Should you turn off Shopify's dynamic checkout buttons?
September 27, 2026
Keep them on for most stores. Dynamic checkout buttons (the Shop Pay, PayPal, Google Pay buttons that appear under Add to cart) shorten the path to payment for returning shoppers. Turn them off only when they break your buying flow: products that need gift notes, subscriptions with plan choices, or upsells that happen in the cart. The buttons skip the cart page entirely, so anything that happens between add-to-cart and checkout never happens for shoppers who use them.
What the buttons actually do
On a product page, the dynamic checkout button shows the fastest payment option Shopify detects for that visitor: Shop Pay if they have it set up, PayPal if not, and so on. One tap takes them from the product page straight to that payment provider's checkout, skipping your cart page, your cart drawer, and everything on it. That is the whole point: fewer steps for shoppers who already trust the payment method.
For simple products, buy it and ship it, this is pure upside. Fewer steps means fewer chances to leave. For products with required choices the buyer must make before paying, it is a shortcut around steps you needed them to take. A shopper who taps Shop Pay on a product that requires a gift message never sees the gift message field.
When to leave them on
Most stores should leave dynamic checkout buttons enabled on product pages. They are one of the few checkout optimizations Shopify gives you for free, and the lift is real for stores with repeat buyers or heavy mobile traffic, because express wallets are strongest exactly where typing is most painful. If your products are straightforward, single items with variants the shopper picks on the page, the buttons do no harm and frequently help.
They are also a credibility signal. Seeing PayPal and Shop Pay logos on the product page reassures some shoppers that checkout will be painless. This matters most for newer brands where the shopper has not yet decided whether the store is legitimate.
When to turn them off
Turn them off on templates where something important happens in the cart. Common cases: cart-based upsells or cross-sells you depend on for average order value, gift wrapping or gift note options, donation add-ons, subscription products where the shopper must pick a plan, and any custom options collected on the cart page rather than the product page. If the express button skips a step that changes what the customer gets or what you charge, the button is costing you real money.
Also consider turning them off if your analytics show express checkout users abandon at higher rates because of post-purchase confusion, like subscriptions bought on a one-time plan. The buttons do not cause the confusion, but removing them forces shoppers through the flow where the plan choice is explicit.
How to turn them off
Go to Online Store, then Themes, then Customize. Open a product template, click the product information section, and find the "Dynamic checkout buttons" or "Buy it now button" setting, which you can toggle off. This disables the buttons on product pages. Note the same option exists in the cart: the cart page and cart drawer have their own dynamic checkout button settings, and many stores keep them on in the cart (where the shopper has already seen everything) while turning them off on product pages. That middle setting is often the right answer.
If your theme does not expose the setting, it can be done with code: the buttons render from a block in the product form, and removing that block from the template disables them for that template. Work in a duplicated theme, as always.
Test before you commit
Do not disable the buttons on a hunch. Run your checkout with and without them for a few weeks and compare conversion rate and average order value together, not one in isolation. Some stores find conversion dips slightly but average order value rises because cart upsells return. Others find the opposite. The right setting depends on your products, and the data will tell you within a few thousand product-page visits.
- Do dynamic checkout buttons hurt SEO?
- No. They are client-side buttons with no effect on crawling, indexing, or page rankings.
- Can I keep them on the cart page but remove them from product pages?
- Yes. The product template and the cart have separate settings, so this is the most common middle-ground setup.
- Why do the buttons show different payment methods to different shoppers?
- Shopify detects each visitor's browser, device, and saved wallets, then shows the fastest option for them. You do not control which one appears.
- Do the buttons work with discount codes?
- Discounts applied automatically at checkout still work, but codes the shopper must enter or select before checkout are often skipped by express flows. Test this with your specific discounts.