A shopper is choosing between your store and a competitor’s for a birthday present. Both list the same product at the same price. The other store says “Get it by Thursday”. Yours says nothing, so the shopper has to guess, or email you to ask, or leave.
A delivery date on the product page answers the question a shopper has before they ask it. But the date has to be right. A date that ignores your cut-off time, your weekend, or the bank holiday on Monday creates a “where is my order?” ticket later and a broken promise.
Today we are launching Estimated Delivery Date Pro, a WooCommerce estimated delivery date plugin that calculates the date from your real working schedule and shows it on the product page, in the cart, at checkout and in order emails. Below is what it does, how to set it up, and what it does not do. A launch discount applies until 15 November 2026.
Launch offer: use coupon code EDDPRO40 for 40% off Estimated Delivery Date Pro. The code expires on 15 November 2026.
Why a fixed “ships in 3–5 days” note is not enough
Most stores start with a line of text in the product description: “Ships in 3–5 business days.” It is easy to add and it is usually wrong in some way, because a delivery date depends on things that change every hour:
- The time of the order. An order at 9am may leave today. The same order at 4pm leaves tomorrow.
- The day of the week. An order on Friday evening is not packed until Monday if you do not dispatch at weekends.
- Holidays. Your warehouse closing for two days adds two days to every order placed before it.
- The product and the shipping method. A made-to-order item and a stocked item do not ship in the same time. Express and standard do not arrive on the same day.
- Where the customer lives. A parcel to the next town arrives sooner than one across the country.
A static note cannot account for any of this. Shoppers then read “3–5 days” as “3 days”, and the gap between what they expected and what happened turns into support email. If that ticket volume is already a problem, our guide on reducing “where is my order?” tickets in WooCommerce covers the after-dispatch side; a correct date before purchase is the before-dispatch side.
What Estimated Delivery Date Pro does
The plugin takes your working days, cut-off time, holidays and lead times, and works out a delivery date or date range for each product. All settings live under WooCommerce → Estimated Delivery, split across Settings, Scheduling, Delivery Rules, Delivery Engine, Analytics and License tabs.
A schedule that matches your warehouse
In the Scheduling tab you choose which weekdays count as working days, set a daily order cut-off time (in your store timezone or UTC), and add store holidays as individual closed dates. Orders placed after the cut-off count from the next working day. If your cut-off differs across the week, say 2pm Monday to Thursday and 11am on Friday, you can set a separate cut-off for each weekday. Holiday season needs its own planning; our guide to setting WooCommerce shipping cut-off dates before Black Friday covers how to choose and announce them.
Delivery rules by shipping method, class, zone, category or product
Each rule sets a minimum and maximum number of business days. You can create rules by shipping method, shipping class or shipping zone, and turn on per-category and per-product lead times when some items take longer to prepare. When several rules could apply, the most specific wins:
| Priority | Source of the lead time | Where you set it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Per-product lead time | The product’s Shipping tab |
| 2 | Category rule | Delivery Rules → Advanced Rule Targeting |
| 3 | Shipping method, then class, then zone rule | Delivery Rules |
| 4 | Global default lead time | Scheduling |
Items on backorder can carry extra minimum and maximum days on top, so a backordered product never shows the same date as one sitting on the shelf.
ZIP-based transit estimates
Static rules treat every customer the same. With ZIP-based transit estimates switched on in the Delivery Engine tab, the plugin estimates transit time from the distance between your ships-from postcode and the shopper’s. A ZIP widget on the product page lets shoppers enter their postcode and see a date for their address before adding to cart.
A countdown to the cut-off
The optional countdown shows a live timer on the product page, using a template you can edit. The default reads “Order within {countdown} to get it by {date}”. It gives a shopper who is close to buying a concrete reason to buy now, and it is accurate because it is driven by the same cut-off the date uses.
The date wherever the customer looks
You can switch the estimate on or off individually for the single product page, shop and archive pages, the cart, checkout (classic and block), the order received page and order emails. Separate columns add the quoted date to the customer’s My Account orders list and to the admin orders list, so your support team sees the same date the customer was promised.
Accuracy analytics
The Analytics tab compares quoted dates with actual deliveries: orders quoted, orders delivered and measured, the share delivered on or before the quoted date, the share delivered within the quoted range, and the average days off. If fewer than 90% of orders arrive on time, your lead times are probably too tight. If orders routinely arrive three or four days early, you can afford to promise sooner.
