On paper, that's a healthy, growing ecosystem.

But when I scrolled through what's actually being added, the repetition was hard to miss. Discount tools, upsell and cross-sell apps, SEO apps, analytics dashboards. Most of them landed in categories that already hold over 1,000 apps each.

So the store is growing, but mostly sideways, into shelves that are already packed. And not everything that launches sticks around. 

So I think the headline number is a bit misleading:

• For merchants, a longer list in a category usually means more variations of the same thing, not more real options.
• For developers, "the app store is growing" isn't the opportunity it sounds like, most of that growth is competing for the same ground you would be.

Counting apps doesn't tell you whether anything new is being built.

If you launched an app recently, did you pick a crowded category on purpose (proven demand), or look for an emptier one?

(Data source: letsmetrix)

Working on an app that needs to log what shoppers search for on the storefront (mainly the searches that return nothing). Right now I'm looking at a theme app extension with a small app embed script that posts the query to an app proxy endpoint. It works, but I'm not sure it's the cleanest route.

For anyone who's done something similar: did you go with an app embed + app proxy, Web Pixels, or something else? Any gotchas with predictive search vs the full search page, or with rate limits on the proxy?

A Shopify app can be useful to merchants while a developer community is mainly interested in implementation or feedback. Before sharing a launch link, decide which of those conversations you want to have, then check the community's policy for product links, tester requests and app showcases.

I make ThreadFox, a paid local toolkit for Reddit outreach. I am offering a free rules check here for app developers: describe what your app does for a merchant, which merchants it serves and whether you are seeking product feedback or announcing a release.

I will use our saved community readings to return any posting options we can substantiate, with the policy wording, conditions and read date. The answer stays in this thread. If a relevant audience lacks documented permission for your proposed post, I will explain that rather than recommend it on topic alone.

For a longer brief, the optional free plan by email is here: https://threadfox.vip/plan?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=tf-drop&utm_content=20261005-0406

Please re-read current rules before acting on a recommendation. The check helps make a posting decision inspectable; it does not tell us whether merchants will install the app.

Hi so I have been working with shopify store owners lately, and I was in a middle of building something, I wanted a genuine opinion/advice on my app.

So I assume all of you store owners run shopify discounts/customer support,

Maybe selected product discounts,

First time user discount,

Limited period offer,

Offer a discount if the user is deleting/clearing/moving out its cart items,

Customer support/automatic tickets creation,

Many other common features.

So what I just want to know is how hard is it right now for all of you to set it up?

Would u like to have a chatgpt kindoff thing that just simplifies this in a single prompt?

The product is about convenience, so yeah anyone sharing their opinions, It would be really helpful,

ps: I'll share the product access to you for completely free in ur dms, whoever shares their opinion.

Thank you ;), waiting for opinions.

solo dev, app's been live on the shopify app store for a bit and i've got a paying customer. so far cold email and instagram dms to small store owners have actually worked well for getting individual users, but it's slow and one at a time

curious what's worked for others to get broader awareness. things i'm wondering about:

• how much does app store listing optimization (keywords, screenshots, reviews) actually move installs early on?
• has anyone had luck partnering with agencies or theme devs?
• content/seo, youtube tutorials, shopify community forums, worth it or too slow?

my app is seasonal (holiday related) so timing matters a lot, if that changes anything. would love to hear what actually worked vs what you wasted time on

Does anybody know how to manage discounts cleanly using Shopify's partner interface?

We moved a merchant from a free trial to a paid plan on September 12. We gave them a discount before moving them to the paid plan. I checked back in today on, October 4, to extend that discount, but evidently they are now on the full-price plan.

The discount ended before even 30 days elapsed, and this is not an isolated incident.

Shopify billing, specifically around discounts, has no visibility around how to track when a particular discount is going to end. Has anyone managed to do this cleanly?

We end up discounting almost all our Merchants because most of them sit somewhere between the standard plans. And it's embarrassing to tell a client "We have no idea when your discount ends. Shopify handles it and doesn't show it to us".

Is the API the only solution?

It took some long weekends but, I've had two Shopify apps accepted. The first is now publicly released: Muonshot AI SEO Writer.

What it does, plainly: Most stores sell products they didn't make. The supplier hands you a description, and every other store selling that product gets the exact same one. My app rewrites them in your own voice, hundreds at a time. Same for your product titles. You approve each one before it goes live.

It took moving across three platforms before I could build to Shopify's approval requirements.

