Cart total Is at least 50.
  3. Under Discount setup, choose Choose specific rates, pick Express, and set Fixed Price 9.95. The rate costs exactly $9.95. A rate already under $9.95 stays as it is, so it never goes up.
  4. Under Active dates, set December 16 at 12:00 AM to December 21 at 11:59 PM.

Prefer a percentage? Use Percentage 50 instead, and $26.00 Express becomes $13.00.

The RM: Advanced Free Shipping dashboard with sample discounts, including an Active free shipping over $100 discount and a Scheduled $5 express over $50 discount

On the dashboard, each discount shows Scheduled until it starts and Expired after it ends, so you can see the whole season at a glance.

Test both before December

Shopify doesn’t run a discount before its start date. For each one:

  1. Create it with Test mode on and the start date set to now.
  2. At checkout, use ABC123 as the shipping first name. Try a $49 cart and a $50 cart.
  3. Set the real dates, turn off Test mode, and save.

Times use your store’s timezone, which is shown next to the time fields. See schedule free shipping and test a shipping discount.

Variations

  • Free Standard and $10 off Express in December. One discount, with Add delivery discount in the ⋯ menu on Discount setup.
  • Holiday offer for VIPs only. Add Customer tag Contains VIP to the rule group. Tags only match signed-in customers.
  • Domestic only. Add Shipping country Is one of United States, and Province / State Is not one of Alaska, Hawaii if those addresses miss your cut-off.
  • Free local delivery right up to the holiday. Choose Local delivery as the Delivery type.

Before you launch

  • For product or order discounts to apply alongside these, tick Shipping discounts under Combinations on those discounts.
  • Shopify allows 25 active automatic discounts across all apps, including scheduled ones.
  • Update your free shipping bar and banners on the cut-off day. The app discounts rates. It doesn’t change your storefront.

For single-day and weekend offers, see Free Shipping Day and free shipping weekend. For the setup behind Discount B, see flat rate shipping over an amount and shipping discount types.

RM: Advanced Free Shipping is Built for Shopify and rated 5.0 on the Shopify App Store. It costs $9.90 USD every 30 days after a 7-day free trial, billed by Shopify. Install it from the Shopify App Store.