Dynamic Checkout: Setup & Configuration Guide

Purpose: This article explains what Dynamic Checkout is and provides a step-by-step guide on creating and publishing a configuration for it.

The Sendcloud subscription plans have been updated. If the subscriptions in the banner above don’t match your current subscription plan and you’d like to know more, please click here.

What is Dynamic Checkout?

Dynamic Checkout is a feature in Sendcloud that allows you to offer customers flexible delivery options directly at checkout.

By integrating it into your store, you can reduce cart abandonment and improve customer satisfaction by providing shipping choices that fit their needs.

This guide will walk you through setting up and publishing Dynamic Checkout using Sendcloud’s API. Since support for WooCommerce and Magento has been discontinued, new implementations must be done via the Dynamic Checkout API, giving you full control to create a customized solution that fits your process flow.

The API responds with raw JSON, allowing you to structure and implement it in a way that best suits your business needs.

Take the following steps to set up the Dynamic Checkout:

• Set up the API integration
• Create a template 
• Create a delivery zone
• Set up your shipping methods
• Send your template to the API integration
• Publish the Dynamic checkout

How to configure Dynamic Checkout

Step 1: Set up the API integration

First, create an API Integration using the Integrations section. To do that, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Settings > Integrations
2. Choose Sendcloud API and click Connect
3. Give the API integration a name, for example — “My Webshop” and click Save
4. Your API Public and Secret keys will be automatically generated. Copy them down somewhere safe, and include them in your request headers. You can consider the Public key as your username when authenticating with the API, and the Secret (Private) key as your password.

Learn more about API integrations in the Quick Start guide.

Step 2: Create a template 

Once you've set up the API integration, it’s time to configure your Dynamic Checkout. Think of a template as your playground, a space where you can experiment with different setups without affecting your actual checkout process.

Templates allow you to save your Dynamic Checkout configuration and make adjustments as needed, so nothing is lost if you disconnect your integration.

You can also reuse templates across multiple integrations, making them ideal for businesses that operate on different shop systems or platforms.

To create a template:

1. Go to the Dynamic Checkout tab
2. Click New Template
3. Name your template

Once created, you can begin customizing your checkout settings.

Step 3: Delivery zones & Exclude postal codes

The next step is to choose delivery zones. Within each delivery zone, you can add multiple delivery methods, which will only be shown for customers with an address in that zone. To do that, click the New Delivery Zone button, then choose the country of delivery, and click Save.

For instance, if you set up a delivery zone for the Netherlands, any customer who enters a Dutch delivery address when ordering will see the delivery options you set for that zone.
While you're making changes, they'll be saved until you finalize and publish your edits.

The exclude postal codes feature allows you to specify which delivery methods are shown or hidden based on the customer's postal code.

This is useful when working with local carriers that only deliver to certain areas.

You can manually enter a list of postal codes and choose to show or hide specific delivery methods for those codes.

Step 4: Choose Your Delivery Methods

After setting up a delivery zone, you can add delivery methods to offer customers in that region.

To begin configuring, click New delivery method next to the Delivery zone you just created in the Dynamic Checkout tab.

Once a delivery zone is created, you can set up multiple delivery methods.

1. Standard Delivery

You can create a delivery zone for any country in the world using Dynamic Checkout. Within each delivery zone, you can create multiple shipping options, including standard and next day deliveries. Your customers get more choice over how they want their order to be delivered, and you never have to manually adjust shipping methods based on shipping location. 

➡ How to configure Standard Delivery

2. Service Point Delivery

Let customers pick up their orders from a nearby service point.
➡ How to configure Service Point Delivery

3. Nominated Day Delivery

Dynamic Checkout allows your customers to plan exactly which day they want to receive their parcels via nominated day delivery. Once integrated, a delivery day picker, which you can fully customize to match your brand colors, will appear on your checkout. Your customer can then select a delivery day up to 14 days in the future. 

➡ How to configure Nominated Day Delivery

4. Same Day Delivery

Offer an unbeatable delivery experience to your customers by letting them receive their order on the very same day they place it. Customize your cut-off time to organize your logistics workflow around customer delivery times. Available from Growth subscription plans and upwards. 

➡ How to configure Same Day Delivery

For each delivery method, you can customize:

Carriers & Shipping Products: Select the carrier and shipping options you want to offer. (e.g., add service point delivery via PostNL for the Netherlands shipping zone.)

Shipping Rates: Define pricing based on order value or shipping method. (e.g., Charge €5 for next-day delivery by DHL for orders under €50.)

Handover Days & Cut-Off Times: Set specific days and cut-off times for parcel handovers. (e.g., If your cut-off is 4 PM on weekdays, an order placed at 5 PM on Tuesday won’t qualify for same-day delivery.)

• If you don’t hand over parcels on weekends, Saturday and Sunday won’t be available for Nominated Day Delivery.

Carrier transit times, holidays, and working days impact delivery availability. (e.g., If a carrier doesn’t operate on Sundays, deliveries won’t be scheduled for that day).

Step 5: Send the template to the API integration

Once you've completed your template, you can send it to one or multiple integrations.

Templates are only visible in Sendcloud and will only appear in your checkout once you've published an integration containing this template.

If you want to edit or delete templates, take the following steps:

• Settings > Dynamic Checkout > Templates, then click on the 3 dots: Edit
• Click the arrow (>) next to the relevant delivery zone.
• Click the 3 dots to edit or delete a template.

Step 6: Publish your Checkout

When your templates are linked to the API, you can publish your Dynamic Checkout. To do that, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings > Dynamic Checkout > click Send next to the selected templates 
2. Select your integration
3. Click "send"

To edit or delete within your integration:

1. Settings > Dynamic Checkout > Stores, then click on Edit
2. Click the arrow (>) next to the relevant delivery zone.
3. Click the 3 dots and Edit or Delete a delivery method.