FAQ

OrderRules is a Shopify app that gives you complete control over your orders. Set daily, weekly, or monthly order limits, automate store hours, and enforce per-customer rules — all at checkout, automatically. No coding required.

OrderRules is built for capacity-constrained businesses: bakeries, restaurants, handmade goods sellers, limited drop brands, catering companies, and any merchant who has real production or fulfillment limits.

Most apps do one thing — order limits OR store hours OR quantity controls. OrderRules combines all of them in one app: order capacity limits, automated store hours, per-customer purchase limits, spending caps, holiday calendars, and checkout validation. Few order limit apps combine per-customer spending caps, dynamic storefront messaging showing remaining capacity, and one-click holiday calendar import.

It depends on what the free plan has to cover. OrderRules Starter is free forever and includes automated store hours, a holiday calendar with one-click public-holiday import for 16 countries, a daily order cap of up to 100 and limits on 3 products. Its limits are on features, not usage, so there is no monthly allowance of blocked carts to run out. Avada, KOR and Pareto also have free plans, but theirs count usage: Avada blocks up to 50 over-limit carts, KOR up to 100, and Pareto allows 100 block actions a month on up to 5 products. None of the three include store hours. MinMaxify has no free plan; it costs $10 to $50 a month. Prices checked October 8, 2026.

MinMaxify focuses on min/max quantity rules per product. OrderRules goes further by adding store hours automation, holiday calendar, daily/weekly/monthly order caps, per-customer spending caps, dynamic storefront messaging with live remaining-order counters, email threshold alerts, and CSV bulk management — none of which MinMaxify offers. OrderRules also has a free plan; MinMaxify has none and starts at $10/month.

No. OrderRules is designed for non-technical merchants. No coding, no theme edits — just a visual dashboard where you configure your rules. Setup takes under 5 minutes.

Yes. OrderRules uses Shopify's standard APIs and works with all modern themes including Dawn, all Shopify Theme Store themes, and custom themes built on Online Store 2.0 standards. No theme modifications required.

Partly. POS orders count toward your limits alongside online orders, so in-store sales use up the same capacity. POS checkouts aren't blocked, though — Shopify doesn't run checkout validation on POS.

OrderRules automatically blocks checkout. Customers see a clear, customizable message explaining the limit. Online checkouts stay blocked until the limit resets; POS sales and subscription renewals aren't blocked, but they still count.

Daily limits reset at midnight in your store's timezone. Weekly store and product caps reset at midnight going into Sunday; per-customer weekly limits run Monday to Sunday. Monthly limits reset on the 1st of each month. All resets are automatic.

Not as different numbers — the daily order limit is the same every day. Use the Calendar to close specific dates or open them with special hours, for example closed on Christmas Day, and close weekdays you don't trade in Schedule.

Cancelled orders don't — cancelling an order gives its place back. A refund on its own doesn't: the order still counts, so cancel it if you want to free the place.

Yes. Each day has independent open/close times. You can set different hours for weekdays vs weekends, or customize each day individually.

No. Each day has one open window, and it can run past midnight (for example 4pm–2:30am). For a split shift, set one window that covers both periods, or use pickup time slots on Advanced to control timing.

In OrderRules, go to the Calendar section and click Import Holidays. Choose your country or region — 16 are supported, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Japan, and India — for one-click import. You can also add custom closure dates for vacations, maintenance, or special events. The store automatically closes on these days and customers see your custom closed message.

Install OrderRules from the Shopify App Store (free). Go to the Schedule section, set your timezone, then choose Custom hours, Open all day or Closed all day for each day of the week. Each day has one open window, and it can run past midnight. When the store is outside operating hours, checkout is automatically blocked and customers see your customizable closed message.

Customers see a customizable message you write. For example: "We're closed for the day. Check back tomorrow at 9:00 AM!" You control the exact wording.

Yes. On the Advanced plan, OrderRules adds a delivery date & time-slot picker to your product and cart pages — no code. Customers pick a date, and a time window if you offer one, within the rules you set, and the choice is enforced at checkout.

The delivery suite — date picker, time slots, capacity limits, blackout dates, estimated delivery, in-store pickup, and carrier CSV export — is on the Advanced plan ($19.99/mo, or $191.90/yr). A 14-day free trial applies.

Yes. Add windows like 14:00–16:00 in a time slot template, give each slot a Cap/day, and set a maximum number of orders per delivery date. Full slots grey out live, and checkout blocks a sold-out slot.

Each date and each slot has a cap, enforced at checkout by a Shopify Function — including on Shop Pay and express checkouts. When an order is cancelled, its slot is released automatically. One limit worth being clear about: checkout validation reads a snapshot of what's booked and can't hold a lock the way stock does, so two shoppers checking out within the same second for a date's last place can both get through. In practice that needs near-simultaneous checkouts on a date already down to its last slot, so it's rare — but it isn't impossible, and we'd rather say so than have you find out.

Yes. OrderRules exports shipments in the official Yamato B2クラウド, Sagawa e飛伝III, and Japan Post ゆうプリR layouts (Shift-JIS), with editable profiles and tracking import to create fulfillments automatically.

You set a maximum number of orders, units, spend or weight per customer over a period (day, week, month, year, rolling 30 days or lifetime). OrderRules counts each logged-in customer's orders and blocks checkout when they'd go over the limit.

Yes. Set order frequency limits like "1 order per week" or "3 orders per month" per customer. Great for preventing resellers from hoarding limited products.

OrderRules tracks customers by their Shopify customer ID, which exists when they're logged in. It doesn't match guests by email, which is why guest checkout is blocked while customer limits are on.

OrderRules lets you set per-customer spending caps. In Customer Limits, create a new rule, select Total Spend as the limit type, enter a dollar amount, and choose a period (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, rolling 30 days, or lifetime). This is commonly used for employee purchase programs, B2B budgets, and corporate stores. Requires the Pro plan at $9.99 per month.

Use OrderRules per-customer purchase limits to cap how many items each logged-in customer can buy during a drop or flash sale. Guest checkout is blocked while customer limits are on, so every buyer is tracked. Dynamic storefront messaging shows remaining capacity in real time, creating urgency while stopping one buyer from taking your entire limited inventory.

Yes. OrderRules is built on Shopify Functions, meaning rule enforcement runs inside Shopify's own checkout engine via checkout validation extensions. This makes it fast, reliable, and fully compatible with Shopify's platform — including Online Store 2.0, Shopify Plus, and headless storefronts using the Storefront API.

Yes. OrderRules works with all Online Store 2.0 themes — including Dawn, Sense, Craft, and all Shopify Theme Store themes. It uses Shopify's standard Admin API and Checkout Extensions, so no theme code modifications are ever required.

No. OrderRules is lightweight and uses Shopify's native APIs with asynchronous processing and caching. Your store speed is not affected.

Yes. The Starter plan is free forever — it includes store hours, holiday calendar, up to 100 daily orders, and 3 product limits. No credit card required. The Pro plan costs $9.99 per month (or $95.90 per year, saving about 20%) and unlocks unlimited limits, per-customer rules, spending caps, 90-day analytics, and CSV bulk management.

No. The Starter plan is completely free and does not require a credit card. You can use the Starter plan indefinitely. If you upgrade to Pro, billing is handled through Shopify.

Yes. Cancel your subscription at any time through your Shopify Admin. No cancellation fees. You keep access until the end of your billing period.