Best Pay What You Want Shopify App

Giving every product a fixed price works for most Shopify stores. But it is not the right pricing model for every product, campaign, or customer.

You may want customers to pay what they want, enter a price they consider fair, choose from suggested amounts, make an offer, leave a tip, or contribute through a pay-what-you-can model.

The challenge is doing this without giving up control over how pricing works in your store.

Pluginos Pay What You Want is a Shopify app designed for these situations. It lets merchants add customer-defined and preset pricing while controlling where flexible pricing appears and the minimum, suggested, and maximum amounts customers can pay.

It can be used for Pay What You Want (PWYW), Name Your Price, Make an Offer, donations, tips, and pay-what-you-can pricing.

This guide explains how Pluginos works, the pricing controls it provides, where Pay What You Want makes sense, and what you should consider before adding flexible pricing to your Shopify store.

What Is a Pay What You Want Shopify App?

A Pay What You Want Shopify app lets a merchant move beyond a single fixed selling price by allowing customers to influence the amount they pay.

Depending on the setup, a customer might enter any permitted amount, choose between predefined amounts, name their own price, make an offer, leave a tip, choose a donation amount, or select an amount within limits established by the merchant.

The important part is merchant control. Pay What You Want does not necessarily mean accepting any amount a customer enters. A well-configured PWYW system can establish pricing boundaries so customers receive flexibility without the merchant abandoning their pricing strategy.

For a deeper explanation, read how Pay What You Want works on Shopify.

Why Use Pluginos Pay What You Want on Shopify?

Pluginos combines customer-selected pricing with merchant-defined rules. Instead of being limited to a single PWYW configuration, merchants can use it for several related flexible-pricing models.

For example, you could let a customer type a custom amount for one product while offering $10, $20, and $50 predefined contribution options on another.

You can apply flexible pricing to selected products or more broadly across your store, while pricing limits help keep customer-selected amounts within the boundaries you choose.

1. Let Customers Pay What They Want

The core use case is straightforward: customers can enter their own price instead of being limited to one fixed amount.

Suppose you sell a digital resource that would normally cost $10. Rather than requiring every buyer to pay exactly $10, you could allow buyers to enter an amount themselves. One person could choose $8 while another who values the resource more could choose $15, assuming both amounts are permitted by the pricing rules you configure.

This approach can be useful when customer willingness to pay varies significantly or when accessibility is part of the offer.

2. Set Minimum, Suggested, and Maximum Prices

Customer choice does not have to mean unlimited pricing freedom. Pluginos allows merchants to configure minimum, suggested, and maximum prices.

Minimum price: A minimum establishes the lowest amount a customer is allowed to enter. For example, if an item normally sells for $20 but you are willing to experiment with flexible pricing without accepting less than $12, you could establish $12 as the minimum.

Suggested price: A suggested amount gives shoppers a reference point. Imagine a pay-what-you-can product with a $5 minimum. Rather than presenting customers with only a blank price field, you might suggest $12.

Maximum price: A maximum establishes the upper boundary for the pricing rule. Whether you need one depends on the campaign and how you want customer-entered amounts to behave.

Together, these controls make it possible to create a bounded flexible-pricing model rather than simply accepting arbitrary amounts.

3. Offer Custom Prices, Preset Amounts, or Both

Not every customer wants to decide on an exact number. Sometimes giving people a small number of clearly presented choices creates a simpler experience.

Pluginos supports custom pricing, preset pricing, or both. For example, a contribution product could display $5 | $10 | $25 | Custom amount.

Preset values can be displayed as pills, radio buttons, or a dropdown, allowing the interface to fit different storefront designs and pricing experiences.

4. Apply Pay What You Want to Selected Products

A flexible pricing strategy does not have to apply to every product you sell. You may want normal fixed prices across most of your catalog while enabling Pay What You Want for a specific product or campaign.

Pluginos supports rules that can be applied to all products or selected products. That makes mixed pricing strategies possible for digital downloads, special campaigns, pay-what-you-can products, contribution products, experimental launches, or other products where flexible pricing makes sense.

5. Use Flexible Pricing for Contributions and Tips

Pay What You Want technology is useful beyond conventional product pricing. Another potential use case is allowing customers to choose a contribution or tip amount.

