What the numbers say
Free shipping from $80.00, two units. Below it the customer pays $8.74, the 1 lb label passed through. One unit paying shipping keeps $20.65; two units shipped free keep $35.75.
Every order that tops up from one unit to two earns $15.10 more. Every order that was already at or above the threshold stops paying its $8.74 of shipping and buys nothing extra, which costs $8.05 of margin: the shipping, less the card fees and refund reserve it no longer carries.
So the threshold pays when the top-ups outnumber the orders that already qualify by enough to cover them. The free-shipping threshold calculator does that count with your order values.
The cost structure, and where it comes from
| Price | $40.00, a bag of coffee. Offer Suite's demo store catalog (offer-suite-demo.myshopify.com, docs/dev-store/catalog.json) |
|---|---|
| Unit cost | $12.00. “Single Bag: price 40.00, unit cost 12.0 · mug gift: unit cost 4.0, compare-at 18.00” Offer Suite's demo store catalog (offer-suite-demo.myshopify.com, docs/dev-store/catalog.json) |
| Pick and pack | $3.20 per order and $0.48 for each extra item. Fulfill.com, 3PL pricing benchmarks (The Fulfillment Advisor 2025 survey of 600+ warehouses), read September 23, 2026 |
| Shipping label | USPS Ground Advantage, commercial, Zone 5, by weight rounded up to the pound: 1 lb $8.74 · 2 lb $9.95 · 3 lb $11.57 · 4 lb $12.84 · 5 lb $13.48. Packed weight is an assumption: 0.8 lb per unit. USPS Notice 123, USPS Ground Advantage Commercial, Zone 5 (effective July 12, 2026), read September 23, 2026 |
| Card fees | 2.9% + $0.30 per order, a common online card rate. Shopify doesn't publish one rate: it depends on your plan and the card. An assumption. |
| Refund reserve | 5%, Offer Suite's default assumption for consumables. NRF's all-category figure for online sales is 19.3%, but consumables are rarely returned; use your own rate. |
| Gift | a mug: unit cost $4.00, retail $18.00. The demo store's mug gift: unit cost $4.00, compare-at $18.00. |
The offer document an agent would write
This is the offer as a document, the way an agent writes it for Offer Suite's API. It validates against the offer schema as it stands. Ids are placeholders, except the coffee ones, which are the demo store's real products; the discount is stated the way the offer states it, and Offer Suite checks with a real cart that checkout charges exactly the prices above.
Show the document offer.json · validates against the offer schema
{
"schema": "offer/1",
"recipe": null,
"identity": {
"code": "PB_COFFEE_FREE_SHIPPING",
"experience": "pb-coffee-free-shipping-v1",
"campaign": "cmp_playbook",
"presell": null,
"signature": null,
"carrier": {
"cartAttributes": [
"_oe_offer",
"_oe_version",
"_oe_code"
],
"lineProperties": [
"_oe_option",
"_oe_role"
],
"orderTags": [
"offer:PB_COFFEE_FREE_SHIPPING",
"option:{optionKey}",
"v:{version}"
],
"passthroughKeys": []
}
},
"shop": {
"domain": "offer-suite-demo.myshopify.com",
"market": {
"country": "US",
"currency": "USD"
}
},
"campaignRef": null,
"rulesRef": null,
"selectionMode": "exclusive",
"axes": [],
"picks": [],
"options": [
{
"key": "one",
"label": "1 unit",
"isDefault": false,
"surfaced": true,
"axisValues": {},
"unitCount": {
"value": 1,
"source": "declared"
},
"fallback": null,
"groupKey": "one",
"lines": [
{
"role": "main",
"quantity": 1,
"required": true,
"bind": {
"resolveBy": "fixed_variant",
"productId": "gid://shopify/Product/15092668957039",
"variantId": "gid://shopify/ProductVariant/53479762788719"
},
"purchase": {
"type": "one_time"
},
"priceSnapshot": {
"price": 40,
"compareAt": null,
"at": "2026-09-23T00:00:00Z"
},
"cogsRef": "cost:variant/53479762788719"
}
],
"pricing": {
"promisedFirstCharge": 40,
"promisedRenewal": null,
"compareAt": {
"value": 40,
"basis": "copy"
},
"shipping": {
"free": false,
"statedValue": null
},
"mechanisms": []
},
"gifts": {
"mode": "inherit"
},
"checkout": {
"mode": "checkout_direct"
},
"economics": {
"retentionRate": null
}
},
{
"key": "two-ship-free",
"label": "2 units, free shipping",
"isDefault": true,
"surfaced": true,
"axisValues": {},
"unitCount": {
"value": 2,
"source": "declared"
},
"fallback": null,
"groupKey": "two-ship-free",
"lines": [
{
"role": "main",
"quantity": 2,
"required": true,
"bind": {
"resolveBy": "fixed_variant",
"productId": "gid://shopify/Product/15092668957039",
"variantId": "gid://shopify/ProductVariant/53479762788719"
},
"purchase": {
"type": "one_time"
},
"priceSnapshot": {
"price": 40,
"compareAt": null,
"at": "2026-09-23T00:00:00Z"
},
"cogsRef": "cost:variant/53479762788719"
}
],
"pricing": {
"promisedFirstCharge": 80,
"promisedRenewal": null,
"compareAt": {
"value": 80,
"basis": "copy"
},
"shipping": {
"free": true,
"statedValue": null
},
"mechanisms": []
},
"gifts": {
"mode": "inherit"
},
"checkout": {
"mode": "checkout_direct"
},
"economics": {
"retentionRate": null
}
}
],
"valueStack": [],
"relatedOffers": [],
"terms": {
"renewalDays": null,
"guaranteeDays": null,
"trialDays": null,
"returnWindowDays": null,
"maxPerCustomer": null,
"subscriptionDiscountPersistence": "first_order_only"
},
"economicsDefaults": {
"retentionRate": 0.7,
"cacTarget": 0,
"minGmPct": 0,
"costProfile": "dtc-us"
}
}