Shopify Buy Button alternative: Checkout Links
The Shopify Buy Button Channel does one thing well: it gives you a JavaScript snippet you can paste on any external site to let visitors add a product to a Shopify cart. It's free, it's first-party, and for plenty of stores it's exactly enough.
It stops being enough the moment you need any of the following:
- A different cart, discount, or customer pre-fill per recipient (per email, per influencer, per ad creative)
- A link with an expiry, usage limit, or passcode
- Click and checkout analytics by source, campaign, or UTM
- A QR code that goes straight to checkout, not to a product page
- The customer to never see a "type your discount code" field at checkout
That's where Checkout Links comes in. This page is the honest comparison.
At a glance
| Shopify Buy Button | Checkout Links | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free (on supported plans) | $25/month, 7-day free trial |
| Output | Embeddable JS widget | Plain URL (works anywhere) |
| Dynamic per recipient | No — static config per button | Yes — every link can carry its own cart, discount, customer |
| Auto-applied discount | No — customer types code at checkout | Yes — discount baked into URL via Shopify Functions |
| Customer pre-fill | No | Yes — name, email, shipping when available |
| Expiry, usage limits, passcode | No | Yes |
| Click + checkout analytics | Limited (Shopify default) | Yes — per link, per source |
| QR codes | No native | Yes — every link has a downloadable QR |
| Built for Shopify badge | First-party | Built for Shopify certified |
| Shopify Flow integration | No | Yes — generate links inside automations |
When the Shopify Buy Button is still the right call
We try to be honest. The Buy Button wins in a few specific cases:
- Single-product widget on a static external site. A small blog or a portfolio site where you want one "Buy this print for $30" button. The Buy Button does this in three clicks and costs nothing.
- You're on Shopify Basic and the $25/mo isn't worth it yet. If you don't run paid campaigns, don't run email or SMS marketing, and don't care about per-link analytics, the Buy Button is free and fine.
- You need the customer to land on a custom cart page you built. The Buy Button lets the host site retain visual control before redirecting. Checkout Links sends them straight to checkout (or to an optional pre-checkout page) — different design philosophy.
Three honest tradeoffs. If those describe your use case, save the $25/mo.
Where Checkout Links pulls ahead
The minute a campaign carries any of these elements, the Buy Button starts asking for manual work the Checkout Links link does on its own.
1. Discounts that don't require typing
The Buy Button hands the customer a cart with the product added. The discount is still a separate code the customer has to remember and type. Cart abandonment between "product added" and "discount entered" is a real number — somewhere between 5% and 12% of attempts in our customers' data.
A Checkout Link applies the discount via Shopify Functions when the link is opened. The customer never sees the discount code field. Same checkout page, one less reason to leave.
2. Per-recipient personalisation
Buy Button is one widget = one configuration. If you want a different product, discount, or pre-fill per recipient — different links per influencer, per Klaviyo segment, per ad creative, per SMS blast — you'd manually create one Buy Button per case and host them all.
A Checkout Link is just a URL. You can generate thousands programmatically (or via Shopify Flow), each with its own behaviour, in seconds.
3. Analytics you can actually use
Buy Button installs land in standard Shopify analytics — you see orders but not the path. Checkout Links tracks every click, every cart that opened, and every checkout that completed, attributed to the specific link, source, and UTM combination. The same dashboard that shows "this email recovered $14,200" shows "this Buy Button replacement recovered $14,200" because the dashboard understands the link.
4. Expiry, usage limits, passcodes
Want a VIP drop link that only works for 24 hours? A coupon that can only be redeemed 100 times? A passcoded link for a paid community? The Buy Button has none of this. Checkout Links has all of it.
5. QR codes that go to checkout
The Buy Button has no native QR output. Even if you generate one externally, it points at the product page or cart, not at a paid-and-pre-filled checkout. Checkout Links generates a branded QR for every link automatically — same checkout-first behaviour as the URL.
How it works on Shopify
- Install Checkout Links from the Shopify App Store. 7-day free trial, no credit card.
- Create a link — pick products, optionally set a discount, optionally pre-fill customer or notes, optionally set expiry or limits.
- Drop the link anywhere — email, SMS, ad, QR code, Discord, in-store sign. Same link works in all channels.
- Track results — every click, every checkout, every dollar attributed back to the specific link.
It's built for Shopify, runs on Shopify checkout, uses Shopify Functions for the discount layer, and integrates natively with Shopify Flow.
Try Checkout Links
Start a 7-day free trial — $25/month after that.
If the Shopify Buy Button is still serving you, stick with it. If you've outgrown it on any of the dimensions above, this is what to switch to.
Related reading: How to create a payment link on Shopify, Create a Shopify Buy Now button that converts, One-click checkout on Shopify.