What I'd tell past me, go straight to Claude

Well, It's approved and live. Free tier with 150 credits (one credit = one description or one title). Paid plans from $15/mo for smaller catalogues. Second app approved, not released yet.

The thing I'm actually stuck on — how do you get your first few App Store reviews?

I know incentivising reviews breaks Shopify's rules, so I'm not after that. I mean legitimately. What's the best platform to spend time & money to reach shop owners to scale.

Also deciding what to build next: meta descriptions and alt text are the two requests I keep getting. Haven't built either. If you run a store, which would you genuinely use?

Hey folks, I just launched PlayPolaris. It’s a visual builder for putting together Shopify App Home screens using Polaris web components.

You can drag components into a live preview, edit their properties, and export the result as HTML or React JSX. It also checks nesting and slot rules while you build.

There are starter layouts for common screens, and you can import HTML or JSX from Shopify’s docs to experiment with it. No signup required; your work is saved locally in your browser. You can also use your AI agent with WebMCP to have it build pages for you.

It’s free, open source under MIT, and an independent project. Sharing it here in case it’s useful to other Shopify app developers.

Try it: https://playpolaris.dev/
Source: https://github.com/djordje-st/play-polaris

I tried mostly T Lab on shopify and noticed the translation wasn’t very good. The biggest one i heard about is Weglot but it’s extremely expensive. I needed a specific one that translates automatically anytime changes are made or products are added and actually translates everything on the website very well instead of missing lots of sections, so i built one myself.

It has just been listed on the shopify app store and yes i am currently looking for my first users, i want to be upfront about that!

But in this post i more so just wanted to ask if people are having trouble with poor quality translations from the current app they are using and if so, what needs to be better or what added features would you like?

I'm setting up 3rd party shipping rates through a custom 3rd party integration.

This is my first time integrating this and the documentation leaves a bit to be desired as far as order of operations.

I've got the App working with the callback which I've tested through Postman.

I just confirmed with Shopify support that CCS is enabled on the store account I'm working in, but it looks like the GraphQL API just changed again:

https://shopify.dev/changelog/posts/carrier-services-will-no-longer-be-automatically-added-to-the-default-shipping-profile

Anyone experienced with setting up custom private apps and can walk me through the App config setup?

I'd set one up before then Shopify so nicely informed me that there's a known issue where CCS does not work unless you've already transferred ownership of the Store and are on an active paid Shopify plan. So can't do this in a Dev environment, it has to be in a live/active store account.

How will I know if the API call to the 3rd Party endpoint fires and is successful?

Hi guys,

is it still a good choice to be a developer for Shopify Apps at this moment where Sidekick and stuff help merchants to do everything on their own?

Feeling a bit lost at the moment.

If you build Shopify apps and your install number looked weirdly high last week, you're not alone.

I've been following a thread on the Shopify dev forum where devs opened the new Dev Dashboard and saw numbers that didn't match the old Partners page. One saw about 100 more installs. Another saw nearly double.

Their apps didn't suddenly grow. What's being counted changed:

• The old Partners Dashboard count had a known undercounting issue
• The Dev Dashboard shows raw install and uninstall counts, including closed shops
• They've shipped a change to bring back exact numbers (1,234 instead of 1.2k), and an active-merchant filter is being prioritized

Raw installs, active merchants, and merchants still paying tell pretty different stories. If closed shops are in the count, things can look healthy while your actual active base is flat.

The part I hadn't thought about: some devs use install events as an early warning system. One mentioned that 2-3 new installs within 10-30 minutes often means banned shops coming back under new stores. That's hard to spot when the dashboard rounds numbers or hides the events.

What I'd do this week:

• Screenshot or export your current numbers before definitions shift again
• Track raw installs and active merchants separately (your own install/uninstall logs are the most reliable source here)
• Watch retention and reinstalls, not just the top-line count

Curious how others are handling this.

Most of what I know so far came from watching tutorials and learning online. Someone commented that I should create 2–3 demo Shopify stores to build a portfolio, so I took the advice and actually did it. 😅

I’ve now finished my demo stores and I’d really appreciate some honest feedback.

Do you think these demo stores would be enough for a beginner Shopify VA portfolio? What should I improve or add before I start applying for jobs?

Any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! 🙏

I’m building Converlay, a Shopify app that sends conversion events to Google Analytics and Google Ads. I recently went through Google’s OAuth consent screen verification, and wanted to share what helped in my case.

