Store protection rules

Hold orders for review by amount, destination, email domain, payment state or velocity.

Last updated September 13, 2026

Protection rules stop the orders you would rather look at before they ship. A held order is not cancelled and not lost. It waits for review, and once it is cleared it ships like any other.

#Where to set them

Open the store in Settings → Stores, go to its settings, and choose Protections. Rules apply to that store only, so a busy consumer store can be stricter than a small wholesale one.

#The rules you can add

  • Hold orders over an amount. Useful for spotting a bulk order placed through a consumer checkout.
  • Hold when the ship-to country is not in a list. Keep orders inside the regions you actually serve.
  • Hold when the ship-to state is not in a list. The same idea within a country.
  • Hold free-mail, disposable or listed email domains. Catch throwaway addresses, or anything from domains you name.
  • Hold orders your store flagged as risky. Uses the risk level Shopify gives the order, at elevated or high risk.
  • Hold orders whose payment has not completed. Choose which payment states count, such as pending, authorized but not captured, or partially paid.
  • Hold unusually fast repeat orders. Catches bursts of orders arriving too quickly. Sensitivity runs from low, only the most obvious bursts, to high, hold at the first strong signal. Medium is recommended.

#The rule that is always on

A card payment that has not cleared is always held. That one is not a setting.

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