Contrassegno on Shopify: the Italian COD setup

Updated July 5, 2026 · ACOD (E-TRADE PARTNER)

Pagamento in contrassegno is a standard, regulated-feeling option in Italian e-commerce, usually priced as a 3–5€ supplement. On Shopify: activate the manual payment method (named “Contrassegno”), create a supplement-carrying shipping rate linked to it, optionally offer standard and express contrassegno variants, and exclude high-cost areas — whole regions like the islands via CAP prefixes or the province/state condition, no thousand-line zip lists needed.

Contrassegno in Italy

Italian carriers (BRT, GLS, SDA, Poste Italiane/Crono, DHL domestic) all offer contrassegno with a published supplement, and Italian customers — especially in the South — expect the option and accept its cost. The near-universal pattern online is a flat 3–5€ “supplemento contrassegno”. Two Italian specifics shape the setup: island and remote-area logistics (Sicilia, Sardegna, Calabria cost more and refuse more), and the habit of offering both standard and express delivery with COD.

The base setup

1. Settings → Payments → add the manual method, named “Contrassegno” (or “Pagamento alla consegna”).
2. In your Italy zone create “Contrassegno — Standard (+4€)” and, if you offer it, “Contrassegno — Espresso (+7€)”.
3. Link both rates in ACOD — this is exactly the “two rates, one standard one express, connected to COD” setup an Italian merchant described in our support chat: with the link active, selecting contrassegno restricts checkout to the linked rates, and prepaid customers never see the supplement. Full mechanics.
4. Verify with testing mode before going live.

Excluding regions: Sicilia without typing every CAP

“Devo scrivere tutti i CAP della Sicilia?” — no, twice over. ACOD's state/province condition excludes named regions directly, and for anything in between, CAP prefix rules work because Italian postal codes are hierarchical: 90–98 covers Sicilia, 07–09 covers Sardegna. Eight regions to limit = a handful of conditions, set up like this.

Common Italian gotchas

• Free shipping over 49€ zeroing the contrassegno rate — an archived Italian support case: the fix is conditional rate pricing so the supplement survives above the threshold (recipe).
• “Chiede la carta anche col contrassegno” — customers reporting checkout asking for card details usually selected a prepaid method while expecting contrassegno behavior, or a customization hid contrassegno for their cart; the COD-not-showing checklist finds it fast.
• Value cap: contrassegno above ~1,000€ gets operationally awkward with carriers — cap it (how).

Frequently asked questions