---
title: "How do you take a deposit on Shopify in 2026: part of the payment now, the rest later"
description: "Shopify has a native deposit mechanism only for pre-orders and try-before-you-buy, and it works only through an app that schedules and charges the balance itself. Deposits at checkout through payment terms, deposits on draft orders and partial payments in the admin are limited to Shopify Plus. Everything else comes from apps, whose low-rated reviews point to the same weak spots: billing, storefront scripts and the second payment."
date: 2026-10-19
lang: en
canonical: https://goingstellar.ro/research/shopify-deposits-partial-payments-2026/
author: Going Stellar
publisher: GOING STELLAR S.R.L.
topic: Desk research / Shopify deposits
license: CC BY 4.0
alternate_ro: https://goingstellar.ro/ro/cercetare/avansuri-plati-partiale-shopify-2026/
---

# How do you take a deposit on Shopify in 2026: part of the payment now, the rest later

*Shopify has a native deposit mechanism only for pre-orders and try-before-you-buy, and it works only through an app that schedules and charges the balance itself. Deposits at checkout through payment terms, deposits on draft orders and partial payments in the admin are limited to Shopify Plus. Everything else comes from apps, whose low-rated reviews point to the same weak spots: billing, storefront scripts and the second payment.*

> Desk research · Shopify deposits · 2026-10-19 · https://goingstellar.ro/research/shopify-deposits-partial-payments-2026/

## Key points

- The only native deposit route open to every Shopify plan is a pre-order or try-before-you-buy purchase option, and it needs an app that schedules and charges the balance itself.
- Pre-orders exclude Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay accelerated checkouts, local methods such as Klarna and iDEAL, draft orders, B2B and POS, and stores with customized checkouts.
- Deposits through payment terms at checkout, deposits on draft orders (API 2026-07) and partial payments in the admin are limited to Shopify Plus.
- Authorize-and-capture is not a deposit: Shopify Payments holds an authorization for 7 days, up to 30 days on some cards for Plus, with a 1.75% charge for late capture.
- In the low-rated reviews of three established deposit apps, the recurring problems are billing tied to store-wide volume, storefront scripts that load late or clash, and a second payment that fails or is never confirmed.
- In the EU, VAT on a deposit becomes chargeable when the deposit is received, and an invoice for payments on account is required in some cases; national rules decide the details.

## The short answer

On Shopify, a deposit with the balance charged later has one native route open to every plan: a pre-order or try-before-you-buy purchase option, set up by an app. The app tells Shopify how much to charge at checkout, Shopify stores the buyer's payment method, and the app is responsible for charging the rest at the right time. Shopify does not run that second charge on its own.

Three other routes exist and all are tied to **Shopify Plus**: payment terms with a deposit set at checkout by a payment customization function, deposits on draft orders (new in the `2026-07` API version), and partial payments collected from the order page. Authorizing a card and capturing it later is not a deposit: the authorization lasts days, not months.

This article is for merchants who sell made-to-order, high-value or not-yet-available goods and for people building tools for them. We checked platform facts in Shopify's developer documentation, help centre and changelog, and app facts on the App Store listings and their 1 and 2 star reviews, on 19 October 2026.

## The native route: a pre-order with a deposit

Shopify groups subscriptions, pre-orders and try-before-you-buy (TBYB) under *purchase options*, built on selling plans. For pre-orders and TBYB, the selling plan's billing policy can set a *checkout charge*: a partial amount taken at checkout, with the remaining balance due on an exact date or a number of days after checkout. A checkout charge of 0 means the full amount is charged at checkout. Shopify's own example is a pre-order with a 10% deposit and the balance charged on the fulfilment date.

The selling plan also controls inventory: stock can be committed when the order is placed or when it is fulfilled. Each order can carry only one deferred due date. If a cart mixes products with different due dates, the earliest applies, and a line due on fulfilment takes precedence over a fixed date.

In the `2026-01` API version, Shopify added `ON_FULFILLMENT` as a trigger for the remaining balance on pre-orders, so the balance can be due when the order ships instead of on a fixed date.

## Where the pre-order route does not reach

A merchant needs a pre-order app from the App Store; Shopify's help centre says so directly. The app itself needs protected API scopes approved by Shopify, and custom apps created in the Shopify admin cannot use pre-orders or TBYB at all, because they cannot request those scopes or use extensions.

