How to dynamically charge extra fees in your WooCommerce checkout

Want to charge extra shipping fees based on the region you’re shipping to? Or charge extra for 1-day deliveries?

There are many situations where an online store might want to charge WooCommerce extra fees or offer a discount when customers checkout. Dynamically charging an extra fee at checkout is a great option for ecommerce stores, and it’s something that’s available with WooCommerce by default.

It can be useful if you’re running a sale or want to charge more for certain products on your WooCommerce store. In some cases, you might need to offset costs to the customer.

To enable additional fees on checkout in WooCommerce, you may have to add some code in the back-end or set pricing rules using a WooCommerce plugin. In this tutorial, we’ll explain how you can charge extra fees on the WooCommerce checkout page and apply discounts dynamically.

Scenarios where you might want to levy WooCommerce additional fees on checkout

There can be many reasons why you might want to impose additional fees on checkout. Let’s go over some of the most common scenarios:

When the shipping charges are higher than normal

One of the biggest reasons why you might want to charge additional fees on checkout in WooCommerce is when some products are more expensive to ship than others.

In this sort of scenario, you might be paying extra shipping due to your location, or the customer’s location. In addition to this, you might also need to charge additional fees on checkout to cover import and duty fees when shipping out orders from your online store.

The solution is to set a product shipping fee so that customers can see the cost of shipping before they add the product to their cart. This increases transparency and can help you boost sales.

Plus, you don’t want customers to abandon their shopping carts because the cart subtotal amount is higher than expected due to the additional checkout fees. For this reason, informing customers about the additional fees before they checkout is a great way to help customers make informed purchase decisions and reduce cart abandonment.

When payment gateways or methods require you to incur an expense or risk

It’s also useful to levy additional fees on checkout in WooCommerce when specific payment gateways or methods require you to incur an expense or risk. This is especially the case for international transactions.

Some payment gateways – like PayPal or Stripe – charge merchants a commission to facilitate transactions between them and their customers. This means that, depending on the customer’s preferred payment gateway or payment method, you might end up paying a decent transaction fee, especially if the order amount is high. In this sort of scenario, you might consider charging payment gateway-based fees.

You don’t need to pay a payment gateway fee if you accept cash on delivery, but note you’ll need to handle the cash and there’s a risk the customer doesn’t pay you or accept the product at the time of delivery. This is common for items such as pizza, and you may want to adjust for the risk by charging an extra fee at checkout if the customer wants to pay by cash.

Customised orders

If you offer products and services that can be personalised, it may be a good idea to charge additional fees for higher levels of customisation. For instance, if you run a cake shop, you might consider charging extra for specific designs or toppers.

This is a great way to increase the average order value and offer a unique shopping experience on your WooCommerce store. Customers can personalise their orders based on their preferences and pay an additional fee at checkout for ordering a unique and personalised product.

As a result, you can generate more revenue for your business by offering premium product add-ons and charging a fee at checkout for them.

Time-sensitive orders

Let’s say you typically take around four business days to pack, dispatch, and deliver a product to customers. However, if a customer wants a product immediately, this would disrupt your logistical process.

This is a great opportunity for you to charge extra fees for urgent or fast delivery since you’ll have to pay extra to get the order shipped right away.

You’ll most certainly incur extra charges for same-day delivery or the packing price in case of a bulk order. You can simply offset this cost by charging customers a fee for 1-day deliveries from your WooCommerce store.

How can you levy WooCommerce additional fees on checkout?

WooCommerce by default lets you levy additional fees on checkout using two different methods:

The first method involves charging additional fees at the checkout by customising the code at the back-end of your WooCommerce site. This isn’t suitable for people who aren’t particularly programming literate or simply don’t want to mess around with their online store’s code.

The good news is that there’s a better way to do this.

The second method to charge additional fees on checkout is by using a plugin. The key benefit of this approach is that you save time and have more control over the pricing adjustments. You can easily adjust fees or discounts whenever you’d like without having to update the code.

How to add a flat shipping rate in WooCommerce

As mentioned earlier, WooCommerce has built-in options that let you add a flat shipping rate.

Here’s what you need to do:

Go to WooCommerce → Settings from the WordPress admin panel and click on the Shipping tab.

Click on the Add shipping zone button under the Shipping zones section.

Here, you can add the details of the shipping zone by entering its name, territory, and shipping method. After you’re done specifying the zone name and region, click on the Add shipping method button under the Shipping methods meta box.

You will see multiple options including Flat Fee, Free shipping, and Local pickup. Select Flat Rate using the dropdown menu and click on the Add shipping method button. This will automatically redirect you to the previous window that has the shipping method updated.

Now, you can proceed to specify an amount for the Flat rate shipping method. Click on the Edit button below the Flat rate shipping method and it will redirect you to a new window. From here, you can edit the Method Title, Tax status, and Cost for your shipping method.

Click on the Save changes button to continue.

