Free shipping

Forms of free shipping

Free shipping is waiving the customer's carrier fee at checkout. The form it takes determines who qualifies and when.

• Sitewide: every order ships free, typically for a limited window. No condition for the customer to meet. The most expensive form to run because small orders cost the full carrier fee with no incremental revenue.
• Threshold-based: free shipping on orders above a minimum - for example, $65 or more. The condition prompts customers to add to their cart to qualify. Thresholds in the archive ranged from $35 to $499, depending on what the brand sells.
• Members-only: reserved for subscribers, loyalty-program members or a paid membership tier. Matches a stated benefit to the segment that already has it, and signals the value of joining to non-members.
• Time-limited: free shipping for a short window - a day, a weekend, a sale period. The deadline is the offer's main lever. The most common phrasing in the archive: "Free Shipping Ends Tonight".
• First-order: free shipping on a first purchase only. Lowers the barrier to trying the brand. Common in welcome sequences for subscribers who have not yet bought.

In the UK and Australia, senders use "free delivery" rather than "free shipping". In a hand check of 83 subjects in the sample and example sets, 5 used "free delivery", all from brands that appeared to be UK or international. The archive covers both terms in the same pattern.^[4]

Who pays and how a threshold is set

The merchant pays the carrier. "Free shipping" means the customer pays no shipping charge at checkout; checkout may display a shipping line showing "Free" or zero rather than removing it. The margin on the order absorbs the carrier cost. Most e-commerce businesses normally collect a shipping fee that partially or fully offsets this cost, and waiving it means giving that up.

A threshold is designed so the incremental revenue from a customer upgrading their order offsets the carrier cost. The following is a labeled example with made-up numbers, not a formula:

• Carrier cost per order: $8
• Gross margin on product: 60%
• Revenue uplift needed to cover the shipping cost: $8 / 0.60 = $13.33
• If typical orders before the offer are around $55, a threshold of $55 + $13.33 = $68.33, rounded up to $70 or $75, is the point at which the incremental margin from the basket upgrade covers the carrier cost. Rounding down (for example, to $65) falls short: a $10 uplift at 60% margin gives only $6, which does not cover the $8 carrier cost.

The arithmetic above applies to customers who add items specifically to reach the threshold. Free shipping at checkout also converts shoppers who had intended to buy but abandoned because of the shipping cost; in that case, no incremental items are needed. The threshold offsets cost only for the basket-expansion effect. Customers who would have ordered above the threshold anyway receive free shipping with no incremental revenue - and a threshold set at or below the typical order value puts most orders in that category for no gain. The right threshold sits above the median order value by enough to require a meaningful add-on.

Carrier contracts, average product weight and box size all change the per-order number. Brands with heavy products or high typical order values set higher thresholds; IDEA ($499) and Spring Hill Nursery ($150) are examples from the archive.

FTC guidance on "free"

In the US, the Federal Trade Commission's Guides for the Use of the Word "Free" and Similar Representations (16 CFR Part 251) apply when a seller uses "free" to describe a product or service offered alongside a required purchase.^[1] Free shipping is an example: the customer must place an order to receive it.

The key conditions, as of October 2026:^[1]

• Regular price basis: "free" should be offered with the accompanying purchase at no more than its regular price - the price at which the seller has made substantial actual sales over a reasonably substantial period of at least 30 days. Offering the accompanying purchase at a discounted price is permitted; the concern is a price increase. For products whose prices fluctuate, the regular price is the lowest price with substantial sales in that period. Qualifying introductory offers have separate provisions under 16 CFR 251.1(f).
• No price recovery: the seller should not directly and immediately recover the cost of the free item by marking up the required purchase, substituting inferior merchandise, or adding other charges. The concern is directly offsetting the cost of the free item through the required purchase, not every price change that coincides with a free offer.
• Clear disclosure: all terms and conditions should be set out clearly and conspicuously at the outset of the offer, before the consumer acts on it.
• Frequency: the guide says a "free" offer on a single size of a product or a single kind of service should not be advertised for more than six months in any twelve-month period in a trade area, with at least 30 days between offers, no more than three offers in twelve months in that area, and sales of that size in the offer not above 50 percent of its sales in the area during the period. It does not say how this applies to a standing free shipping policy, so ask counsel if that matters to you.

