If you’ve ever gone looking through Shopify’s Settings menu for a way to drag Apple Pay below Shop Pay, or to stop Google Pay showing up for customers who’ve never used it, you’re not alone. It’s one of the more common questions on the Shopify Community forums, merchants wanting to reorder or hide express checkout buttons, and finding fewer controls than they expected.
The honest answer is that Shopify controls most of this automatically, and the amount of manual reordering merchants can do is more limited than a lot of store owners assume. That’s not a satisfying answer if you’re trying to optimise checkout for an Australian audience that’s more familiar with Afterpay and Zip than Shop Pay, but understanding exactly where the real levers are (and where they aren’t) is far more useful than guessing at settings that don’t exist.
This post covers how Shopify actually determines which express checkout buttons appear and in what order, what you genuinely can and can’t control from the admin, and why Australian merchants often care more about surfacing Afterpay or Zip prominently than about Shop Pay’s position.
What “Express Checkout Buttons” Actually Are
Express checkout buttons are the row of one-click payment options that appear above the standard “Add to cart” or checkout form, typically on the product page, the cart page, and the top of checkout itself. On a Shopify store using Shopify Payments, this row commonly includes some combination of Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal, depending on what’s enabled and what the visiting customer’s device supports.
It’s worth being precise about what these buttons are for: they let a returning or recognised customer skip re-entering shipping and payment details, using information already stored with that wallet provider. This is a different thing from the standard payment method list that shows up further down at checkout, the list where options like credit card, Shop Pay Installments, Afterpay and Zip typically sit as selectable payment methods rather than one-click express buttons. That distinction matters a lot for the rest of this post, because the two areas behave differently and merchants often conflate them when trying to prioritise Afterpay or Zip.
How Shopify Decides Which Buttons Show and in What Order
Shopify determines express checkout button eligibility and, largely, order through a combination of factors outside direct merchant control:
- Device and browser detection. Apple Pay only appears for customers on a supported Apple device and browser (typically Safari on iOS or macOS) with a card already set up in their Apple Wallet. Google Pay similarly depends on the customer’s browser and whether they have a Google Pay account configured. If a customer’s device or browser doesn’t support a given wallet, that button simply won’t render for them, no setting changes that.
- Store-level enablement. In Settings > Payments, Shopify Payments merchants can enable or disable specific wallets (Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay) as accepted payment methods. Turning a wallet off here removes it from the express row entirely, which is the main lever merchants actually have.
- Customer recognition. Shop Pay in particular is more likely to appear, and to appear prominently, for a customer who has a recognised Shop Pay account (via a stored cookie or previous purchase history), since the whole point of Shop Pay is speeding up checkout for identified shoppers.
- Platform-level display logic. Beyond enabling or disabling a wallet, the specific order the eligible buttons render in is largely governed by Shopify’s own checkout logic rather than something exposed as a drag-and-drop setting for merchants, this is the piece that trips up a lot of store owners searching the Shopify Community for “how do I reorder my express checkout buttons.”
If you’ve seen contradictory results when testing this yourself, different button order on different days or devices, that’s consistent with the ordering being driven by device eligibility and recognition rather than a fixed merchant-set sequence.
What Merchants Can and Can’t Control
To be direct about this, since a lot of forum answers on the topic are vague:
You generally can:
– Enable or disable individual wallets (Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay) under Settings > Payments, which removes a button from the express row entirely if you don’t want it offered.
– Enable or disable PayPal Express as a separate payment provider.
– Control which standard payment methods appear further down at checkout (credit card, Shop Pay Installments, Afterpay, Zip, and so on), including reordering some of these in the payment methods list, depending on your current theme and checkout version.
– Influence indirectly which button a given customer sees most often, since eligibility is tied to their device, browser and account recognition rather than a fixed merchant order.
You generally can’t:
– Manually drag-and-drop reorder which express buttons appear first for a given customer.
– Force Apple Pay or Google Pay to appear for a customer whose device doesn’t support it, or vice versa.
– Guarantee an identical button order across every customer and device, since eligibility genuinely varies by browser and wallet setup.
If a specific setting or behaviour isn’t documented clearly for your theme or checkout version, it’s worth checking directly in your live checkout after any payment settings change rather than assuming, Shopify does periodically adjust checkout behaviour, and what’s true today isn’t guaranteed to stay exactly the same as features roll out.
Why Australian Merchants Often Want Afterpay or Zip More Visible
Shop Pay is a genuinely useful feature for US-heavy audiences where Shop Pay adoption is higher, but a lot of Australian merchants find their customers are far more habituated to buy-now-pay-later options like Afterpay and Zip, which are widely used across AU fashion, beauty and lifestyle ecommerce. For many Australian stores, having a BNPL option clearly visible and understood at the point of decision matters more for conversion than which one-click wallet sits at the very top of the express row.
