Hi, I have implemented this workaround years ago, and it does work, but sometimes charged double shipping on multiple products added from the no free shipping group. I just checked it again and it didn’t seem to be duplicating the shipping charge, so I guess that’s good news. Thanks for sharing.
Topic summary
Users are requesting the ability to exclude specific products from free shipping discount codes and promotions—a feature Shopify has not implemented despite requests dating back to 2018.
Core Issue:
- Free shipping discounts apply to entire orders with no option to exclude certain products (heavy items, low-margin products, clearance items, MAP-priced products, hazmat items, or non-shippable products)
- This causes margin erosion when customers combine sale items with free shipping thresholds
Shopify’s Response:
- Staff acknowledged the limitation multiple times (2018-2020) and promised to pass feedback to development teams
- No native solution has been implemented after 6+ years
- Support typically suggests third-party apps (often $70+/month) or workarounds
Available Workarounds:
- Create separate shipping profiles for excluded products, which removes them from the “General” profile that offers free shipping
- Limitations: This approach works for standard shipping rates but doesn’t solve discount code scenarios, may cause double-shipping charges when multiple excluded items are ordered, and creates complexity for stores with existing multi-region/weight-based profiles
Current Status:
- The discussion remains unresolved with ongoing frustration
- Users continue requesting this basic e-commerce functionality available on competing platforms
- Many express disappointment with Shopify’s reliance on paid apps rather than native features
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Yeah, it is definitely not a 100% fix to all solutions as some people’s issues here were more complex. Just wanted to post in case anyone else could benefit from it!
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Hello, Appreciate your response. We are looking for this functionality in the Discounts, not the shipping profiles which are typically used for day to day not promotions. It seems rather annoying that Shopify added Free Shipping Promotion but there is no ability to exclude. It is a lot of work to update shipping profiles for promotions and then change back after the promotion especially when a store already has complex shipping profiles based on different weights by multiple regions and countries.
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No worries, this definitely won’t help anyone who doesn’t need it. Many are looking for different solutions to specific wants and needs, but I saw quite a few responses simply looking for ways to exclude larger items from free shipping. I also wish Shopify offered more customization options for this kind of stuff, maybe in the future. If this didn’t help you, no need to pay any attention to it!
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I appreciate your response. One of our clients sets items up under different weights just to be able to handle / run promotions and different the shipping rates by product 
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Just chiming in here too. This is a feature our store would benefit from as well. Some of our products are not shippable, only qualify for local delivery. We are currently using a 3rd party app to manage local delivery scheduling, but if the product is over a certain amount, the customer gets free delivery. We need to charge for the delivery. As for the rest of our products that we are shipping all over the place, we want to implement a free shipping over x amount discount to increase the value of each customer. We can’t set up a shipping profile because it interferes with the delivery and pickup scheduling. As far as I can tell there is no work around for this.
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Pretty good solution to general shipping, but discount codes still pose to be a problem. Discounts only offer universal free shipping which will overwrite any profile created. I think the main concern is wanting some products to have free shipping and not all via discounts and not profiles. This should be pinned up top though. It’s a solid solution and will help most folks probably.
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Coming in more than a half a decade later. Would also like this feature specifically for the discount codes and NOT profiles. Thanks!