This section covers US rules. Sellers in other jurisdictions should verify the rules that apply to them. This is general information, not legal advice; the FTC's guides are the authoritative source. They are guidance on how the FTC reads the law against deception, not separately enforceable rules.^[1]

Free shipping on Shopify

Shopify supports free shipping through standard shipping rates and through discount codes, as of October 2026:^[2]

• Rate with a minimum order amount: in Settings > Shipping and delivery, add a shipping rate and set a minimum order amount condition. Set the price to $0 (or leave it blank) for no charge. The rate appears at checkout for eligible orders above the threshold - subject to the shipping zone, shipping profile, and any other conditions configured - and applies automatically. Other rates still apply to orders below the threshold.
• Sitewide rate with no minimum: set the same $0 rate with no condition. For a time-limited sitewide offer, create an automatic free shipping discount in the Discounts section with a start date and an optional end date - it applies automatically without a code and deactivates at the end date.^[3] Alternatively, activate and deactivate the rate manually, or use a discount code.
• Discount code: create a free shipping discount code in the Discounts section. Lets you offer free shipping to a specific audience - for example, an email segment - without making it available to everyone at checkout. Can be set to expire on a date and limited to a number of uses.

Free shipping in email

Of the 8,773 matching emails in the archive, 677 (from 312 brands) named a threshold amount in the subject line, and 422 (from 241 brands) explicitly named sitewide free shipping. The remaining subjects announced free shipping without specifying its scope in the subject.^[4]

1,211 of the 8,773 free shipping subjects (13.8%), from 530 brands, also named a percent off.^[4]

Threshold amounts named in subject lines, USD only, from the sample and example sets - not a complete count of all thresholds used across the archive:

These are individual examples from the sample and example sets, not a representative distribution of thresholds. USD only; one subject with a £495 threshold from a UK brand is excluded.

What brands send

Observed subject-line matches in the emails published brands sent to our subscriptions, February 1 to October 28, 2026. Days are Eastern Time.^[4]

• 2,927 brands sent 8,773 emails with free shipping or free delivery in the subject, 7.0% of the 42,061 brands that sent anything. The period ends October 28, before Black Friday and December, when free shipping volume would likely be higher.
• 130 of these emails (1.5%) were identified as automated, against 1.9% across all email in the period. Our automation label is incomplete, so this does not show how many were true one-off campaigns.
• Friday was the most common send day for these subjects, followed by Sunday and Thursday.

Platforms serve different mixes of business. Klaviyo's higher share reflects its larger proportion of e-commerce brands, which are the most common free shipping senders. These are observed subject-line matches, not an estimate of every free shipping offer sent.

Examples from the archive

• Ends Tonight: Free Shipping Sitewide, Stoner Car Care, June 7, 2026
• Free shipping on $35 and up, through September 30, Baby Bliss, September 11, 2026
• Last day: Free shipping on $65+, Savannah Bee, July 13, 2026
• FINAL DAY: Free Shipping on $499+, IDEA, September 11, 2026
• Free Delivery | Find Your Fit Today, DripModaUK, October 26, 2026
• Free Shipping Ends Tonight, CariFree, August 31, 2026

Common mistakes

• Threshold at or below typical order value. A threshold set at or below the median order value gives free shipping to most customers who would have ordered anyway, with limited basket-expansion effect. Free shipping can still increase revenue by converting otherwise-abandoned orders, but the basket-expansion arithmetic in the section above requires the threshold to sit above the median. Test conversion and basket size separately; the threshold should sit above the typical order value by enough to cover the carrier cost at the brand's margin.
• Sitewide free shipping too often. Customers trained to wait for free shipping will not pay for it when it is absent. The FTC's guide also has frequency guidance on "free" offers, covered above.
• Directly recovering shipping costs through markup. The FTC's guide warns against directly and immediately recovering the cost of free shipping by marking up the required purchase price.^[1]
• Omitting the deadline on time-limited offers, or burying it in the footer. For free shipping with a genuine end date, state the deadline clearly at the outset - it is a condition of the offer and the FTC's guides require conspicuous disclosure of all terms. Free shipping is also useful as a reduced purchase cost; the deadline tells customers when that cost reduction ends. Ongoing free shipping offers do not need an invented deadline.
• Combining with percent-off in every email. 13.8% of free shipping subjects in the archive also named a percent off. Using both in every sale email may reduce the ability to drive response with free shipping alone.^[4]

See also

Abandoned cart emails · Sale announcement · BOGO · Mystery offer · Store credit · Gift with purchase · Early access · Flash sale · DMARC · SPF · DKIM. Entries without links are being written.

References

1. Federal Trade Commission, "Guides for the Use of the Word 'Free' and Similar Representations", 16 CFR Part 251, as codified at 16 CFR 251.1.Back to text:12345
2. Shopify Help Center, "Setting up shipping rates", as of October 2026.Back to text:1
3. Shopify Help Center, "Free shipping discount", as of October 2026.Back to text:1
4. They Sent It, subject lines of emails from the 42,061 published brands that sent email in the archive, February 1 to October 28, 2026. A subject counts when it contains "free shipping", "free delivery", "free standard shipping", "free ground shipping", or a threshold phrase such as "$N+ free shipping", excluding credit-card benefit offers. In a hand check of 40 random matches, 40 of 40 were genuine free shipping offers.Back to text:1234567