Three Checkout Layouts, and When Each One Is Right
GoCushy ships exactly three checkout layouts: standard, compact and hero. Standard is two columns above roughly 900px — form on the left, story and order summary in a tinted panel on the right. Compact is a single narrow column at every width. Hero is the standard arrangement with a full-width image banner above it. All three are available on every plan. The right one depends on how much persuading is still left to do when the buyer arrives.
Three is the whole list, and that is on purpose
I get asked reasonably often when we are adding more layouts. The honest answer is that I am not planning to. Three covers the real cases, and every layout past that is a decision I am handing back to you at the worst possible moment — the moment you are trying to launch, not the moment you are trying to design.
I have watched sellers spend a fortnight arranging a checkout page and zero days writing the offer on it. The page was never the problem. So the constraint is deliberate: pick one of three, set an accent colour, write your guarantee, and go sell something. If that reads as a limitation, I would rather defend it than quietly add a fourth layout nobody can tell apart from the second.
standard: the one to use when you still have to persuade
Standard is a two-column layout above roughly 900px wide. The form sits on the left. The story and the order summary sit in a tinted panel on the right. The footer spans both columns. On a phone it stacks into a single column, because two columns on a 390px screen is not a layout, it is a scroll.
That right-hand panel is the reason standard is my default. It is where the buyer can re-read what they are getting while they are typing their card number — the summary, the reassurance, the thing that answers the small doubt that shows up between the button and the payment. If your product needs any explanation at all, do not throw that column away.
compact: the one to use when the decision is already made
Compact is a single narrow column at all widths. No second panel, nothing beside the form. It is the layout I reach for on a cheap, already-decided purchase — a low-priced add-on, a repeat buy, a link sent to someone who has already said yes in a conversation.
In that situation a second column is not persuasion, it is noise. The buyer has decided. Every extra element between them and the button is a chance to reconsider, and reconsidering at checkout does not usually end with a purchase. Compact respects that they are done thinking.
hero: the one to use when the picture is doing the selling
Hero is the standard two-column arrangement with a full-width image banner above it. That is the entire difference. It earns its place when the image is doing real selling work — physical goods, anything visual, anything where seeing it is most of the pitch.
It does not earn its place as a default. The instinct to pick the busiest layout because it looks like the most effort is the most common design mistake I see, and a large banner on a product that photographs badly is worse than no banner at all. If the image is a stock photo you chose in thirty seconds, use standard.
The few settings that sit alongside the layout
Layout is not the only presentation choice on an offer, but the list is short by design:
- Accent colour — the one colour that carries your brand through the page.
- Guarantee text — your words, not a generic line I wrote for you.
- Legal note — the small print you need under the button.
Anything you do not set on an individual offer falls back to your saved defaults, and anything you do set on the offer wins. So you configure your look once and only override it when a particular offer genuinely needs something different.
One detail I am quietly pleased with: the accent colour is respected even when it is very light. The button text colour is derived from the accent's luminance rather than assumed to be white, so a pale yellow or soft mint gives you dark text on the button instead of white-on-white. It is a small thing that used to force people into darker brand colours than they wanted.
How I would actually choose
Ask what is left to do at the moment the buyer lands. If they still need convincing, standard. If they are already sold, compact. If the product sells with its face, hero. That is the whole decision, and it should take less than a minute.
If you want to see the layouts rather than read about them, the showcase has real checkouts you can click through, and the docs cover the settings in order. Whichever layout you pick, the money path is the same underneath: GoCushy settles on your own Stripe, PayPal or Airwallex account, and we are never the merchant of record. Lifetime access is $295 one-time, with 0% platform fees on that plan.