Quick Checklist

If your Canteen rules aren't applying fees as expected, work through this checklist from top to bottom. Most issues are resolved in the first 3 steps.

1. Is the Fee Product Published?

This is the most common cause. Canteen creates a product called "Fee" in your store — it must be published to your Online Store sales channel.

Go to Products in your Shopify admin
Search for "Fee"
Open the Fee product
Confirm its status is Active
Under Publishing, make sure it's published to Online Store (and Point of Sale if you use POS)
Save

If the Fee product is missing entirely, try uninstalling and reinstalling Canteen — it will recreate the product.

2. Is the App Embed Enabled?

The Canteen theme embed must be active for fees to show on your online store.

Go to Online Store → Themes → Customize
Click App embeds in the left sidebar
Toggle Canteen to ON
Click Save

Important: If you recently changed or updated your theme, the embed may have been disabled. You'll need to re-enable it on the new theme.

3. Check Your Rule Configuration

Is the rule active? Make sure it's not paused or disabled.
Are the correct products or collections assigned to the rule?
Is the fee amount set correctly (not $0.00)?
If using collections, are the target products actually in that collection?

Tip: Open the rule, remove the products/collections, re-add them, and save. This forces a refresh.

4. Make Sure You’re on the Latest Version

Running an outdated version of Canteen is one of the most common causes of rules not working as expected. We strongly recommend always updating to the latest version — each update includes bug fixes, performance improvements, and compatibility updates that can resolve unexpected behavior.

To check and update your version:

Go to Online Store → Themes → Customize
Click App embeds in the left sidebar
Click on Canteen
Check the version dropdown — select the highest available version
Click Save

Why this matters: Older versions may have known issues that have already been fixed. Updating often resolves problems with fees not appearing, incorrect calculations, or rules not triggering — without any other changes needed.

Note: If you’re using percentage-based fees, you must be on version 4.1.0 or later. Older versions do not support percentage-based rules at all.

Tip: You can verify your live version by visiting your storefront and opening your browser’s developer console (F12) — look for a log message like Canteen v4.x.x.

After upgrading: Make sure to open the Canteen app in your Shopify admin and accept any new permissions that may be required by the newer version. If your fees still aren’t applying after upgrading, try toggling your rule: deactivate the rule → save → reactivate it → save. This forces the rules to sync and usually resolves any lingering issues.

5. Did You Import or Overwrite Products?

If you recently uploaded a CSV product file or used a bulk import tool, it may have overwritten or deleted the Fee product and its variants.

To fix:

Check if the Fee product still exists in Products
If it's missing or corrupted, uninstall Canteen and reinstall it
Recreate your rules

6. Theme Compatibility

Some themes — especially after an update or switch — can interfere with Canteen.

Recently changed themes? Re-enable the Canteen app embed on the new theme.
Custom or AJAX carts: Some themes with slide-out carts, mini carts, or AJAX-based carts may not trigger the fee calculation. Try navigating to the full cart page to see if fees appear there.
Theme update: If your theme was recently updated by the theme developer, the embed may need to be re-enabled.

7. Browser Cache

Old cached scripts can prevent fees from showing.

Hard refresh: Ctrl+Shift+R (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+R (Mac)
Test in an incognito/private browsing window
Try a different browser

8. Fee Product Variants

Each Canteen rule creates a variant on the Fee product. Shopify has a limit of 100 variants per product. If you have many rules, check that you haven't hit this limit.

9. Automated Collections Not Syncing

If you're using automated collections in your rules and new products aren't getting fees:

Verify the product matches the collection's conditions (tags, product type, vendor, etc.)
Open the collection in Shopify and confirm the product appears in it
Note: Products added to manual collections may not be discovered by Canteen automatically. Use automated collections when possible.

10. POS-Specific Issues

Make sure the Canteen tile is added to your POS layout
The tile will say "Inactive" when the cart is empty — this is normal
If fees aren't calculating after adding products, tap the Canteen tile to force a recalculation
Ensure the Fee product is published to the Point of Sale sales channel