3. Upsell Giftnote at Checkout

How to charge for a gift message at checkout: create the surcharge product, add the Gift Message block, and link it under Settings, Gift Orders, Advanced.

Written By Giftnote Team

Last updated About 1 hour ago

Step 1: Create a digital product for the upsell

On Shopify Plus, Giftnote can add a digital product to the order as a surcharge when a customer adds a gift message at checkout.

The gift message widget with a live preview of what shoppers see.
  • Go to Shopify Admin → Products → Add Product
  • Name it something like Gift Message or Gift Wrap Fee
  • Giftnote doesn't need a particular vendor. If you want to filter the product out of your theme, packing slips and emails, give it a vendor or tag you'll recognise
  • Uncheck "This is a physical product"
  • Set your price (e.g. $1.99 or $2.99)
  • Make it active, but hide it from your storefront (see the companion Pre-Launch Checklist article for the Liquid/collection guards)

Step 2: Add the Giftnote checkout block

Giftnote ships one checkout block, Gift Message — there is no separate surcharge block to add.

  • Go to Shopify → Settings → Checkout, click Customize
  • Add the Gift Message block (Shopify Plus only) — do not confuse it with "[DEPRECATED] Gift Message", the legacy v1 block previously called "Checkout Message"
  • If you use Shop Pay: In the checkout editor, select the Gift Message block and, under Checkout behavior, make sure Include block in Shop Pay is on. Test a Shop Pay checkout in Step 4
  • Drag and drop the block where you want it to appear

Step 3: Link your surcharge product

The surcharge link is now a shop-wide setting, not a per-block one:

  • In the Giftnote app, go to Settings → Gift Orders and click Advanced settings
  • In the Surcharge & visibility card (Shopify Plus only), select the variant of the product you created in Step 1 as the surcharge product
  • Save if a save bar appears

When a customer adds a gift message, the Gift Message checkout block adds one marked surcharge line to the order. If they remove the message, the line is removed.

Step 4: Test the checkout

  • Add a product to your cart, go through checkout and add a gift message
  • Confirm the surcharge product appears as one line item
  • Remove the gift message and confirm the surcharge line is removed
  • If you use Shop Pay, repeat the test with Shop Pay

If it does, the upsell is working as expected.

Step 5: Optional — edit widget copy

To update the widget's copy (e.g. "Add a personal gift message for $2.99"):

  • Go to Settings → Gift Orders, click Configure, open the design chosen for Checkout widget, select the Checkout tab and edit the label/copy fields there
  • Save your changes

For hiding the surcharge product from your storefront, packing slips, and Klaviyo emails, see the companion article "Pre-Launch Checklist: Giftnote Surcharge Product (Gift Message Fee)" in this collection. It covers Liquid and Klaviyo template changes, which the September update didn't affect.

Final go-live checklist

  • The surcharge product is hidden from your storefront and collections
  • Checkout only works with at least one real product in the cart
  • The product is excluded from packing slips, Klaviyo emails and (optionally) total item counts
  • Automatic fulfilment of the surcharge item is turned on in Settings → Gift Orders → Advanced settings. Marking the product digital does not auto-fulfil it on its own.
  • Gift messages appear in a Shop Pay checkout, if you use Shop Pay (manual check)
  • The upsell appears cleanly at checkout