Order Overview
Orders capture the purchasing process between customers and the store. They record what items were bought, at what price, by whom, and how they should be delivered. Orders are created when customers finalize their checkout or when staff members finalize draft orders in the dashboard.
Each order belongs to a specific sales channel and stores details such as product selections, pricing, customer information, shipping requirements, and fulfillment status.
Lifecycle
Orders progress through various states during their lifecycle, including unfulfilled, partially fulfilled, fulfilled, and potentially returned or cancelled. For a detailed explanation of order states and the transitions between them, refer to the Order Status documentation.
Orders can be converted back to checkouts for reordering purposes using the functionality described in Order to Checkout.
Orders can also expire if they remain unpaid for a configurable period. The Order Expiration documentation covers the configuration and behavior of this process.
Permissions
An order is identified by a UUID-based ID. Anyone who knows this ID can query the order.
The table below shows what is publicly accessible when you know the order ID, and what requires ownership or staff/app permissions.
| Public | Private |
|---|---|
| Basic details: ID, number, status, created/updated timestamps, channel | User: returned only to the authenticated owner or staff/app with MANAGE_ORDERS |
| Contents: lines, discounts, gift cards, totals (subtotal, shipping, undiscounted total, total, balance) | Transactions: require staff/app with MANAGE_CHECKOUTS and HANDLE_PAYMENTS |
| Addresses & contact: shipping and billing addresses, customer email, customer note | Events and invoices: requirestaff/app with MANAGE_ORDERS |
| Delivery & fulfillment: delivery method, shipping method name, collection point, fulfillments | Private metadata: only staff with MANAGE_ORDERS |
| Status & pricing: payment status, authorization/charge status | |
| Public metadata |
Settings
Order behavior in Saleor is influenced by settings configured at both the channel and store (shop) levels. These settings determine how orders are processed, paid, and fulfilled.
Channel-Specific Settings
automaticallyConfirmAllNewOrders: When enabled, orders are automatically confirmed upon checkout completion. When disabled, orders remain in theUNCONFIRMEDstate until manually confirmed.automaticallyFulfillNonShippableGiftCard: When enabled non shippable gift cards are automatically fulfilledallowUnpaidOrders: Determines whether a checkout must be paid before an order can be created.expireOrdersAfter: Configures how long unpaid orders remain active before being marked as expired. Set in minutes.deleteExpiredOrdersAfter: Determines how many days after expiration an order will be permanently deleted from the system.automaticallyFulfillNonShippableGiftCard: When enabled, all non-shippable gift card orders will be fulfilled automatically.markAsPaidStrategy: Determines whether a Payment or Transaction is created when an order is manually marked as paid in Saleor Dashboard or usingorderMarkAsPaidmutation.includeDraftOrderInVoucherUsage: Determines if vouchers applied on draft orders should count toward voucher usage limits.
Store-Level (Global) Settings
The following settings apply globally across all channels and are configured at the store (shop) level.
fulfillmentAutoApprove: When enabled new fulfillments require approval.fulfillmentAllowUnpaid: When enabled, allows creating fulfillments for unpaid orders.
You can access them from the Order List Page by clicking the settings icon (⚙️) in the top-right corner.
Historical Data Preservation
When products, variants, or shipping methods are deleted from the catalog, they remain visible in historical orders due to preserved data. This ensures that order history maintains an accurate record of what was purchased and how it was shipped at the time of the order. The following data is preserved:
shippingMethodNameorcollectionPointNameon the order levelproductNameandproductSkuon order lines
This denormalization allows you to maintain a complete historical record of orders even after products, variants, or shipping methods are removed from the active catalog.