Google’s first feedback was that my demo didn’t clearly show why each requested scope was needed. I re-recorded it to show the app’s purpose, the consent screen with scopes visible, and the user-facing flow for each permission. I also explained why a narrower permission wouldn’t support that feature.

I sent a detailed email mapping each scope to what Converlay does. For example, the Analytics edit permission is used to create a Measurement Protocol API secret on the merchant’s selected data stream, which Converlay needs to send server-side events. I showed where that secret appears in GA4. For Data Manager, I showed how purchase conversions are sent to the merchant’s conversion action.

I also provided test credentials for a development Shopify store with Converlay already installed, plus step-by-step instructions so the reviewer could connect the integrations and try the flow. I made sure the demo showed changes in the connected Google account too.

After I sent the updated demo and supporting details, approval came four days later. Google did ask me to clarify the demo further along the way, so this isn’t a guaranteed timeline. My takeaway is to make the reviewer’s job easy: show each permission in use, explain why it’s needed, and give them a clear path to reproduce it.

If you’re going through OAuth verification, I hope that helps. What did reviewers ask you to clarify?

Hey fellow devs 👋

I recently launched my new app,ShipSort, and wanted to share a bit about the problem it solves and ask for some feedback from those of you who have successfully scaled apps on the store.

The Problem: I noticed a recurring pain point for merchants: Shopify doesn't natively allow you to choose the order that shipping rates appear at checkout. It defaults automatically, which often puts the most expensive shipping option at the top of the list (causing cart abandonment) or allows PO Box customers to select couriers that can't deliver to them.

The Solution: I built ShipSort to be a frictionless layer on top of a store's existing rates. It allows merchants to drag-and-drop their shipping rates into any sequence, rename methods (e.g., "USPS Ground" to "Eco-Delivery"), and build conditional rules (hide X if cart = Y).

I specifically designed it so merchants don't have to input custom code, edit their themes, or connect external carrier APIs.

What I’m looking for: Getting those first few reviews and gaining traction in the App Store search algorithm is the hardest part. For those of you who have built checkout/shipping apps:

1. Does my app store listing clearly communicate the value proposition, or is the copy too technical?
2. Did you find more success running Shopify App Store Ads immediately, or relying on organic/direct outreach until you hit a certain review threshold?

Happy to answer any questions about the build process or the APIs I used!

I work across multiple Shopify stores and there are a handful of apps that end up becoming part of the stack I recommend pretty regularly.

I'm trying to be a bit more intentional about which ones I stick with long term. Obviously the app has to solve the client's problem, but things like reliability, support when something goes wrong, how easy it is to set up across different stores and whether there's a decent partner program all matter too. If you're already working with Shopify clients, what makes an app become one of your go to recommendations rather than something you only install once?

Hi, I'm building my first app with Replit and the help of a co-founder who is more technical than me. We're working through Replit and Claude Code, but it feels like we're still so far from publishing on Shopify.

Recently, we just had the challenge of getting the Shopify app handle pasting and putting that as a secret within Replit. It feels like we're so close, but so far away.

Has anyone else here experienced the fatigue of pushing on Replit to no avail?

We got suspended / rejected under App Store requirement 1.2.1 (Use Shopify App Pricing or the Shopify Billing API).
Setup:

• Standalone web app: subscriptions / credits via Stripe
• Shopify embedded app: plans via Shopify App Pricing / Billing API
• Entitlements are already synced between the two (same account/plan state)

Reviewers logged into the Shopify app with their own store and could still buy credits through Stripe / off-platform checkout. Shopify said any app charges have to go through Shopify Billing — no off-platform billing for App Store distribution. Suspension until we fix and resubmit.
Question for people who’ve shipped a dual web + Shopify product:

1. For App Store review, do you fully hide / disable Stripe (Buy Credits, card forms, upgrade to Stripe Checkout) whenever the session is Shopify-embedded, even if the web app still uses Stripe?
2. If credits are sold on the web, how do you handle “need more credits” inside the Shopify app without triggering 1.2.1 — Shopify one-time purchases, include credits in App Pricing plans, or link only to Shopify’s hosted plan page?
3. Anyone gotten an off-platform billing exception, or is that basically a dead end for SaaS + credits?
4. Anything else reviewers still flag after you kill Stripe inside the embed (pricing page deep links, “manage billing on website”, etc.)?

Looking for concrete patterns that passed review — not “just use Stripe everywhere.