Why does the checkout price decrease without applying a discount code?

Accounting & Taxes

Topic summary

Checkout price drops (~5.9%; e.g., $14 → $13.41) without a discount code, shown in screenshots. The reduction occurs after entering the shipping address and was initially observed on desktop.

Investigation: Support replicated the issue and suggested checking abandoned cart data by appending .json to see if tax-exempt or automatic discounts were applied. They hypothesized tax settings were backing out included tax for certain addresses. Despite the store being in Virginia, the reduction still occurred, prompting a recommendation to escalate to technical support.

Resolution reported by multiple merchants:

  • Settings > Taxes and Duties: uncheck “Include tax in prices” and check “Charge tax on shipping rates.”
  • Alternatively, Settings > Markets > Preferences: turn off or adjust “tax inclusion.”

Explanation: With “Include tax in prices” enabled, Shopify includes tax in listed prices but removes it at checkout for destinations where tax isn’t charged, making the price appear lower without a discount.

Outcome: Community-provided settings changes fixed the issue for several stores (some noting significant revenue impact). The desktop vs. mobile discrepancy was not resolved in the thread.

Summarized with AI on December 22. AI used: gpt-5.
4

Thank you for the link! I was able to replicate this issue on my end, it seems to take effect once the shipping address was input.

I know you mentioned that you double checked your tax rates and that you didn’t have any exempt products, but I am wondering if there is something maybe within your market settings that is causing this issue.

I recommend contacting our authenticated support for further troubleshooting to find out what is happening.

I also recommend taking a look at your abandoned carts in the admin and adding .json to the end of the URL in the address bar. This will allow you to look at the data being collected at the checkout and you might be able to see the trigger for this price change that way. It will clearly show you if the order or products are tax exempt, if there are any automatic discounts being applied, etc. If you aren’t sure, I’m happy to review one here. You should see an abandoned cart from “test test” with a couple different addresses, that should be from me. There is no PII in that abandoned cart so feel free to copy and paste the JSON or screenshots into a reply here.