How to set up estimated delivery dates in WooCommerce
- Install and activate the plugin. Upload the .zip from your Zorem account under Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin, then activate it. If the free Estimated Delivery Date plugin is active, Pro deactivates it automatically, as Pro includes every free feature.
- Activate your licence. Go to WooCommerce → Estimated Delivery → License, enter your key and click Activate License. Analytics needs an active licence to collect data.
- Set your schedule. In Scheduling, tick your working days, set the order cut-off time, enter the global default minimum and maximum lead time, and add your upcoming holidays.
- Add delivery rules. In Delivery Rules, create a rule for each shipping method, class or zone that ships at a different speed. Turn on per-product or per-category lead times if some items take longer to prepare.
- Choose how the date looks and where it appears. In Settings, pick a single “Get it by {date}” date or a “{date_start} – {date_end}” range, edit the prefix text, style the badge colours, and switch on each location you want.
- Turn on the Delivery Engine extras. In Delivery Engine, enter your ships-from postcode, state and country, then enable ZIP-based estimates, the ZIP widget, the countdown and the backorder buffer as needed.
Every option is described in full in the Estimated Delivery Date Pro documentation.
How to check the estimate is right
Before you trust the date on a live store, test it against cases you can work out by hand:
- Open a product page before and after your cut-off time. The date should move by one working day.
- Add a holiday next week and check that dates falling across it move out by a day.
- Open a product with its own lead time and one without, and confirm the per-product value wins.
- Place a test order and check that the same date appears on the order received page, in the order email, in the My Account orders column and in the admin orders column.
After a few weeks of real orders, the Analytics tab tells you whether your rules match reality.
What it does not do
- It does not know about carrier delays. The date is an estimate from your schedule and rules. A carrier strike or a snowstorm will not change it.
- ZIP-based estimates are distance-based. They improve on a flat lead time, but they are not a live quote from a carrier.
- Analytics is only as good as your delivery data. The plugin uses a delivered status from WooCommerce shipment tracking when one is recorded. Without it, the order’s Completed date stands in for the delivery date, and since many stores mark orders Completed at dispatch, accuracy figures will look better than they are.
- It does not change when you ship. If your team misses the cut-off, the customer still sees the promised date. The plugin makes the promise visible; keeping it is still a fulfilment job. Our WooCommerce fulfilment best practices guide covers that side.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need the free Estimated Delivery Date plugin as well?
No. Pro includes the full free feature set, and the two cannot run together. If the free plugin is active when you activate Pro, it is deactivated automatically when Pro is activated, so you only ever have one copy running.
Does it work with the WooCommerce block checkout?
Yes. The checkout location covers both the classic shortcode checkout and the block-based checkout. You switch it on in the Settings tab under the display locations, along with the product page, shop pages, cart, order received page and emails.
Can I show a date range instead of a single date?
Yes. Choose the date range style in Settings and edit the template with the {date_start} and {date_end} tokens. A range is the safer choice if your carriers vary by a day or two, because it sets an expectation you can meet more often.
Can I hide the estimate on some products?
Yes. The product eligibility settings let you hide the estimate separately for virtual products, downloadable products and out-of-stock products. That stops a delivery date appearing on an e-book or a gift card, where it would only confuse the customer.
What happens on a public holiday?
Add the date under Store holidays in the Scheduling tab. The plugin skips it, along with non-working weekdays, when it counts business days. Holidays are entered as individual dates, so add them for the year ahead in one sitting.
Where does the delivered date for analytics come from?
From a delivered shipment status recorded through Advanced Shipment Tracking Pro (AST PRO), when one exists. Otherwise the order’s Completed date is used. If you mark orders Completed at dispatch, treat the on-time percentage as optimistic until delivered statuses are being recorded.
Start showing delivery dates you can keep
A delivery date on the product page answers a question before it becomes a support email, and a countdown gives a hesitant shopper a reason to order today. Estimated Delivery Date Pro works the date out from your actual schedule (cut-offs, working days, holidays, shipping rules and postcode distance), then shows you afterwards how often you kept the promise. Until 15 November 2026, coupon EDDPRO40 takes 40% off.
Start showing delivery dates you can keep
A delivery date on the product page answers a question before it becomes a support email, and a countdown gives a hesitant shopper a reason to order today. Estimated Delivery Date Pro works the date out from your actual schedule (cut-offs, working days, holidays, shipping rules and postcode distance), then shows you afterwards how often you kept the promise. Until 15 November 2026, coupon EDDPRO40 takes 40% off.