What Is a Checkout Progress Bar? Step vs. Goal Bars

Two different things go by this name. Both show a shopper how close the finish line is, but they do different jobs.

Step Bars and Goal Bars

Step bar. Labels at the top of checkout, like Cart, Information, Shipping, Payment. It shows where the shopper is in the checkout flow and what's left. It's there to help people get through, not to sell more.
Goal bar. A bar that fills up as the cart grows. It says something like "You're $9 away from free shipping." You'll also hear it called a free shipping bar or cart progress bar. The prize can be free shipping, a free gift or a bigger discount.

A goal bar is only the display. The rule behind it is a free shipping threshold or a discount tier.

Why a Goal Bar Gets One More Item Added

A rule like "free shipping over $40" leaves the math to the shopper. The bar does it for them and shows the gap in dollars.

People tend to try harder as a goal gets closer. Psychologists call this the goal-gradient effect. So a shopper who's $5 short is more likely to act than one who's $35 short. We cover the psychology and where to place it in our guide on using progress bars to raise AOV.

Where Shopify Stores Show Progress Bars

The step bar comes with Shopify's checkout. Shopify lets you pick a one-page or three-page checkout. The three-page version shows the steps as a breadcrumb trail at the top. The one-page version puts everything on a single screen.

Goal bars usually sit in the cart drawer or on the cart page, added by a theme or an app. That works on any Shopify plan.

A bar inside checkout itself needs a checkout UI extension. On the information, shipping and payment steps, those are only open to Shopify Plus stores.

Growth Suite, our app, can show free shipping goals as to-do items in its cart drawer. On Shopify Plus stores, it can also add a checkout offer progress bar inside checkout.

Margin Check: The Bar Repeats Your Rule's Math

Example: a coffee roaster's shipping bar (made-up numbers)

Shipping is free from $40 and costs you $6 an order. You keep 50% of each sale after product costs. A shopper has $32 in the cart. The bar says she's $8 away, so she adds a $10 bag of beans.

No bar: she pays $32 plus $6 for shipping, which covers your cost. You keep $32 × 50% = $16.
With the bar: she pays $42 and ships free. You keep $42 × 50% − $6 = $15.

Her order is $10 bigger, but you kept $1 less. If the bar gets 20 extra shoppers a month to do this, that's 20 × $1 = $20 a month gone. The bar worked fine here, and the problem is the rule it's pointing at.

So check the rule before you judge the bar. The bar just makes your threshold's math happen more often, good or bad. Where to set that line is covered in our guide to free shipping thresholds. The example does skip one upside, though. If a shopper would have left over the $6 fee, the bar turned $0 into $15.

When a Progress Bar Doesn't Help

The goal sits below most orders. The bar mostly cheers for rewards people were getting anyway.
The goal is far away. A $25 cart facing a $100 goal shows a bar that's barely filled. That doesn't give anyone much reason to add more.
The bar and checkout disagree. Say the bar counts the cart before a discount code, but your shipping rule counts it after. The shopper sees "free shipping" in the cart, then gets charged for it at checkout.

Misconception: A Step Bar Makes Checkout Faster

A step bar shows how long checkout is. It doesn't make it any shorter. If shoppers keep quitting at the shipping step, the bar won't change that. The cause is on the step itself, like a shipping price they didn't expect.