Pay What You Want on Shopify: Name Your Price & Donations

Pay what you want on Shopify lets the customer decide the price. It sounds like a fast way to lose money, and done carelessly it is — but used deliberately it is one of the few pricing tools that can raise average order value, clear dead stock, and collect donations without a separate checkout.

This guide covers the four things merchants mean by "pay what you want", when the model genuinely works, when it backfires, and the specific settings that decide which of those you get.

Four different things people mean by "pay what you want"

These get lumped together, but they solve different problems and need different configuration.

Pay what you want. The customer enters any amount, usually above a floor. Common for digital products, charity releases, and clearing stock you would otherwise write off.
Name your price / make an offer. The customer proposes a price. Used on high-ticket, negotiable or second-hand items where a fixed number would stop the conversation before it starts.
Donations. A standalone contribution, or an optional add-on at checkout. The amount is the product.
Tips. A small optional extra on top of a normal purchase, most often for makers, service businesses and food.

Deciding which one you are running matters, because the floor price, the suggested amount and the placement on the page all change with it.

Does pay what you want actually make money?

Sometimes, and the pattern behind the successes is reasonably consistent.

The best-known example is Radiohead releasing In Rainbows in 2007 as a pay-what-you-want download. Plenty of people paid nothing; enough paid something that the experiment is still discussed nearly twenty years later. Humble Bundle built an entire business on the model, and added the two mechanics that make it work commercially: a suggested price and a visible average of what others paid.

It also fails. Panera ran non-profit "Panera Cares" pay-what-you-want cafés from 2010; the last one closed in 2019. The model could not cover the cost of running a café where the marginal cost of each order was high and many customers had no relationship with the brand.

That contrast is the useful lesson. Pay what you want tends to work when:

Your marginal cost is low. Digital downloads, courses, and licences can absorb someone paying the minimum. Physical goods with real unit costs cannot, unless you set the floor above cost.
There is a relationship. Customers who know your brand pay more than strangers. The model rewards audiences, not passing traffic.
The ask is framed. An empty box invites the lowest acceptable number. A suggested amount, or a set of preset options, gives people a reference point — and most will choose from what you show them rather than invent a figure.

It tends to fail when unit costs are high, when the offer is shown to cold traffic with no context, or when there is no floor at all.

The settings that decide whether this works

This is where most implementations go wrong. The mechanics do more work than the idea.

Set a minimum price

Your floor should sit at or above the point where the order is still worth fulfilling — cost of goods, plus payment fees, plus picking and shipping. For physical products this is not optional. A minimum also filters out the small number of people who will type 0.01 simply because they can.

Set a suggested price, and make it the default

The suggested amount is the single most influential setting. It acts as an anchor: most customers adjust away from the number you show rather than starting from nothing. Set it at or slightly above what you would otherwise charge — not at your minimum, which simply teaches people your floor.

Consider a maximum

Counter-intuitive, but useful. A maximum prevents typos becoming failed payments or awkward refunds, and on donation flows it stops a mis-keyed amount reaching your payment processor's fraud rules.

Offer preset amounts

Presets convert better than a free-text box for most stores, because they remove the work of deciding. Three or four options, with the one you want chosen sitting in the middle — people gravitate to middle options. Offering presets and a custom field gives you both without losing the anchor.

Decide where it appears

Inline on the product page suits products where the price is the proposition, like a charity release. A popup suits an optional add-on such as a tip or donation, where you do not want to interrupt a normal purchase.

Choose your scope carefully

Storewide pay-what-you-want is rarely right. It is far more common to enable it on one collection: a charity line, digital products, end-of-season stock, or a single donation product.

Where pay what you want earns its place

Digital products. Near-zero marginal cost and a natural fit — ebooks, presets, templates, music, courses.
Charity and cause campaigns. A fundraising product where the customer decides their contribution, running through your normal checkout so you keep the customer record.
Clearing dead stock. A floor at cost and a "make an offer" field will move stock that a discount code will not, without publishing a low price that anchors your regular range.
Tips for makers and services. An optional add-on at the point of purchase, where customers who value the work can say so.
Testing willingness to pay. Run it on one product for a month. What customers voluntarily pay is genuine pricing research, and usually cheaper than a survey.

How to set it up on Shopify

Pick the products. Start with one collection or a single product rather than the whole store.
Set your floor. Cost of goods plus fees plus fulfilment. For digital products the floor can be low, but should rarely be zero unless you are deliberately running a free tier.
Set the suggested amount. At or just above your normal price. You can also derive minimum, suggested and maximum from the product's existing price so the settings stay correct as your catalogue changes.
Choose custom, presets, or both. Presets for donations and tips; a custom field where the amount is genuinely the customer's decision.
Choose the display. Inline for product-page pricing, popup for optional add-ons. Pills, a dropdown or radio buttons for presets, whichever suits your theme.
Place one test order end to end. Confirm the chosen amount is what reaches checkout and appears correctly on the order.
Watch it for two weeks. Track average amount paid and how many people choose the suggested option, then adjust the anchor.

Frequently asked questions

Can Shopify do pay what you want natively?

No. Shopify prices products through fixed variants, so there is no built-in way for a customer to set their own amount. It needs an app.

Will customers just pay the minimum?

Some will, and that is fine if your floor is set above cost. Most people choose from the options presented, which is exactly why the suggested price and presets matter more than the minimum.

Can I use this to take donations?

Yes. A donation product with preset amounts and a custom option works well, and because it goes through your normal Shopify checkout you keep the order record, the customer's details and your usual reporting.

Does it work with discount codes and taxes?

The chosen amount becomes the line price, so the rest of checkout behaves normally. Tax treatment for genuine donations differs by jurisdiction — worth confirming with your accountant before you launch a fundraising product.

Can I run it on only some products?

Yes, and you generally should. Enable it per product or per collection and leave the rest of your catalogue on fixed pricing.

What is the difference between this and a discount?

A discount publishes a lower price to everyone and anchors expectations downward. Pay what you want moves the decision to the customer, so the people who are happy to pay full price usually still do.

Try it on your store

Pluginos Pay What You Want covers all four models — name your price, make an offer, donations and tips. You can enable it storewide or on selected products, offer a custom amount, predefined amounts or both, and display them inline or in a popup as pills, a dropdown or radio buttons with badges.

Minimum, suggested and maximum prices can be set directly or calculated from each product's own price, so the guardrails stay correct as your catalogue changes. There is a free trial, so you can test the model on one collection before rolling it out.

View Pluginos Pay What You Want on the Shopify App Store — or see our other plugins and apps for spam protection, geo restrictions and back-in-stock alerts.

Pay What You Want on Shopify: Name Your Price, Offers & Donations