- Short answer
- Additional details is the text Shopify shows next to your manual payment method in checkout — before the order, unlike Payment instructions.
- The other field on the form
- Payment instructions is separate: its text shows on the order confirmation page, after the order is placed.
- After the order is placed
- The order stays unpaid until you mark it paid; no payment-received or payment-failed email goes out.
- Three fields or two
- Shopify's custom-method steps name three fields; its suggested-method steps name only two.
- The worked example Shopify gives
- Email money transfers (Canada): the email address plus the secret question and answer, in both boxes.
- Bank transfer and cash on delivery
- No Shopify example; for Payment instructions, Shopify says to ask your bank or delivery service.
- Length, HTML, blank field
- No character limit, HTML rule, blank-field behaviour or optional label on the three pages we read.
What the Additional details field is
A manual payment method is arranged outside the checkout, so its setup form is about what the buyer is told, not how money moves. Setting up a custom method names three fields — Custom payment method name, Additional details and Payment instructions — and Additional details is free text you write yourself.
If you build bank transfer or cash on delivery as a custom method, you can't name it Bank Deposit, Cash, Cash on Delivery (COD) or Money Order — they are among the nine names Shopify reserves.
Shopify's steps for a suggested method — one of the ready-made options in the list — name only two of those fields, Additional details and Payment instructions, with no step for entering a name.
Your customer sees it in checkout, before the order
Where and when the text appears is a single sentence on Shopify's manual payments page.
In Additional details, enter any information that you want displayed next to the payment method in your checkout.
Checkout is the only surface that sentence names, and it fixes the moment too — the order has not been placed yet. Payment instructions is the other box: its text lands on the order confirmation page after your customer completes the order.
What to put in it, and what the pages we read leave open
On the pages we read, Shopify gives one worked example of what to put there, and it is for email money transfers, a method it documents for stores in Canada: the email address the customer sends the money to, and the secret question and answer they should use. Shopify asks for the same information in Payment instructions as well, so the example is not a choice between the boxes.
How long the Additional details text may run, whether it accepts HTML, what happens if you leave it blank, and whether the admin marks it optional are not stated on the manual payments page, its email money transfers page or the Payments page we read on August 22, 2026. What Shopify does state is where each box prints, and that is the practical difference — the checkout box is the one a buyer reads while still choosing how to pay, and the confirmation page comes only after the order.
Which box gets what for bank transfer and cash on delivery
Shopify names cash on delivery, money orders and bank transfers as common manual payments, yet on the pages we read its only filled-in example is the email money transfer one. Where each box prints gives a rule you can reuse: Additional details carries what the buyer needs to choose the method, Payment instructions carries what they need to pay. Details the buyer acts on at once can sit in both, as they do in Shopify's example.
| Method | Additional details — checkout, before the order | Payment instructions — confirmation page, after the order |
|---|---|---|
| Email money transfer (Shopify's example) | Email address, secret question and answer | The same email address, secret question and answer |
| Bank transfer | Your condition, for example that the order ships once the transfer arrives | The account details your bank says a payer needs |
| Cash on delivery | Your condition, for example which delivery areas it covers | What your delivery service says the buyer must do at the door |
The right-hand column is not ours to fill in. Shopify's steps for a suggested method say to check with your bank or delivery service to find out exactly what a customer must do to complete the payment.
Keep the complete payment details in Payment instructions, even if checkout already mentions them. Shopify shows the instructions to complete a manual payment on the order confirmation screen, and its email money transfer example repeats the full details there.
Payment instructions: what the buyer sees after the order
Payment instructions is the box for the instructions your customers follow to pay for an order. Shopify names one place that text appears: the order confirmation page, after the customer completes their order.
These instructions display on the order confirmation page after a customer completes their order.
How long that text may run, whether it accepts HTML, and what happens if you leave it blank are not stated for this box either — not on the manual payments, partial payments or payment authorization pages we read on August 19, 2026.
After the order confirmation page, Shopify's own emails stay quiet about the payment. An order placed with a manual method gets the Payment pending status, and the payment-received and payment-failed emails Shopify sends for other pending payments are not sent for a manual payment gateway — so neither email follows up with the buyer on this payment.
Shopify's automatic payment reminders do not cover that gap by default either: they go only to orders that have payment terms assigned, you add those terms to a Payment pending order yourself, and the reminders themselves are set up under Settings > Notifications (Add payment reminder, then Turn on).
Writing the instructions is not the same as being paid. Shopify marks orders that accept manual payments as unpaid on the Orders page. Once the money reaches you, you mark the order as paid on its order details page and fulfill it as you would after an online payment; our bank transfer answer shows the clicks.
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