WooCommerce: Deny Checkout Based on Cart Weight

A WooCommerce fan asked me: “How do you deny checkout if the cart weight is above a certain threshold?“.

Well, this is straight forward thanks to a WooCommerce core function called “cart_contents_weight” which allows you to get the total weight of your cart, and then the “wc_add_notice” function which shows a notification error.

Enjoy!

WooCommerce: show checkout error if weight exceeds a threshold

PHP Snippet: Deny WooCommerce Checkout Processing if Cart Weight > Threshold

/**
 * @snippet       Deny Checkout Based on Cart Weight - WooCommerce
 * @how-to        Get CustomizeWoo.com FREE
 * @author        Rodolfo Melogli
 * @compatible    WooCommerce 6
 * @community     https://businessbloomer.com/club/
 */ 

add_action( 'woocommerce_after_checkout_validation', 'bbloomer_deny_checkout_if_weight' );

function bbloomer_deny_checkout_if_weight( $posted ) {
   $max_weight = 100;
   if ( WC()->cart->cart_contents_weight > $max_weight ) {
      $notice = 'Sorry, your cart has exceeded the maximum allowed weight of ' . $max_weight . get_option( 'woocommerce_weight_unit' );
      wc_add_notice( $notice, 'error' );
   }
}

Where to add custom code?

You should place custom PHP in functions.php and custom CSS in style.css of your child theme: where to place WooCommerce customization?

This code still works, unless you report otherwise. To exclude conflicts, temporarily switch to the Storefront theme, disable all plugins except WooCommerce, and test the snippet again: WooCommerce troubleshooting 101

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Rodolfo Melogli

Business Bloomer Founder

Author, WooCommerce expert and WordCamp speaker, Rodolfo has worked as an independent WooCommerce freelancer since 2011. His goal is to help entrepreneurs and developers overcome their WooCommerce nightmares. Rodolfo loves travelling, chasing tennis & soccer balls and, of course, wood fired oven pizza. Follow @rmelogli

19 thoughts on “WooCommerce: Deny Checkout Based on Cart Weight

  1. Sadly, it doesn’t work anymore

    1. I find that very unlikely. Did you say it used to work before? What did you do recently in regard to plugin updates etc.?

      1. If this snippet is supposed to be working on the cart page, then it has stopped working…

        1. No, this triggers on the checkout page only

          1. Hello,

            your code is good, but it did nothing on the checkout page.

            From another code that actually didn’t work, I changed your code trigger from:

            woocommerce_after_checkout_validation

            to

            woocommerce_check_cart_items

            which worked for me and is also what I wanted.

            Thank you anyway. The altered code is:

            add_action( 'woocommerce_check_cart_items', 'bbloomer_deny_checkout_if_weight' );
             
            function bbloomer_deny_checkout_if_weight( $posted ) {
               $max_weight = 15;
               if ( WC()->cart->cart_contents_weight > $max_weight ) {
                  $notice = 'Maximální hmotnost jedné objednávky je větší než ' . $max_weight . get_option( 'woocommerce_weight_unit' );
                  wc_add_notice( $notice, 'error' );
               }
            }
            
  2. Hello, how can I use this code with a min weight for checkout? I tried

    $min_weight

    instead of

    $max_weight

    and also tried to change the value to a negative value like

    $max_weight = -10;

    , but both won’t work unfortunately. Thanks!

    1. Hello Vasco, thanks so much for your comment! Yes, this is definitely possible, but I’m afraid it’s custom work. If you’d like to get a quote, feel free to contact me here. Thanks a lot for your understanding!

  3. how can i restrict bulky items shipping for local and extended area only. No shipping to nation wide for bulky items

    1. can this be achieved by php function?

      1. Hassan, thanks so much for your comment! Yes, this is definitely possible, but I’m afraid it’s custom work. If you’d like to get a quote, feel free to contact me here. Thanks a lot for your understanding!

  4. Is there a way to modify or adapt this snippet to
    1) trigger on combined weight of a specific category
    2) trigger a “request for quote” button

    Thanks

    1. Hello Paul, thanks so much for your comment! Yes, this is definitely possible, but I’m afraid it’s custom work. If you’d like to get a quote, feel free to contact me here. Thanks a lot for your understanding!

  5. Is it possible to deny checkout on specific weeks or months? Like for instance, Once the user checkout already last week, he cannot able to checkout this week, should have 2 – 3 weeks to be able to checkout again.

    1. Hello John, thanks so much for your comment! Yes, this is definitely possible, but I’m afraid it’s custom work. If you’d like to get a quote, feel free to contact me here. Thanks a lot for your understanding!

  6. Is it possible to have the invoice payment gateway option open so that the customer can send the order through?

    I have to calculate the freight manually over 88kg and I would like to disable the other payments to avoid customers paying through card.

    1. Hi Kristoffer, thanks so much for your comment! Yes, this is definitely possible, but I’m afraid it’s custom work. If you’d like to get a quote, feel free to contact me here. Thanks a lot for your understanding!

  7. Awesome Snippet 🙂

    I want to ask if there any way this will only show up for a regular customer, I have the wholesale plugin for WooCommerce and I don’t want that notice for that user role.

    Thanks a lot for sharing this with the community.

    1. James – thanks so much for your comment! Yes, this is possible – but unfortunately this is custom work and I cannot provide a complementary solution here via the blog comments. If you’d like to get a quote, feel free to contact me here. Thanks a lot for your understanding! ~R

Questions? Feedback? Customization? Leave your comment now!
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