With my team we are trying to create orders with bundle line items using the GraphQL API.
So far we were using orderCreate mutation to create orders in shopify, however it turned out it doesn’t support creating orders with bundle line items, since it is not possible to specify components at lineItem level.
We found draftOrderCreate mutation which eventually supports creating such orders, however the structure of the request is a bit different. It is not supporting the following what orderCreate mutation does:
taxLines at lineItems
taxLines at shippingLine - for orderCreate you can specify multiple shippingLines…
taxesIncluded - Whether taxes are included in the order subtotal
transactions - The payment transactions to create for the order.
processedAt - The date and time when an order was processed.
test - Whether this is a test order.
Also not accepting options like inventoryBehaviour
There are further data that draftOrderCreate mutation doesn’t support but the above mentioned the ones are crucial for us.
Is there any way to create orders with bundle lines having the above mentioned data using the shopify API? If there is then can you please share the steps to achieve it?
The key difference between orderCreate and draftOrderCreate is their fundamental purpose. Order create is designed for recording orders that weren’t placed on Shopify (like during migrations), while draft orders are meant for orders processed through Shopify’s system.
For creating orders with bundle line items, draft orders are your best option. As of the 2024-07 GraphQL Admin API version, draftOrderLineItemInput accepts bundleComponents. You can add bundle items to draft orders by including the bundleComponents field in your draftOrderLineItemInput.
For the tax and pricing concerns you mentioned, I recommend using the draftOrderCalculate mutation first (draftOrderCalculate - GraphQL Admin) to determine accurate totals that reflect your store’s configuration. When using draft orders, fields like taxes and pricing are calculated based on your store settings rather than being manually specified.
Hello ! I’m replying because we have a similar issue on our end.
Order create is designed for recording orders that weren’t placed on Shopify (like during migrations)
while draft orders are meant for orders processed through Shopify’s system.
For creating orders with bundle line items, draft orders are your best option.
So what I understand from this is that if we want to create orders that use bundles and that weren’t placed on Shopify, then we are stuck. Is that right ? Is there no other workaround ?
Hey @dev_sf, testing again today on 2026-04, orderCreate actively rejects bundle variants with a hard error, and that limitation hasn’t changed across any recent API version.
The workaround for importing external orders is to pass each bundle component as its own line item and use customAttributes to preserve the grouping (e.g. _bundle_parent_sku and _bundle_component: true). This way you can still use orderCreate and have full control over transactions, taxLines, processedAt, and financialStatus.
If the order needs merchant interaction, customer-facing accuracy, etc then draftOrderCreate with the components field on DraftOrderLineItemInput is the path for that.
Also, got stuck with that limitation using orderCreate
I was getting this error: Line items variant cannot be a variant with components.
It would be great if the order could be created this way when passing Bundle product variant product id and having all other products in the order without the limitation.
Concerning your suggestion:
after splitting the bundle product into component product variants, the bundle product inventory still would need to be decreased manually, right?
Hey @madfcat, Not separately, no. With that workaround, the component variants are the actual line items on the order, so inventory is claimed from those component variants as long as orderCreate is using an inventoryBehaviour that decrements inventory.