A merchant could offer predefined amounts such as $5 for a small contribution, $15 for a standard contribution, and $30 for extra support, while also allowing a custom amount.

If you are collecting money for a charitable purpose, check the legal, tax, platform, and disclosure requirements applicable to your business and jurisdiction rather than assuming that installing a pricing app automatically makes a payment a tax-deductible charitable donation.

6. Create a Name Your Price Experience

Name Your Price and Pay What You Want are closely related concepts. Both allow the customer to influence the final amount, but the language can communicate different intentions.

Pay What You Want often fits pay-what-you-can products, creator support, contributions, digital goods, and community-oriented pricing. Name Your Price can fit products where the merchant wants to invite the buyer to choose an acceptable amount within predefined limits.

Pluginos can support this experience by combining customer-entered prices with minimum, suggested, and maximum values.

7. Create a Make an Offer Experience

Another related pricing strategy is Make an Offer. Here the framing changes from “What would you like to pay?” to something closer to “What price would you offer for this product?”

This can make sense for unique items, collectibles, higher-value products, clearance inventory, older stock, or products where the merchant deliberately wants to test customer price expectations.

Merchants should distinguish customer-set pricing from a full back-and-forth negotiation system. Decide whether you simply need controlled customer price input or a more complex negotiation workflow before choosing an app.

8. Restrict Flexible Pricing to Particular Customers or Markets

Flexible pricing may be appropriate for one audience but not another. Pluginos provides restrictions based on country, customer role, or customer tags.

For example, a merchant might want a special flexible-pricing experience for a particular customer group while keeping standard pricing elsewhere. As with any geographically differentiated pricing strategy, merchants should make sure their rules comply with the laws and commercial requirements that apply to their markets.

9. Customize How the Pricing Widget Appears

Functionality matters, but the pricing interface also needs to make sense to shoppers. If a customer suddenly sees an unexplained empty price field, they may not know what to do.

Pluginos provides widget customization and different ways to present pricing options, including custom price entry, preset amounts, pills, dropdown menus, radio buttons, inline presentation, and popup presentation.

The goal should not simply be to make the widget visually attractive. It should make the pricing decision easy to understand. A clear message such as “Choose what you pay — minimum $5” communicates more than an unexplained input labeled “Price.”

Pay What You Want vs. Name Your Price vs. Make an Offer

Pay What You Want emphasizes customer choice. The merchant may still establish boundaries, but the customer chooses what they want to pay within the configured rules.

Name Your Price is also customer-led pricing, although the wording can work particularly well when the merchant establishes an acceptable range and invites the customer to select an amount.

Make an Offer frames the customer's price as an offer rather than simply a chosen payment amount. Depending on the implementation, an offer experience may range from controlled customer price input to a more extensive negotiation process.

Preset pricing gives the customer several predetermined values rather than requiring them to invent an amount. Pluginos supports custom pricing, predefined amounts, or a combination of the two.

When Does Pay What You Want Pricing Make Sense?

PWYW is not automatically better than fixed pricing. For many Shopify products, a clear fixed price remains the simplest option. Flexible pricing becomes more interesting when there is a specific reason to let customers influence the amount.

Digital products: Some digital products have very low marginal distribution costs after creation, which can make them candidates for pricing experiments. Merchants still need to consider perceived value, positioning, acquisition costs, taxes, support costs, and profitability.

Pay-what-you-can products: A merchant or organization may deliberately want to make a particular product accessible at different price points. A minimum amount can provide a floor while allowing customers with different budgets to choose different prices.

Tips and support: Creators and community-driven businesses may want to give customers a way to contribute an additional amount. Preset amounts can reduce the decision-making required from the customer.

Experimental pricing: Customer-entered amounts can provide information about willingness to pay, although people who participate in a PWYW offer are not necessarily representative of every potential customer.

Selected clearance or special products: A merchant may prefer customer-led pricing for certain inventory rather than applying the strategy to the entire catalog.

When Should You Avoid Pay What You Want?

PWYW deserves careful consideration when you have tight product margins, strict pricing requirements, customers who need pricing simplicity, or products whose positioning depends heavily on price.

The right question is not simply, “Can I add PWYW to Shopify?” It is: “Does customer-controlled pricing make sense for this product and this audience?”