A few practical ways AU merchants typically address this, working within what’s actually controllable:
- Enable Afterpay and/or Zip as payment methods if not already active, via Settings > Payments, so they appear as selectable options during checkout.
- Add BNPL messaging on product and cart pages, the “4 payments of $X” style pricing breakdown, which is usually a separate widget or setting from the express checkout row itself, and is often what actually drives the behaviour change merchants are hoping for when they say they want Afterpay “more prominent.”
- Review whether Shop Pay needs to be disabled at all, versus simply ensuring Afterpay and Zip are switched on and clearly messaged, for most stores, having both available with strong BNPL visibility on product pages achieves the goal without needing to fight the express row’s automatic behaviour.
- Test on real devices rather than assuming, since express button appearance depends on device and browser, checking on an iPhone, an Android phone and a desktop browser will usually show you three different pictures of what your AU customers actually see.
For deeper detail on setting up either provider correctly on Shopify, our guides on the Afterpay integration and Zip integration cover the specific setup steps and what each provider needs from your store.
A Practical Checklist for Reviewing Your Express Checkout Setup
- Check Settings > Payments and confirm which wallets (Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay) and BNPL providers (Afterpay, Zip) are currently enabled.
- Test your live product, cart and checkout pages on at least three real devices, iPhone/Safari, Android/Chrome, and desktop, to see the actual button set and order your customers experience.
- Confirm BNPL price-breakdown messaging (the “4 interest-free payments” text) is switched on and visible on product pages, not just available as a payment method buried at checkout.
- If a wallet genuinely isn’t relevant to your audience (for example, Google Pay adoption is low among your customer base), consider whether disabling it via its provider settings simplifies the decision for shoppers, rather than trying to force a reorder that isn’t available.
- Re-test after any theme update or checkout change, checkout behaviour is one of the areas Shopify updates periodically, and settings that worked a certain way previously can shift.
- If conversion data suggests express buttons or payment method visibility are a genuine drop-off point, treat it as a conversion research question (heatmaps, session recordings, checkout funnel reports) rather than a guess.
When This Is Worth a Specialist’s Time
Express checkout button behaviour is a small piece of a much bigger checkout conversion picture, cart abandonment, shipping cost transparency, trust signals, form friction and page speed usually matter more to your conversion rate than which wallet sits first in the express row. If you’re not sure whether express checkout and payment method visibility are actually costing you sales, or you want a proper look at where AU shoppers are dropping off in your checkout funnel, that’s exactly the kind of diagnostic work our Shopify conversion rate optimisation team does, using session data and funnel analysis rather than guesswork, before recommending any changes.
FAQ
Can I manually choose the order of Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay on my Shopify checkout?
Not directly. Shopify’s express checkout buttons are ordered largely by its own platform logic, based on the customer’s device, browser and wallet eligibility, rather than a manual drag-and-drop setting available to merchants. What you can control is which wallets are enabled at all, via Settings > Payments.
How do I stop Apple Pay or Shop Pay from appearing at checkout?
You can disable individual wallets under Settings > Payments in your Shopify admin, which removes that button from the express checkout row for all customers. Keep in mind this removes a convenience option some customers do use, so it’s worth weighing against your actual data before switching one off.
Why does my checkout show different express buttons to different customers?
Because eligibility is based on the customer’s own device, browser and wallet setup, Apple Pay only shows for supported Apple devices with a card configured, Google Pay depends on browser and account setup, and Shop Pay is more likely to appear prominently for a recognised, returning Shop Pay user. This is expected behaviour, not a bug.
Should Australian Shopify stores prioritise Afterpay and Zip over Shop Pay?
It depends on your audience, but many AU stores in fashion, beauty and lifestyle categories find BNPL options like Afterpay and Zip more familiar to their customers than Shop Pay. Rather than trying to force the express row to favour one wallet, the more reliable lever is making sure Afterpay/Zip are enabled and their pricing messaging is clearly visible on product and cart pages.
Does adding more payment options slow down my Shopify checkout?
Enabling additional payment methods and wallets doesn’t meaningfully affect page load speed, since Shopify’s checkout is hosted and optimised centrally. The bigger consideration is decision friction for the shopper, too many options with unclear messaging can add confusion rather than convenience, which is a UX question worth testing rather than assuming either way.
Ready to See Where Your Checkout Is Actually Losing Sales?
If express checkout and payment visibility feel like a guess rather than a data-backed decision, a Shopify audit is a solid starting point to see what’s really happening in your funnel. Or if you’d rather talk it through directly, book a call with our team.