Customers will see the flat rate you added with the title assigned under the Shipping section at checkout. It will look something like this:

How to use a plugin to customise your pricing and levy additional fees on checkout

Compared to the default WooCommerce functionality or offer coupons, using a plugin to customise your pricing and levy additional fees on checkout is much better.

It gives you more control over the pricing options for your WooCommerce products and lets you charge additional fees on checkout so you don’t have to incur any extra costs. A robust plugin such as WooCommerce Fees and Discounts is perfect for this. It’s designed to give you more flexibility when it comes to adjusting product prices.

WooCommerce Fees and Discounts is a WooCommerce fees plugin that allows you to apply different discounts or charge fees for products depending on quantity, user role, or payment gateway. You can make adjustments globally, by category, or for specific products on your WooCommerce store.

The plugin, out of the box, offers extensive features that let you customise the shopping experience on your online store and levy additional fees on checkout in WooCommerce.

Let’s take a closer look at what the WooCommerce Fees and Discounts plugin has to offer:

Dynamic pricing

The WooCommerce Fees and Discounts plugin lets you create dynamic pricing rules for your WooCommerce products.

This way, you can offer discounts by product, category, or on the whole cart and create multiple pricing tiers for different types of customers on your online store.

For instance, you can offer a 5% discount for orders above $35 and a 7% discount for orders above $50. This encourages customers to spend more on your online store.

Exclude taxes for specified user roles

WooCommerce lets you assign a tax class for your products. You can also set the shipping tax class.

A great feature included with the WooCommerce Fees and Discounts plugin is the ability to exclude the tax for specific user roles on your WooCommerce site.

You might want to do this if you’re running a WooCommerce wholesale store. If you’re selling to EU B2B customers and verify their VAT status at signup, for example, you might want to exclude VAT from these B2B sales by excluding the VAT from their user role.

Bulk pricing

Bulk pricing is useful for incentivising customers to purchase more products from your online store and spend more.

For instance, you can offer customers a 10% discounted product price if they purchase at least two dozen units. This will encourage customers to add more products to their cart before they checkout. This way, you can increase the average order value for your business.

You can set this up for specific products or for all items in a specific product category.

Create user role pricing

Offering user role pricing is a great way to offer an exclusive shopping experience on your WooCommerce store.

The WooCommerce Fees and Discounts plugin lets you set different prices for products based on user roles. For instance, you can charge regular customers $15 for a T-shirt while customers with the VIP Subscribers user role will only pay $12 for the same product.

Payment gateway-specific pricing

We discussed charging an extra fee for cash on delivery. You can also set payment gateway-specific pricing rules. This way, you can levy an additional fee on checkout based on the payment gateway the customer chooses to pay their order with.

For instance, you could charge 3% fees if the customer selects PayPal as their payment method when checking out. This can help offset the transaction costs you will pay when the customer pays you through their preferred payment processor.

Why should you use the WooCommerce Fees and Discounts plugin?

The WooCommerce Fees and Discounts is an all-in-one solution for creating dynamic pricing rules for your online store. It offers top-notch functionality that lets you create advanced pricing rules such as bulk pricing, dynamic pricing, BOGOF, and user role pricing.

Here are some of the main reasons why you should use it on your ecommerce store:

Reason #1: Create advanced pricing rules

Let’s say you want to encourage customers to purchase a new product you recently launched on your WooCommerce site. Using the plugin, you can create a Buy One Get One Free or BOGOF offer for the product which essentially lets customers purchase two products at the price of one. As a result, you encourage more people to “try” out the product, even if they were not interested in the first place.

Similarly, you can also set up user role-based pricing to make your WooCommerce store much more accessible for all types of customers. You can offer Wholesale customers better prices than regular customers. Since wholesale buyers tend to buy products in larger quantities, offering them bulk discounts encourages them to shop from your online store instead of from your competitors.

You can also offer VIP Members or Subscribers better prices for specific products on your WooCommerce store. This enhances the shopping experience on your online store and can encourage regular customers to become VIP Members by signing up for your membership program.

Reason #2: Create tier-based pricing

The WooCommerce Fees and Discounts plugin lets you create powerful custom pricing incentives in WooCommerce like tier-based pricing. This means that you can offer multiple price tiers and encourage customers to spend more on your WooCommerce store.

Reason #3: Set up custom fees and discounts

Ecommerce stores often rely on surcharge fees to cover shipping and handling fees.

The plugin also lets you set up customised product fees and discounts the way you want. This way, you can levy WooCommerce additional fees on checkout to cover additional shipping expenses, transactional costs, or packaging costs that come with the customer’s order.

It’s also worth mentioning that the WooCommerce Fees and Discounts plugin enables special pricing on your WooCommerce store. As a result, it makes it easier to implement sales and marketing strategies for your business.

Reason #4: Saves you time and reduces risk

Using a plugin like the WooCommerce Fees and Discounts saves you valuable time and effort that you might have otherwise spent in manual customisation and coding. This way, you can focus on other important aspects of your business instead of worrying about learning how to code.

