Which plan do I need to show an estimated delivery date?

The estimated delivery date display is part of the Advanced plan delivery suite. A 14-day free trial applies when you upgrade from Settings → Plan, and no Shopify Plus is required.

How is the estimated delivery date calculated?

It's the order date plus your handling time plus the carrier's transit time to the customer's zone, counted in business days. The count skips weekends, blackout dates, and national holidays, so a Monday order with 1-day handling and 2–3 day transit might show 'Arrives Thursday–Friday.'

Is the estimated delivery date a guarantee?

No — it's a prediction based on normal handling and transit times, not a promise. Carrier delays, stock, or an order placed after the cutoff can move it. See what an estimated delivery date means for the full explanation.

How is this different from a delivery date picker?

The estimate is a date the store calculates and displays; the customer doesn't choose it. A delivery date picker is the opposite — the customer selects the date they want and the store enforces it with cutoffs, capacity, and lead time.

How accurate is an estimated delivery date?

As accurate as the two numbers behind it: your handling time and the carrier's transit time for that destination zone. Both are averages, so publish a range rather than a single day and pad each slightly — a range that holds beats a precise date that slips. The estimate is a forecast, not a commitment, and carrier delays or an order placed after your cutoff will move it.

Can I show an estimated delivery date on Shopify without an app?

Not reliably. Shopify has no native estimated delivery date on product pages. You can hard-code static text in your theme, but it can't count business days, skip your blackout dates and national holidays, adjust for the customer's destination zone, or respond to your cutoff time — so it drifts out of date the moment your schedule changes.

Does the estimated delivery date account for holidays?

Yes. The count runs in business days and skips weekends, your blackout dates, and national holidays from the holiday calendar, so an estimate never lands on a day you don't ship. This matters most in peak periods, which is exactly when a wrong estimate costs the most.

Can the estimated delivery date differ by country or region?

Yes. Estimates come from a transit-zone matrix, so each destination zone gets its own transit time and therefore its own range. A domestic order and a cross-border order calculated on the same day will show different arrival windows.

Estimated delivery date

2 min read

The estimated delivery date shows shoppers when an order will arrive — for example "Arrives Jul 10 – Jul 11" — right on the Shopify product page. It's the cheapest delivery feature to turn on and the highest-attach, because it answers the first question every shopper asks: when will it get here?

How it works

Transit-zone matrix. Estimates are computed from a transit-time matrix by destination zone, so different regions show realistic ranges instead of one flat number.
Holiday-aware business days. The count skips weekends, blackout dates, and national holidays, so an estimate never lands on a day you don't ship.
Pure display. It's a display feature — nothing to enforce at checkout, so it's quick to enable and safe to run store-wide.

Because it reads the same calendar as your rules, the estimate stays consistent with your blackout dates and availability rules.

Set it up

On the Advanced plan, open Delivery and enable the estimated delivery date display.
Enter your handling time (how long you take to dispatch) and your transit-zone matrix (carrier transit time by destination).
Confirm your blackout dates and holiday calendar — the estimate skips them automatically.
Test on a product page and place a test order to confirm the range matches your cutoff and calendar.

Estimate vs. delivery date picker

An estimated delivery date is a date you calculate and display — the customer doesn't choose it. If you instead want customers to pick the delivery date (with cutoffs, capacity, and lead time enforced at checkout), that's the delivery date picker. Many catalog stores just show an estimate; made-to-order and scheduled-delivery stores want the picker.

New to the term? Read what "estimated delivery date" means for the plain-language explainer, and estimated delivery dates that account for Japanese holidays for the holiday-aware detail.

	Estimated delivery date	Delivery date picker
Who chooses the date	The store calculates it	The customer selects it
Enforced at checkout	No — display only	Yes, via Shopify Functions
Capacity limits	Not applicable	Per date and per slot
Best for	Catalog and stocked goods	Made-to-order, perishables, scheduled delivery
Setup effort	Minutes, safe to run store-wide	One rule per product group
Plan	Advanced	Advanced

Scoping Rules In-Store Pickup Setup