Free shipping threshold calculator — what it means and where to set yours
Benchmarks carry publisher, sample and read date. The threshold band itself is arithmetic — no publisher publishes a threshold formula, so this page shows its working instead of citing one.
Your numbers
Revenue ÷ orders, over the same period as everything else
% of order value left after cost of goods — not net profit
What a free-shipped order costs you, not what you charge shoppers
The band to start from
$102–$128
20–50% above your AOV, floored at break-even at $101.00 — that's $16.00 of stretch on a $85.00 order.
Round numbers inside it
This band is this page's arithmetic — 20–50% above your AOV, floored at break-even. No publisher publishes a threshold formula; treat it as a starting range and test.
Your candidate threshold
- At or below your AOV up to $85
- Below break-even $85–$101
- The suggested band $102–$128
- Around double AOV or beyond $170 and up
- Stretch you're asking for
- $25.00 29.4% above your AOV
- Margin that stretch earns you
- +$12.50
- Shipping you absorb on it
- −$8.00
- Net per order that stretches
- +$4.50 ahead
- Net per order already over the line
- −$8.00 behind
The month
Add your monthly orders to see a monthly projection.
Arithmetic, not a forecast. It treats each stretched order as starting from your AOV (under-threshold orders average less, so the gain side is flattered), and the two shares are assumptions you set.
A free shipping threshold is the minimum order value at which shipping becomes free — “free shipping on orders over $100” is a threshold of $100. Where to set it is arithmetic: above your average order value, or you absorb shipping on orders that already clear it, and within one added item's reach of a typical order. The calculator below works the band out from your numbers.
The calculator
Enter your AOV, gross margin and the shipping cost you'd absorb; add monthly orders for the month-level projection.
What a free shipping threshold is
A free shipping threshold is a conditional shipping rate: orders at or over a set value ship free, orders under it pay. It earns its place twice. Among US online shoppers who abandoned a cart for a reason beyond “just browsing,” 40% cite extra costs like shipping, taxes and fees — the top stated reason (Baymard's quantitative study of US online shoppers; page updated 22 September 2025, read 28 July 2026). And an under-threshold order gets a priced reason to grow. Roughly three carts in four never become orders (Dynamic Yield by Mastercard: 77.54%, read 28 July 2026); the cart abandonment calculator owns that arithmetic and the reasons list.
The offer has two edges. Every order it persuades to grow pays you margin on the added items. Every order already over the line collects free shipping and returns nothing. Where you draw it decides which edge you're on.
Where to set yours — the arithmetic
Three rules, from your own numbers.
Set it above your AOV. AOV is what a typical shopper spends unprompted. A threshold at or below it hands free shipping to orders that needed no persuading — cost, no nudge. Find your AOV first; the calculator defaults its suggestion from it.
Floor it at break-even. A stretched order earns (threshold − AOV) × gross margin and costs you the shipping; the two cross at AOV + shipping ÷ margin. The example store — US$85 AOV, 50% margin, $8 shipping — breaks even at $101: $8 ÷ 0.5 = $16 of stretch.
Keep it within reach. An offer nobody can reach moves nobody. The band this page suggests is 20–50% above your AOV, floored at break-even — for the example store, $102–$128, so a round $105, $110 or $125. That window is our arithmetic, not an industry-published formula: a starting range, not the answer.
| Threshold vs your AOV | What the arithmetic says |
|---|---|
| At or below AOV | The typical order already clears it. Shipping absorbed, no stretch back — margin loss on most orders. |
| Below AOV + shipping ÷ margin | Even the orders it nudges don't cover their own shipping. |
| 20–50% above AOV, floored at break-even | The band this page suggests: each stretch pays for itself, and the line is one added item away. |
| Around double AOV or beyond | Out of reach for the typical order. Only large orders clear it — and those collect the shipping for free. |
Some margin-and-shipping combinations have no reachable answer — at a 20% margin and $12 shipping, break-even on the same AOV is $145, a 71% stretch. The calculator flags that instead of pretending a band exists.
What it costs you
Gains come only from orders that stretch; costs come from every order over the line.
| The order | Shipping you absorb | Extra margin you earn | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| $85 order that stretches to $110 | $8 | $25 × 50% = $12.50 | +$4.50 |
| $120 order, already over the line | $8 | $0 | −$8.00 |
| $60 order that doesn't stretch | $0 — it still pays for shipping | $0 | $0 |
Add monthly orders and the tool projects the month. The example store — 1,200 orders, 30% already over the line, one in five under-threshold orders stretching — runs $2,124 negative, and breaks even only when 76% of under-threshold orders stretch. A higher threshold improves both sides, but fewer shoppers make a bigger stretch: the one trade arithmetic cannot settle. It flatters you, too — every stretched order is treated as starting from your AOV, and under-threshold orders average less. Hence the label on every number: arithmetic, not a forecast.
Don't guess the threshold. Test it.
The one input arithmetic can't compute is how many of your shoppers stretch. That's a measurement — it decides whether $105 or $125 wins.
On stores built on Mtrix, the free-shipping threshold is a checkout setting — and two thresholds can be A/B tested against each other. Judge them on revenue per visitor, because AOV up with conversion down nets out invisible: Mtrix experiments report revenue per visitor, conversion rate and add-to-cart rate side by side, and auto-complete on a visitor count, a date, or a revenue threshold.
If your store stays on Shopify, Mtrix measures rather than varies: AOV is a native metric, and revenue and orders sit in one view. A threshold change there reads as before-and-after; offer testing belongs to stores built on Mtrix.