How to Choose a Pay What You Want Shopify App

Before installing any PWYW app, evaluate the functionality against the pricing strategy you actually intend to use.

Can customers enter a custom amount?

Can I establish a minimum, suggested, and maximum price?

Can I provide predefined amounts or combine preset and custom pricing?

Can I limit PWYW to selected products?

Can I customize how the pricing interface appears?

Can I control which customers or markets see it?

Does the workflow fit the pricing experience I want to create?

Is the pricing sustainable for my store?

Pluginos Pay What You Want Pricing

At the time of writing, Pluginos Pay What You Want is listed at $4.99 per month or $41.90 per year, with a 7-day free trial. The plan includes unlimited rules, all-product or selected-product targeting, custom and preset pricing, minimum/suggested/maximum prices, multiple display styles, customer and country restrictions, and widget customization.

Because app prices and features can change, verify the latest information on the official Pluginos Pay What You Want Shopify App Store listing on shopify store before installing.

Is Pluginos Pay What You Want Right for Your Shopify Store?

There is no single app that is automatically the best choice for every Shopify merchant. The better question is whether an app matches the pricing experience you need to create.

Pluginos Pay What You Want is worth considering when you want customers to choose or influence prices while you maintain control through pricing rules. It is particularly relevant if you need Pay What You Want, Name Your Price, Make an Offer, predefined amounts, minimum/suggested/maximum pricing, and product targeting together.

Pluginos is also a relatively new Shopify app. Merchants who place significant weight on a long history of public reviews should take that into account alongside features, price, and fit for their use case.

Frequently Asked Questions About Pay What You Want on Shopify

What is the best Pay What You Want Shopify app?

The best option depends on the pricing model your store needs. Pluginos Pay What You Want is designed for merchants who need customer-entered prices, preset amounts, minimum/suggested/maximum limits, Name Your Price, Make an Offer, contributions, product targeting, and customizable pricing displays in one app.

Can customers choose their own price on Shopify?

A Shopify merchant can use an app to create customer-selected pricing experiences. Pluginos lets shoppers enter a custom price, select predefined amounts, or use a combination of both while the merchant defines the applicable pricing rules.

Can I set a minimum Pay What You Want price?

Yes. Pluginos lets merchants configure a minimum price, which can prevent customers from entering an amount below the limit established by the store.

Can I suggest an amount without forcing customers to pay it?

Yes. A suggested price can provide customers with a reference point while preserving the flexible-pricing experience, subject to any other limits you configure.

Can I provide predefined price options?

Yes. Pluginos supports preset values and can display them using pills, radio buttons, or a dropdown. Preset pricing can also be combined with custom price entry.

Can I use Pay What You Want only on certain Shopify products?

Yes. Pluginos supports rules for selected products as well as broader storewide application, so PWYW does not have to replace fixed pricing across your entire catalog.

Can Pay What You Want be used for donations?

Pluginos can create a customer-selected contribution experience suitable for donations or pay-what-you-can campaigns. Whether a payment legally qualifies as a charitable or tax-deductible donation depends on the organization, jurisdiction, and applicable rules.

What is the difference between Pay What You Want and Name Your Price?

Both involve customer-selected pricing. Pay What You Want emphasizes flexibility in what the customer pays, while Name Your Price often frames the experience as the customer choosing an acceptable price within merchant-defined rules.

How much does Pluginos Pay What You Want cost?

At the time of writing, the app is listed at $4.99 per month or $41.90 per year and includes a 7-day free trial. Check the Shopify App Store listing for current pricing.

Start Offering Flexible Pricing on Shopify

Pay What You Want works best when customer flexibility and merchant control exist together. Rather than removing pricing rules completely, you can decide which products qualify, establish minimum and maximum amounts, provide suggested prices, offer preset choices, and determine how the pricing interface appears to customers.

Pluginos Pay What You Want brings these controls together for Shopify merchants who want to experiment with Pay What You Want, Name Your Price, Make an Offer, tips, contributions, or other customer-selected pricing models.

If you want to understand the strategy before implementing it, start with the complete pay what you want shopify guide. If you are ready to evaluate the product, explore the Pluginos Pay What You Want Shopify app and its features on shopify store.