Free shipping threshold: it sorts orders, it barely moves them

What a free shipping threshold is, and what we measured

A free shipping threshold is the order amount above which the customer does not pay for shipping, and the store pays it instead. Everyone knows the logic: a customer reaches checkout with ₪260, sees "free shipping over ₪300", and adds one more item. The store absorbs the shipping and gets a bigger order in return.

We measured the first half of that sentence in our article on how to increase average order value: orders with free shipping are bigger, and the threshold should sit a little above the median order. But we left a question open there. The threshold sorts orders, because only the big ones clear it. Does it also move them? That is, are there orders that would have ended at ₪260 and ended at ₪300 because of it, and how many of those are there against all the orders the store absorbs shipping on anyway.

To answer, we did not ask the stores what their threshold was. We looked for it in the orders themselves: the amount above which orders almost never pay shipping, and below which they do. We took online stores where that threshold is clearly visible in the data, with at least a hundred orders on each side of it: 8 stores, 33,428 orders, 1 January to 28 September 2026. In two stores the threshold changed during the period, so we measured 10 thresholds. The order amount is what the customer paid for the goods, after discounts and without the shipping fee, because that is the amount the threshold applies to. Amounts are in shekels; where a dollar figure helps it is shown at about 3.7 shekels to the dollar.

Where the threshold sits, and what it costs

At the median store, the shipping fee below the threshold was ₪25 (about $7). Across the stores: from ₪19 to ₪40 ($5 to $11). That is what the store gives up on every order that clears the threshold, if it would not have absorbed it anyway.

The threshold itself sat, at the median, 30% above the store's median order. In 6 of the 10 thresholds it was above the median order, in 4 below it. The range is enormous: from a threshold 38% below the median order, which most customers clear without trying, to one 3.9 times the median order, which almost nobody reaches.

The result: at the median store, 39% of orders cleared the threshold and got free shipping by the rule. At one end 4% of orders, at the other 86%. And another 20% of the orders below the threshold paid no shipping either, because of pickup, a coupon code or a promotion. In total, 61% of orders at the median store paid no shipping fee.

The threshold decides how many orders the store absorbs shipping on. That number is what it costs.

Orders really do pile up above the threshold

Now the question. If customers top up an order to reach the threshold, the distribution will show it: a hole just below the threshold, and a pile just above it. We split each store's orders into ₪20 windows around its own threshold, ₪100 below and ₪100 above.

The pile is there. At the median, the ₪20 just above the threshold held 2.0 times the orders of the ₪20 just below it. Compared with the windows further out on both sides, the window above the threshold was 44% fuller and the window below it 33% emptier. Both the hole and the pile.

The range is wide: from 0.7x, meaning fewer orders above the threshold than below it, up to 5.2x. In 5 of the 10 thresholds the pile was at least double, and in 2 there was no pile at all.

And what is inside the orders above the threshold? At the median they contained 13% more units than the orders just below it, and in 9 of the 10 thresholds they contained more units. That is exactly what you expect to see when a customer adds an item to reach the threshold. The threshold works the way the story says.

The pile does not depend on the distance from the median order

We expected a threshold that sits close to the typical order to build a bigger pile than a distant one. That is not what we saw. The three thresholds with the biggest pile, 5.2, 4.4, 4.0x, sat between 0.62 and 1.72 times the median order: one below it, one next to it, one far above it. The three thresholds with the smallest pile, 0.7x to 1.5x, sat between 0.7 and 1.4 times the median order. The same range.

So the distance from the median decides how many orders clear the threshold, but not how many were pushed to it. The likely explanation is that the pile depends on things the order export cannot see: how visible the threshold is in the cart, whether there is a bar saying "₪40 more for free shipping", and whether the store has a cheap item that closes the gap. Those are things the person running the store controls directly.

How many orders that is, in money

The pile is real, and now it has to be counted. At the median store, 2.8% of all orders landed in the ₪20 just above the threshold, against 1.7% in the ₪20 just below it. The gap is 1.1 orders in every hundred. Even if that entire gap is orders the customer topped up to clear the threshold, the most generous assumption possible, it is one order in a hundred, adding at most ₪20 of goods.

Against it stand 39 orders in every hundred that cleared the threshold anyway, plus 12 that paid no shipping below it either.

This is the sum most stores never do. For every shekel of goods the threshold added, the store absorbed tens of shekels of shipping on orders that would have cleared it without it. Part of those tens is a conscious decision, because free shipping is also a marketing message, beyond what it does to the basket. But it is worth knowing that this is the price, and that the extra order does not cover it.

Two stores that moved their threshold

The closest thing to an experiment is a store changing its threshold. In the period we measured there were two: one raised its threshold by 50%, one lowered it by 37%. If the threshold moves orders, more orders should reach the new line after a raise, and fewer after a cut.

In the store that raised its threshold, 57% of orders already cleared the new line before it was the threshold. After the change: 60%. Three points. What clearly did change is who pays for shipping: before the change 91% of orders paid nothing, after it 68%. The raise moved the shipping fee from the store to its customers, and barely moved the orders. The pile above the new line built up slowly: 1.4x in the first month, 2.3x in the sixth. Customers learn a new threshold over time.

In the store that lowered its threshold, 41% of orders cleared the new line before the change, and 41% after it. Exactly the same number. The cut gave free shipping to 59% of orders instead of 25%, on orders that were already there. The median order even fell, though two months is too little to call it a trend.

Two stores, two directions, the same picture: the line moved, the share of orders beyond it did not.

What to do with this tomorrow morning

All of it comes out of the store's order export, in half an hour.

1. Work out the goods amount of every order. The amount paid minus the shipping fee. That is the amount the threshold applies to.
2. Count how many orders cleared the threshold, and how many paid no shipping at all. The first number times the shipping fee is what the threshold costs per month. At the median store we measured: 39 in every hundred orders.
3. Compare the ₪20 above the threshold with the ₪20 below it. Two times or more: the threshold works, customers top up. Less than one: the threshold is not part of any customer's decision, and it is fair to ask why it is there.
4. Put the two numbers side by side. The orders that were topped up, against the orders you absorb shipping on. If the threshold sits below the median order, most customers clear it without trying, and it is mostly a discount. A discount is a legitimate decision too, it just deserves its real name, and a place in the real ROAS calculation like any other discount.
5. If you move it, measure the right thing. Average order value barely moved even in the stores we measured. What moves is the share of orders clearing the new line, before and after, and the pile just above it. Measure both. Give it a few months, because the pile builds slowly.

And what you can do without moving the threshold: make sure the customer sees it. A cart bar that says how much is left for free shipping, and a cheap item that closes the gap, are what turn a threshold into a lever. In Shopify this is built into the theme, without an app. The orders we measured cannot tell whether that was there, so it is the first thing to check in a store where the pile above the threshold is small.