Shopify's pre-order setup page lists the restrictions a merchant will meet. Pre-orders are not supported on stores with customized checkouts. Buyers cannot use Shop Pay, Apple Pay or Google Pay accelerated checkouts for pre-orders, nor local payment methods such as Klarna and iDEAL. Pre-order products work only on the Online Store and custom storefront channels, Buy X get Y discounts do not apply, and a product cannot be bought with two purchase options in the same checkout.

The developer documentation adds that pre-orders and TBYB cannot be used on draft orders, with B2B, or through Shopify POS. On payment gateways the two sources disagree: the help centre says pre-orders are available only with Shopify Payments or PayPal Express, while the developer documentation also lists Adyen on Shopify and, for some merchants, Stripe.

The same setup page carries a policy obligation that matters for long lead times: the merchant needs a reasonable basis for the promised shipping time, must assume shipping within thirty days when no date is stated, and must give a revised date plus cancellation and refund options if it slips.

## Collecting the balance: who charges and when

Shopify's documentation is explicit about the division of work. Shopify stores the customer's payment method so the merchant can collect the balance without contacting the customer. Scheduling the charge at the right time and handling failed payments is the app's job.

The charge itself goes through `orderCreateMandatePayment`, which uses the stored payment mandate to collect the balance or create a payment schedule. It requires a unique idempotency key, so a retried request returns the first result instead of charging twice. One detail narrows it: to set a custom `amount` on that charge, the app must be installed on a Shopify Plus store. On other plans, the app charges what the payment schedule says is due.

In practice this means the reliability of the second payment depends on the app: its scheduler, its retry logic when a card fails, and its emails asking the buyer to update the card. That is also where the low-rated reviews below concentrate.

## The Shopify Plus routes: payment terms, draft orders, partial payments

**Payment terms at checkout.** Since the June 18, 2025 changelog entry, a payment customization function can set fixed, net or event-based payment terms with an optional deposit, for example a deposit on high-value orders. The operation that sets terms is available only on Plus. The tutorial adds a limit for consumer stores: a direct-to-consumer checkout with payment terms offers no pay-now option, only deferral, and vaulted cards as an extra deferred option are a B2B feature.

**Draft orders.** As of API version `2026-07`, published July 1, 2026, an app can set a deposit when it creates or updates a draft order, and the Customer Account API shows the buyer the amount due now and the amount due later. The changelog states that the feature is available to Shopify Plus stores. This is the route that fits quotes and custom work sold by a person rather than through the storefront.

**Partial payments in the admin.** Shopify's help centre describes collecting or recording several partial payments on an order with payment terms, by a new credit card, a manual method such as a bank deposit, or a vaulted card for B2B customers. The page states that the feature is available to stores on Shopify Plus.

**Vaulted cards for B2B.** Card vaulting for company locations is available only with Shopify Payments. A vaulted card is not charged automatically when the payment terms expire; the merchant charges it from the order page, or automates the charge with Shopify Flow.

## Authorize now, capture later is not a deposit

Manual capture is often suggested as a deposit substitute. It reserves the money on the card and collects it later, but only within the authorization period. Shopify Payments gives **7** days for card payments.

Extended authorization exists only for Plus stores using Shopify Payments and depends on the card: up to **30** days for Visa, Mastercard and American Express, up to **10** days for Discover and JCB. Capturing after the standard 7 days adds a **1.75%** charge. For goods made over several weeks, this does not cover the gap, and it holds the full amount rather than a deposit.

## What the apps add, and what their low-rated reviews say

Apps fill the gaps above: a deposit or pay-later button on the product page, their own schedule for the balance, reminder emails, and for some, deposits on draft orders. We read the 1 and 2 star reviews of three established apps in this category, checked on 19 October 2026. Low ratings are a small share of each app's reviews, several are old, and developers dispute some of them, so they show where problems occur, not how often.

**PreOrder App+Partial Payment K**, by the developer Kaktus, showed **4.7** from **396** reviews, **12** of them 1 star and **2** of them 2 stars. Its paid tiers are set by total Shopify orders per month, from **$9.99** for up to 9 orders to **$29.99** for up to 150, not by orders that used the app. The most specific complaint, from December 2025, describes a **$115** charge in a month when one **$25** order came through the app. Other reviews describe pre-orders whose second payment did not complete, the widget not loading so buyers went through a normal checkout, a removed add-to-cart button and inventory left committed after fulfilment.