It also reduces the risk of breaking your WooCommerce site due to an error in code or improper handling of the backend. It’s important to note that with a WooCommerce store, time and reliability are money. It’s difficult to manually customise your website’s code, especially if you have no prior coding knowledge and you have other important business responsibilities to take care of.

How to enable additional fees using the WooCommerce Fees and Discounts plugin

Let’s take a look at how the WooCommerce Fees and Discounts plugin enables additional fees on the checkout page.

Step #1: Get the WooCommerce Fees and Discounts plugin

Get the WooCommerce Fees and Discounts plugin and install it on your WooCommerce site.

You will receive a purchase confirmation email soon after you purchase the plugin. Click on the download link from the email to download the plugin and navigate to Plugins → Add New from the WordPress admin panel.

Upload the zip file you just downloaded and click on the Install Now button to install WooCommerce Fees and Discounts plugin on your WordPress site. Once the plugin is installed on your site, activate it and navigate to WooCommerce → Settings → Fees and Discounts and click on the Licence link from the top.

Enter the licence key provided to you at the time of purchase and click on the Activate this licence button to continue.

Step #2: Configure plugin settings

From the same screen, click on the General link and tick the checkbox next to Enable Payment Gateway Fees and Discounts. Click on the Save changes button to continue.

A new Payment Gateways link will appear on the top. This page will let you specify fees and discounts for each specific payment gateway on your WooCommerce site. You can set a Label for the payment gateway fee to better inform your customers about why they are being charged WooCommerce extra fees.

Using the Type dropdown menu you can specify the fee type. Choose whether you want to charge a Fixed fee, Fixed discount, Percentage discount, Percentage fee, or disable it completely. Next, specify the amount of the fees using the text field next to Amount. You can also select the Include shipping costs checkbox to calculate the cart subtotal based on the combined cost of products as well as shipping and handling fees.

You can also specify the minimum fee using the Minimum fee/discount amount text field and set a Minimum cart amount. Once you’re done, click on the Save changes button to continue.

Customers will be charged a percentage-based product fee once they select the Direct bank transfer payment method.

Step #3: Enable role-based pricing

The WooCommerce Fees and Discount plugin lets you set global role-based price adjustments easily on your online store.

To do this, navigate to WooCommerce → Settings → Fees and Discounts and select the Enable User Role Pricing checkbox.

Click the Save changes button to continue.

Click on the User Role Pricing link from the top to customise user role pricing globally on your WooCommerce store. Using the Adjustment dropdown menu, you can select the type of discount or product fee you want to apply for a specific user role. Next, enter the value of discount or fees using the Amount text field to the right.

Once you’re done, click on the Save changes button to continue.

This will allow Wholesale Customers to avail 5% discount while customers with the Subscriber user role will get a fixed $5 discount on their next order.

Here’s how regular customers will see the price of a product on your WooCommerce store.

Customers with the Wholesale Customer user role will see a discounted price for the same products.

Step #4: Create dynamic pricing rules

The plugin also lets you create dynamic pricing rules on your online store such as Buy X Get Y Free offers. To do this, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Fees and Discounts and select the Enable Dynamic Pricing checkbox.

Click on the Save changes button to continue.

Next, click on the Dynamic Pricing link from the top to create a new dynamic pricing rule for your WooCommerce store. Click on the Add Rule button to create a new pricing rule and select Buy X Get Y from the Offer type dropdown menu. You can set the label using the Label text field and select Specific products from the Applies to dropdown menu.

You can also specify the number of products that the customer has to buy and the number of products they will receive as part of your offer. Enter the amounts in both Buy and Get text fields. Use the Adjustment type dropdown menu to specify the discount or fees type and the amount using the text field right beside it.

Using the “Buy” products text field, specify the product that you want users to purchase to receive the free product and specify the free product in the “Get” products text field below.

Click on the Save changes button to continue.

Users will be able to see the dynamic pricing rule offer on the front-end of your WooCommerce store.

Customers can get the Husband & Wife Topper for free if they purchase the Wedding Cake.

Conclusion

Dynamically charging extra fees in your WooCommerce store is a great way to offset any hidden costs involved when a customer orders from your store.

This can include extra costs when the shopping charges are higher than normal, the additional expense when payment gateways or methods require you to incur an expense or risk, costs associated with personalised products and orders, and quick delivery charges.

As a store owner, you should inform customers of the additional charges on the product page. This way, they’ll know how much they’ll be charged in fees before they checkout.

Dynamic pricing is going to become more important in the next decade. It’s already happening offline, with variable pricing for hotel rooms and airfare, and is going to come to online experiences, as well.

This is why you need to get ahead of the curve now and take advantage. One of the best ways to fully take control of your WooCommerce site is by using a top-notch, professional fees plugin like WooCommerce Fees and Discounts.

Ready to start dynamically charging extra fees on the WooCommerce checkout page of your online store? Get WooCommerce Fees and Discounts today!