Shopify "Unknown delivery date" hold on pre-orders: what it means and how to release it

If you sell pre-orders or take deposits on Shopify, sooner or later you open an order and see it On hold with the reason "Unknown delivery date". You did not put it there, and the Release button comes with a warning that an app placed the hold. Here is what is going on.

Where the hold comes from

Shopify places this hold itself on orders bought with a selling plan that promises fulfillment at a later, unscheduled date. Pre-orders and deposit plans are exactly that. It is a system hold: it appears on every such order, whatever app you use and whether or not you turned any hold setting on.

The idea is to stop the order from being shipped automatically, for example by a fulfillment service, before you are actually ready to ship it.

Is it safe to release?

Shopify's warning says that overriding a system hold might break your agreement with the app or service that placed it. In practice the hold is about timing, not payment terms: releasing it does not cancel the deposit, the saved card or the balance due.

If your balance is charged when the order ships, you have to release the hold before you can fulfill. Release it, then fulfill the whole order, and the balance is charged.

When the balance is paid before shipping

With a plan that charges the balance on a date or a number of days after checkout, the order is often paid in full while it still sits on hold. At that point there is nothing left to wait for, but Shopify does not lift the hold by itself.

Depozy releases it for you: as soon as Shopify reports the order as paid in full, the "Unknown delivery date" hold is removed, usually within a minute. Holds placed by your warehouse, a 3PL or your own team are never touched.

Want to keep unpaid orders from shipping?

That is a different hold. Depozy has an optional setting that holds fulfillment until the balance is paid, and releases it once payment comes in. Orders charged when they ship are never held this way, since the shipment itself triggers the payment.

A short checklist for your team

1. Balance charged on shipping: release the hold, then fulfill the whole order.
2. Balance charged on a date or after N days: wait for the payment, the hold clears on its own.
3. Any other hold reason (inventory, address, your own note): handle it as usual, it is not related to the deposit.