Why does clicking Add to Cart send customers straight to checkout instead of the cart?
If clicking Add to Cart sends shoppers straight to checkout instead of showing the cart, it's almost always a theme setting, a dynamic checkout button, or an app — not a Shopify bug.
What's going on
A merchant clicks Add to Cart on their own storefront expecting to see a cart drawer, a mini notification, or the cart page — and instead the browser jumps straight to /checkout. It's disorienting for shoppers too: they lose the chance to review quantities, apply a discount code, or keep browsing before committing to checkout.
This comes up often enough in Shopify's merchant community that it's worth separating the several distinct things that can cause it, because the fix is completely different depending on the cause: a theme setting that's easy to miss, a special "buy now" style button that's supposed to skip the cart, custom code left over from a theme customization, or a third-party app designed to fast-track customers to checkout.
Why it happens
Shopify themes intentionally support more than one add-to-cart destination: a cart drawer, a page redirect to /cart, a small on-page notification, or (for a separate "dynamic checkout" button) a direct jump to checkout. When a store has more than one of these in play — say a theme's default cart-page redirect plus a dynamic checkout button that looks similar to shoppers — it's easy to misdiagnose which control is actually firing.
On top of the native options, many stores run customized theme code (from a freelancer, a theme fork, or copy-pasted snippets) or install cart/upsell/conversion apps that deliberately hook into the add-to-cart event to speed shoppers toward checkout. Because both native settings and custom/app behavior can produce the same symptom, merchants comparing notes in forums often find that what fixed it for one person (a theme setting) does nothing for another person (whose cause is actually an app).
5 ways to fix it
Check whether it's actually the Buy it Now / dynamic checkout button, not Add to Cart
Dynamic checkout buttons (often labeled things like "Buy it now" or a Shop Pay button) are designed to skip the cart and send the shopper straight to checkout — that's expected behavior, not a bug. In the theme editor, open a product page, select the product form or buy buttons block, and check whether a "Show dynamic checkout button" (or similarly named) option is turned on and whether shoppers are clicking that button instead of the plain Add to Cart button. If the redirect only happens on that button and never on the standard Add to Cart button, there's nothing to fix — this is working as intended.
Set the theme's cart behavior to drawer, page, or notification
Most current Online Store 2.0 themes (Dawn and its derivatives, plus many premium themes) have a global cart setting, usually found under Theme settings > Cart in the theme editor, letting you choose how the storefront responds after Add to Cart is clicked: a slide-out drawer, a mini notification/popup, or a full navigation to the cart page. If a real redirect-to-checkout is happening, it's rarely one of these three native options — it's more likely custom theme code or an app overriding the default. Still, start here: confirm which of the native modes is selected and test again, since switching between page/drawer/notification is the most common source of "it changed after I touched a setting" reports in the merchant community.
Search the theme code for a hard-coded redirect to /checkout after cart/add.js
If neither the cart setting nor a dynamic checkout button explains it, the behavior is almost always custom JavaScript in the theme (often added by a previous developer, a duplicated/customized theme, or a copy-pasted snippet) that calls the cart's add endpoint and then immediately forwards the browser to /checkout on success. Search the theme's assets and snippets for the word "checkout" near any add-to-cart form handler or fetch/AJAX call to cart/add.js. Removing or conditionally disabling that redirect line restores normal add-to-cart behavior (drawer, page, or notification) without needing an app.
Disable or reconfigure any cart/upsell/checkout app that intercepts Add to Cart
Cart drawer apps, upsell/cross-sell apps, and some checkout-extension or "skip cart" conversion apps inject their own script that listens for the add-to-cart event and forwards the customer to checkout, especially ones marketed for reducing cart abandonment by fast-tracking to checkout. Go to Settings > Apps and sales channels, temporarily deactivate cart-related apps one at a time, and reload the product page to isolate which one is responsible. If the app is doing this on purpose, its own settings usually include a toggle to turn the "redirect to checkout" behavior off while keeping the rest of the app's functionality.
Ask your theme developer to trace the add-to-cart handler if the source still isn't obvious
If you've ruled out dynamic checkout buttons, the native cart type setting, obvious redirect code, and installed apps, the logic may be buried in a customized JavaScript file or a theme app extension block. At that point it's worth having a developer trace the actual add-to-cart click handler end to end (browser dev tools Network tab showing the cart/add.js call followed immediately by a checkout redirect is a fast way to confirm it's code-driven rather than a settings toggle you're missing).
Bottom line
This is almost never a broken setting — it's either the dynamic checkout ("Buy it now") button doing exactly what it's built to do, or custom theme/app code forwarding shoppers to checkout right after the cart/add call. Work through the native cart-type setting first, then check for a hard-coded redirect or a cart-related app before assuming anything is actually malfunctioning; if you land on a cart-drawer or upsell app as the culprit, look for that app's own toggle to disable the redirect rather than uninstalling it outright.
Browse the rest of the problem library, run a free storefront scan to catch issues like this automatically, or email us and we'll work out a custom solution for it.