The Buy Button is free on plans that include it. Checkout Links is $25/month with a 7-day free trial. If you only need a static add-to-cart widget on an external site, free wins. If you need per-recipient links, applied discounts, or analytics, the $25 pays for itself the moment one campaign uses any of those features.

Which is easier to set up?

Buy Button: configure once in Shopify admin, copy the JS snippet, paste on your external site. Checkout Links: install the Shopify app, build a link in two clicks, copy the URL. Both fast; Checkout Links is faster after the install because there's no embed step.

Which has better analytics?

Checkout Links — by a wide margin. Buy Button orders flow into standard Shopify analytics with no per-button breakdown. Checkout Links tracks every click and checkout per link, source, and UTM in a dedicated dashboard.

Can I switch from Buy Button to Checkout Links?

Yes. The two coexist — existing Buy Buttons keep working, you just stop creating new ones. Most stores migrate over a campaign cycle: new campaigns use Checkout Links, old Buy Buttons remain until they age out.

Checkout Links vs Shopify Buy Button: Which One in 2026?

Two tools that look similar from the outside, built for very different jobs. This page is the side-by-side.

For the longer "why one over the other" framing, see our Shopify Buy Button alternative page. This compare page is the at-a-glance.

The headline

Buy Button is free, static, and JS-embedded. Great for one product on one external site.
Checkout Links is $25/mo, dynamic, and URL-based. Built for campaigns, per-recipient personalisation, and analytics.

If your need is "one product, one external site, no analytics needed," stop reading and use the Buy Button — it's free and fits. If any of those nouns change to plural, keep reading.

Side-by-side

Feature	Shopify Buy Button	Checkout Links
Pricing	Free (on supported plans)	$25/month, 7-day free trial
Distribution format	Embeddable JavaScript widget	Plain URL (works anywhere)
Multiple products per cart	Yes	Yes
Customer destination	Adds to cart, customer continues from cart	Pre-loaded checkout (or optional pre-checkout page)
Per-recipient personalisation	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 (name, email, shipping)	No	Yes
Cart attributes / notes	No	Yes
Expiry, usage limits, passcode	No	Yes
Click + checkout analytics	Limited (Shopify default)	Yes — per link, source, UTM
QR codes	No native	Branded, automatic
Shopify Flow integration	No	Yes — generate links inside Flow
Klaviyo OAuth integration	No	Yes
Web pixel attribution	Standard	Native (Checkout Links web pixel)
Built for Shopify	First-party	Built for Shopify certified
Time to first working link	Minutes (configure + embed)	Minutes (configure + copy URL)

Where each one wins

Buy Button wins

Single product, single external site, no analytics needed. A blog or portfolio site with one "buy this print" CTA. Buy Button is free and exactly right.
You're on Shopify Basic and not running marketing campaigns. No abandoned cart sequence, no paid social, no influencer program. The $25/mo isn't worth it yet.
You need the customer to land on a cart-review page before checkout. Buy Button hands off to Shopify's cart by default. Checkout Links sends them straight to checkout. Different philosophies.

Checkout Links wins

Per-recipient or per-campaign personalisation. Every link can carry its own product mix, discount, customer pre-fill, expiry, and usage limit.
Auto-applied discounts. Customer never sees the discount-code field. No code typing, no leak risk to coupon sites.
Per-link analytics. Click + checkout attribution per link, source, and UTM. Critical for any campaign running multiple creatives.
QR codes that go to checkout. Branded QR for every link, downloadable instantly. Buy Button has no native QR.
Klaviyo / Flow integration. Drop links into abandoned cart flows, win-back flows, post-purchase chains. Buy Button can't do any of this.

Which one for which job

Job to be done	Pick
"Buy this one product" on my external blog	Buy Button
Per-creator influencer URLs with discount + usage limits	Checkout Links
One-tap recovery link in my Klaviyo abandoned cart flow	Checkout Links
Static add-to-cart widget on a static brand site	Buy Button
Per-creative ad URLs for paid social	Checkout Links
QR code on packaging that re-orders the product	Checkout Links
In-store cross-channel "scan to add to POS"	Checkout Links
Wholesale customer reorder links	Checkout Links
VIP-only launch drop with passcode and expiry	Checkout Links

The honest take

The Buy Button is a fine product for what it does. It's free, it's first-party, it's been around for a decade, and Shopify maintains it. If your need is the narrow use case it solves, use it.

Where the analysis tips toward Checkout Links is when the campaign cadence, the per-recipient personalisation, or the analytics requirement makes the Buy Button start to feel like manual work — generating dozens of static buttons, hoping customers paste the right discount code, reconciling per-channel revenue in spreadsheets.

The $25/month is real money. So is the time spent doing campaign work manually. Most merchants who try both end up using Checkout Links for everything new and leaving the existing Buy Buttons in place until they age out.

Try Checkout Links

Start a 7-day free trial — keep your existing Buy Buttons running in parallel during the trial.