What Shop Promise Actually Measures, and How Fulfillment Speed Gets You Invited

Shop Promise is not a badge you apply for. Shopify evaluates your shipping history and invites you if the numbers qualify. That makes it one of the few conversion levers where operations decide the outcome, not marketing.

What the badge is

Shop Promise recognizes stores that consistently deliver domestic orders within five days. Eligible stores can show the badge on product pages, at checkout and in the Shop app. Shopify's own trust badge guidance says it can lift conversion by up to 25%, which is a vendor figure and should be treated as an upper bound, not a forecast.

It is also rare. Public descriptions put eligible stores at roughly the top 1% of Shopify merchants.

The store requirements

Before delivery speed even enters the picture, your store has to meet several setup conditions:

• An active Shopify Basic plan or higher
• Shop Pay and an active Shopify Payments account
• The Shop sales channel
• A US fulfillment location
• Multi-origin shipping instead of the legacy single-origin option
• No violations of the Acceptable Use Policy

Check these first. A store that is fast but missing Shop Pay will never see the invitation.

The delivery thresholds

Shopify's published terms look at the last 28 days. You need at least 25 orders shipped, at least 25% of them delivered in five or fewer calendar days, and at least 90% of those orders with a shipping cost of $20 or less.

Read that second number carefully. The threshold is about delivery time, counted in calendar days, not about when you handed the box to the carrier. A package that sits for three days before pickup spends most of the budget before it moves.

Where fulfillment speed moves the numbers

Five calendar days includes handling, carrier pickup and transit. Each stage has its own lever.

• Handling time: Same-day or next-day dispatch gives transit the whole window. ShipAid Fulfillment reports 99.5% same-day shipping and a 99% 48-hour SLA completion rate.
• Distance: Shorter zones deliver faster. ShipAid Fulfillment reports 2-day delivery to 97% of the U.S. population, which keeps most orders well inside five days.
• Weekends and cutoffs: Calendar days include weekends. An order shipped Friday afternoon can burn two days of the budget before Monday.

The shipping cost condition

The $20 shipping cost cap means heavy or long-zone orders may not count the way you expect. If a large share of your orders ship above that level, you may qualify on speed and still miss on cost.

Sort your last 28 days by shipping cost. If more than 10% of orders exceed $20, work on rates before you chase more speed.

How to check where you stand

1. Export the last 28 days of orders with ship date, delivery date and shipping cost.
2. Count total shipped orders and confirm you are above 25.
3. Calculate the share delivered in five or fewer calendar days. The bar is 25%, but your real aim should be much higher so the badge is stable.
4. Calculate the share with shipping cost of $20 or less.
5. Confirm the store requirements in the Shopify admin.

Remember that meeting every number does not guarantee an invitation. Shopify decides, and eligibility is reviewed periodically.

The takeaway for founders

You cannot buy this badge, but you can build the operation that earns it. Fast handling and short zones make the five-day number easy, and the same changes lift conversion even if the badge never appears.

Explore ShipAid Fulfillment to see how same-day dispatch and 2-day reach to 97% of the U.S. population change the delivery window your customers see.