Customer can’t pay a Shopify draft order invoice

Why is my customer’s Shopify invoice link not working?

Most failed links trace back to a change on the draft: it was marked Paid before the money arrived, an item sold out, the draft was deleted, a product or price changed, or the store is paused. Look in Orders, then at the draft, then at the Checkout status on Shopify Status. Match what you see in the table below.

Merchants have also reported two other causes:

• A dead link in an invoice sent through Shopify Email with a custom checkout link (one merchant’s thread). Share the draft’s own link with Share > Copy link instead, and test any edit to Shopify’s invoice email on yourself.
• Several customers failing at once. In one case, Shopify staff said a minor outage may have caused it. Check Shopify Status and ask customers to try again later.

Why can’t my customer pay when an item on the invoice is out of stock?

If an invoice includes products with no available inventory, Shopify tells customers at checkout that the item is out of stock, and they can’t complete the sale. Unreserved items stay available to other buyers after you send the link. Shopify’s invoice help gives two fixes: add stock and reserve it on the draft, or charge the card in the admin.

To reserve, click the horizontal menu icon on the draft and select Reserve inventory (in the Shopify app, Reserve items). The draft order help adds that the draft shows a warning when an unreserved item on it sells out, so you can catch it first. Holding stock for a customer has its own steps in holding an item for a customer.

What does “New updates to this draft order” mean in Shopify?

It means the draft is out of date: since you made it, a product or variant was deleted, an unlocked product price changed, or a shipping rate was removed or repriced. Shopify shows the notice when you try to complete the draft, and its draft payment help says you must review and apply the changes before payment can be captured.

1. Click Review draft order. The draft opens with every update applied but not yet saved.
2. Check the items, prices and shipping, then save.
3. Let the customer know the draft has changed and share its link, or click Create order if you’re taking the payment yourself.

I marked the draft order as paid by mistake. Can the customer still use the link?

No. Shopify’s invoice help says that if you mark a draft as Paid before the payment arrives, the link in the invoice stops working and the customer can’t complete checkout. Marking it as paid also emails the customer an order confirmation, and nothing is charged to their card.

Open Orders and find the order. If no payment came in, cancel it (More actions > Cancel order) so staff don’t fulfill an order nobody paid for. Under Refund payment, choose Later, since nothing was paid, and deselect Send a notification to the customer if you don’t want them emailed again.

Then make a new draft for the same items and send its link, or charge the new draft in the admin.

Why does my customer’s invoice link show an error page?

The draft behind the link has most likely been deleted. Someone on your team may have deleted it by hand, or Shopify removed it: drafts created on or after April 1, 2025 are deleted after a year with no activity, and any edit resets that timer, as the draft order help explains.

Unless the order is already in Orders, make a new draft and send its link. See how the one-year draft removal works.

What does “Draft order not payable via customer checkout” mean?

It points to a paused store. When a store is paused, checkout is off on every sales channel, Point of Sale included, so invoices still send but nobody can pay them (Shopify’s help on pausing a store). A merchant on a paused plan met this message while sending an invoice. To reopen checkout, choose a plan again in Settings > Plan.

Why can’t I find the Send invoice button on a Shopify draft order?

On desktop, Send invoice sits in the draft’s Payments section. In the Shopify app, it’s in the Invoice section. Shopify documents one case where you can’t send an invoice: payment terms are set and the draft is in a local currency other than your store currency.

To get paid anyway, remove the payment terms and send the invoice, or take the card in the admin (below). Once the terms are off, you can also copy the draft’s checkout link and text it.

How do I take the payment myself while the customer is on the phone?

If the customer would rather read out a card, charge the draft in the admin. Charging creates the order straight away, and the Charge button shows the order total before you confirm. This works only through Shopify Payments, after its verification process, as Shopify’s guide to getting paid for drafts notes.

1. Go to Orders > Drafts and open the draft. In the Payment section, click Collect payment > Credit card.
2. Enter the customer’s billing and card details, then click Charge.
3. If a warning lists checkout validation rules the order doesn’t meet, choose Cancel to fix the draft or Ignore and create order (Shopify creates the order and marks it as paid).

Before making it a habit, weigh keying a card yourself vs sending a link; whether Shopify has a virtual terminal covers the other places you can key a card.

Why isn’t the Charge button working on my Shopify draft order?

Merchants have reported a dead Charge button when the billing address is set to match shipping but the country is blank. The fix shared in that 2023 thread: select the billing country, or untick the same-as-shipping option. Two other merchants there said it worked.

What should I check before I send the next invoice link?

Open the draft and check seven things before the link goes out: the customer’s email, locked prices, reserved stock, pickup in store if they’re collecting, that the draft isn’t marked Paid, shipping after any edit, and the estimated tax. Then open the link yourself and go as far as the payment step. Each check rules out a row in the table above.

• The customer’s email is on the draft (taking an order from a customer with no email).
• Product prices are still locked.
• Stock is reserved for every item.
• Pickup in store is turned on for your location (Settings > Shipping and delivery) and set on the draft if the customer is collecting (how to stop checkout adding shipping).
• The draft isn’t marked Paid.
• If you edited the draft after sending an earlier link, you’ve rechecked shipping: rates already calculated don’t update by themselves.
• Estimated tax matches what you quoted (why the tax on a payment link can be wrong).

Open the draft, fix the row that matches, and share a fresh link. For the whole process, see the phone-order workflow.

How can counter staff avoid marking a draft Paid too early?

In Shopify, a paid link turns its draft into an order marked Paid on the Orders page, so wait for it there (how to tell when a link has been paid). Pay Link, from Countermade, shows staff whether a link has been paid, so nobody marks a draft Paid to keep track. It’s for counter staff on Shopify POS Pro taking phone orders or orders paid later.

Pay Link starts from the POS cart and shows staff the total up front, before anything is sent, including any difference from the POS cart price, with a note when checkout will add shipping. A double tap makes one payment link, not two.

The customer pays the full total on Shopify’s own secure checkout, and staff never see or type card details. Compare it with Shopify’s own tools in native POS options vs Pay Link.

Next step

Pay Link isn’t on the Shopify App Store yet. Join early access and we’ll email you when it’s ready to try.