**Deposit & Partial Payment Depo** showed **4.4** from **98** reviews, with **11** at 1 star and **2** at 2 stars. The listing prices plans at **$9**, **$49** and **$149** a month plus a processing fee per transaction, and advertises deposits on draft orders and cash-on-delivery support. A July 2026 2 star review from a merchant who processed hundreds of pre-order payments describes a slow script that let buyers check out at full price before it loaded, pre-order orders created after the app was disabled but not uninstalled, and no confirmation email when the balance was paid. A January 2025 review says the processing fee also applied to manual orders marked as paid.

**SPD Split Payment & Deposit** showed **4.8** from **145** reviews, **6** at 1 star and **4** at 2 stars. Its tiers run from **$19** to **$49** a month by order value processed with the app, and the listing advertises deposit auto-charge. A July 2026 review describes repeated breakage from conflicts with other installed apps; a September 2025 review describes instalment orders missing from the app and balance invoices not sent.

Across the three, the complaints fall into four groups: billing that feels detached from use (store-wide volume, fees on orders the app did not handle, a *free* label that meant only development stores), storefront scripts that load late or clash with the theme or other apps, the balance stage (failed second charges, missing emails and invoices), and back-office gaps such as stuck inventory or missing records.

## Invoices and VAT on deposits in the EU: the principle

Under the EU VAT Directive, when a payment is made on account before goods or services are supplied, VAT becomes chargeable on receipt of that payment and on the amount received (Article 65). Member States may set different chargeability rules for certain transactions (Article 66).

The Directive requires an invoice for a payment on account received before supplies to businesses and non-taxable legal persons and before distance sales of goods (Article 220), and Member States may require invoices for other supplies too (Article 221). The usual result is an advance invoice for the deposit and a final invoice that deducts it, but the exact obligations depend on national law.

This is a description of the EU framework, not tax advice. How a deposit is invoiced, and how a refunded deposit is corrected, should be confirmed with an accountant in the country where the VAT is due. None of the Shopify pages we read describes issuing tax invoices for deposits.

## Where the reports were wrong

**1. Payment gateways for pre-orders.** The report said pre-orders work only with Shopify Payments or PayPal Express. That matches the help centre, but Shopify's developer documentation also lists Adyen on Shopify and, for some merchants, Stripe. Shopify's own pages disagree; the gateway provider is the one to ask.

**2. Stale prices.** The report said Kaktus pricing starts at **$29.99** a month. The listing starts paid tiers at **$9.99**; **$29.99** is the tier for up to 150 orders. It also listed a free tier for SPD; the listing shows paid tiers from **$19**, free only for development stores, and an August 2026 1 star review complains about exactly that.

**3. Stale review counts.** The report gave Kaktus **380** reviews, Depo **92** at **4.5** and SPD **127**. On 19 October 2026 the listings showed **396**, **98** at **4.4**, and **145**.

**4. Due on fulfilment.** The report treated due-on-fulfilment pre-orders as stable from `2026-01`. The changelog says the value was added in the `2026-01` release candidate, while the pre-order documentation page still describes it as unstable and planned for `2026-01`. Check the API version in use before relying on it.

**5. Market sizing and forecasts.** The report estimated demand from United States business statistics and projected revenue for a new app. Neither describes Shopify merchants, and we could not check the forecasts against anything, so they are not in this article.

## Method

We started from an AI deep-research report on the feasibility of a Shopify deposit app. It mixed platform facts, app listing data, market sizing and product recommendations. We removed the recommendations and forecasts, kept the platform and app facts a merchant would act on, and checked each on 19 October 2026: Shopify's developer documentation on purchase options, deferred payments, `orderCreateMandatePayment` and payment customization; the payment terms tutorial; the developer changelog; help centre pages on pre-orders, partial payments, payment authorization and B2B vaulted cards; and the consolidated EU VAT Directive on EUR-Lex.

For apps, we opened the App Store listings for ratings, review counts and pricing, and read the newest 1 star reviews (up to ten per app) and all 2 star reviews for Kaktus, Depo and SPD. We did not install the apps.

We could not verify, and dropped: the number of Shopify Community threads asking for deposits, the demand estimates for furniture, bakeries, events and wholesale, the revenue projections, and the ratings and features of three newer apps the report named, which we left out to keep the source list to primary pages we cited.

## Limitations

Low-rated reviews are a biased sample: unhappy merchants write them, some are years old, and the apps may have fixed the issues since. The share of low ratings is small for all three apps. We did not test any app or the native pre-order flow on a live store, so this article describes what Shopify and the vendors document, not measured behaviour. Plan and gateway rules change; Shopify's own pages disagree on one point already. The VAT section describes the EU Directive only; national rules, including invoice timing and content, differ and are not covered.

