Create Order for an item at a higher price than in Shopify

Topic summary

Merchants need to create Shopify orders at prices higher than listed product prices (e.g., selling a $5 item for $6 externally) while maintaining proper inventory tracking and COGS reporting. Shopify’s native draft order system only allows price reductions through discounts, not increases.

Current Workarounds:

  • Using custom items (but this bypasses inventory deduction and COGS tracking)
  • Applying full discount then adding custom line item at desired price
  • Third-party apps like Draft Order Helper/Draftable and Draft Order Edit that enable price increases on draft orders
  • REST API manipulation (with mixed success reported)

Community Frustration:
Multiple users express disappointment that this basic feature remains unavailable after 4+ years of requests. Merchants note this functionality exists in competing platforms like BigCommerce. Common use cases include custom pricing, trade-ins, gift card loading, and negotiated prices where showing “fees” creates poor customer experience.

Status:
Shopify has not implemented native price editing for draft orders. Several developers offer paid apps ($0.99-standard pricing) to fill this gap, though users argue this should be built-in functionality. The discussion remains unresolved with ongoing requests for Shopify to make draft order price fields directly editable.

Summarized with AI on October 24. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.

Looks like this app would allow you to reprice a draft order for those customers so you dont need to apply a discount and can make the price higher: https://apps.shopify.com/draft-helper