Shogun is a serious tool. If you’re building a 12-section product page with custom CSS, dynamic content blocks, and A/B-tested layouts, it’s the right buy. This isn’t a hit piece.
But a lot of merchants install Shogun for one specific thing: a campaign landing page that takes traffic from an ad or email, shows the offer, and gets the customer to checkout. For that job, you’re paying for a page builder when what you actually need is a link.
At a glance
| Shogun | Checkout Links | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $39–$499/month (Build → Advanced) | $25/month, 7-day free trial |
| Built for | Full page design and CMS | Checkout-first links + pre-checkout pages |
| Time to launch a campaign page | Hours to days (design + QA) | Minutes (pick products, copy link) |
| Auto-applied discount | Manual (Shogun page → cart → code field) | Yes — baked into URL |
| Pre-checkout page | N/A (full pages) | Yes — optional product grid + live cart |
| Customer pre-fill | No native | Yes |
| Expiry, usage limits, passcode | No | Yes |
| Per-link analytics | Limited (page-level) | Yes — click + checkout per link |
| QR codes | No native | Yes — branded |
| Shopify Flow trigger | No | Yes |
| Best for | Long-form product/landing pages | Campaign links + light pre-checkout pages |
When Shogun is the right call
Three honest cases:
- You need pixel-perfect page design. A bespoke long-form launch page with custom sections, animations, A/B tests, and a dedicated designer driving it — Shogun’s editor is built for that. Checkout Links is not.
- You manage 50+ pages and want CMS workflows. Drafts, versioning, multi-environment publishing, team roles — Shogun has all of it. Checkout Links is link-level, not page-level.
- You’re already paying for Shogun and using ≥3 of its features. If you’re getting page builder + CRO + A/B + CMS value from one tool, don’t fragment your stack just to save $14/month.
Where Checkout Links pulls ahead
Speed to a campaign link
A Checkout Link is two clicks: pick products, pick (optional) discount. Done. The link is ready to drop into an email, an ad, a QR code, anywhere.
A Shogun campaign page is a build job: pick a template, configure sections, write copy, add product blocks, set up the cart embed, QA on mobile. Faster than custom-coding, slower than a link.
Discounts that don’t require a code field
A Shogun page sends the customer to Shopify checkout — same as everyone else — with the discount field still showing. Customers paste, retype, mistype, or share the code outside the campaign. Checkout Links applies the discount via Shopify Functions when the link opens, so the customer never sees a code field.
Per-link analytics
Shogun shows you page-level metrics. Checkout Links shows you link-level — every click, every checkout, every dollar attributed to a specific link, ad, segment, or recipient. Useful when you’re running 30 variants of the same campaign.
Built-in QR codes
Every Checkout Link gets a branded QR. Shogun has no native QR mode for its pages.
The combined-stack play
Most merchants we talk to don’t replace Shogun outright — they use both. Shogun for the long-form pages that need design. Checkout Links for everything else: ad-to-cart links, SMS campaigns, influencer drops, QR codes, abandoned-cart recovery URLs.
If you’re spending $99-$499/month on Shogun primarily to ship campaign landing pages, downgrade to the lowest Shogun tier for your evergreen pages and put $25 on Checkout Links for the campaign volume. The math usually clears in the first month.
Try Checkout Links
Related reading: Shopify Buy Button alternative, Shopify cart permalinks alternative, How to create a payment link on Shopify.