Deposits for draft orders

Take a deposit on quotes, phone orders and custom work without sending customers to checkout. Save a card on file to a draft order, then charge the deposit and remaining balance from the order page.

On this page

How it works

Create the draft order

Request a payment method

What your customer sees

Get notified when a payment method is added to a draft order

Charge the deposit

Shopify Plus: Using Shopify's deposit feature

Shopify Plus: Charging deposits without Shopify's deposit feature

Large orders and failed authorizations

Considerations

How it works

1. You create a draft order with payment due later and turn it into an order.
2. Downpay emails your customer a secure Shopify link to add a payment method. No checkout is needed.
3. Once the card is saved, you use the Collect partial payment action to charge the deposit, then the remaining balance when it's due.

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Create the draft order

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Orders > Drafts and click Create order.
2. Add your products, custom items, discounts and shipping.
3. Assign the customer.
4. Check Payment due later, then choose when the balance is due:

• Due on fulfillment if you want to collect the balance when the order ships.
• A specific due date if you want to automate the balance charge with Downpay's Shopify Flow actions.

5. When your customer has reviewed the quote and you're ready, click Create order.

Shopify sends your customer the standard order confirmation email, which may differ from the example below based on your own customizations.

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Request a payment method

1. On the order details page, click More actions.
2. Under Apps, click Request payment method.

3. Review the details and click Send request from the popup modal.

Your customer receives an email with a secure link to add a payment method to the order.

Customize the request email

The email your customer receives is Shopify's Customer payment method add request template. To find it, go to Settings > Notifications > Customer notifications > Accounts and outreach > Customer payment method add request.

By default, it looks like this:

To change the wording or design, edit the template's HTML.

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What your customer sees

When your customer clicks Add payment method, they see a secure Shopify page where they enter their card details.

After they click Add, they see a confirmation.

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Get notified when a payment method is added to a draft order

When a customer adds a payment method to an order, Downpay emails you automatically. The notification goes to the email address in your Downpay settings.

To change this email address:

1. In Downpay, go to Settings.
2. In the Account section, update the email address.
3. Click Save.

This notification can be disabled from the Downpay settings page.

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Charge the deposit

1. On the order details page, click More actions.
2. Under Apps, click Collect partial payment.

3. Choose a quick selection percentage or enter a charge amount.
4. Review the charge summary and click Charge.

When the balance is due, repeat these steps to charge the remaining amount.

In the customer account

Your customer can log in to their customer account at any time to:

• Pay off the order using the Pay now button. This supports manual payment methods as well as credit cards and PayPal.
• Update their card on file using Downpay's Manage order block, if you've added it to your theme.

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Shopify Plus: Using Shopify's deposit feature

On Shopify Plus, draft orders can require a deposit natively. With this option, your customer pays the deposit through a Shopify invoice first, and you request a payment method afterwards.

1. Create the draft order, add your items and assign the customer.
2. Check Payment due later and choose when the balance is due.
3. Check Require deposit and enter the percentage to collect.
4. Click Send invoice.

5. Your customer opens the invoice and pays the deposit. This creates the order.
6. Request a payment method so a card is stored on file for the remaining balance.
7. When the balance is due, charge it with Collect partial payment.

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Shopify Plus: Charging deposits without Shopify's deposit feature

You don't have to use Shopify's deposit feature. Leave Require deposit unchecked and follow the standard steps:

1. Create the draft order with payment due later.
2. Request a payment method.
3. Once the card is on file, charge the deposit with Collect partial payment.

This gives you more flexibility:

• Charge multiple partial payments. Shopify's deposit feature collects one deposit. With a card on file, you can charge as many partial payments as you need until the order is paid.
• Skip the invoice checkout. Your customer only adds a card. They don't need to complete a checkout to get started.

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Large orders and failed authorizations

On large orders, the customer's card may not have enough available credit for Shopify to authorize the full total, even though you only want to charge a deposit.

To work around this, temporarily discount the order by the remaining balance amount so the order total equals the deposit.

In this example, a $1,500 custom ring needs a 30% deposit.

1. On the order details page, click Edit.
2. Apply a 70% discount to the ring. The order total is now $450.
3. Uncheck Send invoice to customer, then click Update order.

4. Click More actions > Collect partial payment, select 100% and click Charge. This collects the $450 deposit.
5. Once the charge succeeds, click Edit again and remove the discount so the order total matches the real balance.
6. When the balance is due, click More actions > Collect partial payment, select 100% and click Charge to collect the remaining $1050.

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Considerations

• Full authorization on non-Plus stores. Shopify authorizes the full order total before capturing a deposit. Use the discount workaround for large orders.
• Full authorization on non-Plus stores. Shopify authorizes the full order total before capturing a deposit. Use the discount workaround for large orders.
• Temporary discounts. When using the workaround, always uncheck Send invoice to customer and remove the discount after the deposit is collected.
• Request email content. The payment method request email can't show order details. Reference the order confirmation email or customer account instead.
• First card on file. Customers must add their first card through the Shopify email. The Manage order block only updates an existing card.
• Automating the balance. Set a specific due date on the draft order if you want to automate balance collection with Shopify Flow.
• B2B orders. B2B orders aren't supported. Contact us with your use case so we can submit a feature request to Shopify.

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Updated on: 17/09/2026