## Sources

1. [Shopify Dev: About pre-order and Try Before You Buy (deferred purchase options)](https://shopify.dev/docs/apps/build/purchase-options/deferred)
2. [Shopify Dev: Purchase options, requirements and access scopes](https://shopify.dev/docs/apps/build/purchase-options)
3. [Shopify Help Center: Pre-orders](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/purchase-options/pre-orders)
4. [Shopify Help Center: Setting up pre-orders](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/purchase-options/pre-orders/setup)
5. [Shopify Dev: orderCreateMandatePayment mutation](https://shopify.dev/docs/api/admin-graphql/latest/mutations/orderCreateMandatePayment)
6. [Shopify Dev: Payment Customization Function API](https://shopify.dev/docs/api/functions/latest/payment-customization)
7. [Shopify Dev: Payment terms tutorial](https://shopify.dev/docs/apps/build/checkout/payments/payment-terms)
8. [Shopify Developer changelog: Draft order deposit fields are now available in the GraphQL Admin API and Customer Account API](https://shopify.dev/changelog/draft-order-deposit-fields-now-available-in-the-admin-and-customer-account-graphql-apis)
9. [Shopify Help Center: Collecting and recording partial payments](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/partial-payments)
10. [Shopify Help Center: Payment authorization and capture](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/payment-authorization)
11. [Shopify Help Center: Credit card vaulting (B2B)](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/b2b/vaulted-cards)
12. [EUR-Lex: Council Directive 2006/112/EC on the common system of VAT (consolidated)](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02006L0112-20250101)
13. [Shopify App Store: PreOrder App+Partial Payment K (Kaktus)](https://apps.shopify.com/kaktus-preorder)
14. [Shopify App Store: Deposit & Partial Payment Depo](https://apps.shopify.com/deposits-split-payments)
15. [Shopify App Store: SPD Split Payment & Deposit](https://apps.shopify.com/split-partial-payments)

## Questions and answers

### Can I take a deposit on Shopify without an app?

Not on a standard storefront checkout. The native deposit mechanism for pre-orders needs a pre-order app, and custom apps made in the Shopify admin cannot use it. Without an app, the options are Plus features: payment terms with a deposit, draft orders with a deposit, or recording partial payments on the order.

### Does Shopify charge the remaining balance automatically?

No. For pre-orders, Shopify stores the buyer's payment method, but the app has to schedule the charge and handle failures. For B2B vaulted cards, the card is not charged when the terms expire; the merchant charges it from the order page or automates it with Shopify Flow.

### Do I need Shopify Plus to take deposits?

Not for pre-orders and try-before-you-buy through an app. Plus is required for payment terms with deposits at checkout, deposits on draft orders, partial payments in the admin, and for an app to charge a custom amount against a stored payment method.

### Can customers pay a pre-order deposit with Apple Pay or Shop Pay?

No. Shopify's pre-order setup page says buyers cannot use Shop Pay, Apple Pay or Google Pay accelerated checkouts for pre-orders, nor local methods such as Klarna and iDEAL.

### Is authorizing a card and capturing later the same as a deposit?

No. It holds the full amount and expires: 7 days with Shopify Payments, up to 30 days on some cards for Plus stores, with a 1.75% charge for capturing after 7 days. It suits short lead times only.

### Do I need to invoice a deposit in the EU?

Under the EU VAT Directive, VAT becomes chargeable when a payment on account is received, and an invoice is required for advance payments in business sales and distance sales of goods; Member States can require more. This is the general framework, not tax advice; confirm with an accountant in your country.

## How to cite

**Cite this as:** Going Stellar (2026). *How do you take a deposit on Shopify in 2026: part of the payment now, the rest later*. GOING STELLAR S.R.L.. https://goingstellar.ro/research/shopify-deposits-partial-payments-2026/

```bibtex
@misc{goingstellar2026shopify,
  title  = {How do you take a deposit on Shopify in 2026: part of the payment now, the rest later},
  author = {{Going Stellar}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://goingstellar.ro/research/shopify-deposits-partial-payments-2026/},
  note   = {2026-10-19}
}
```

Licence. Free to quote with attribution.

## Also available

- This page as HTML: https://goingstellar.ro/research/shopify-deposits-partial-payments-2026/
- Same article in Romanian: https://goingstellar.ro/ro/cercetare/avansuri-plati-partiale-shopify-2026/