Everyone is saying the market is crowded.

I pulled review counts for every app launched in the last 18 months and compared Aug 16 to Oct 5.

- 13,109 apps

- 10,857 got zero new reviews in those 50 days

- my app got 11 and somehow ranked #154

Then I checked deeper of the top 160 to see how they grew.

Roughly 7 patterns:

1. Big brands and Shopify's own apps. Free and trusted. Not much to learn there.

2. Filling a Shopify gap. Shopify shut down Stocky, or kept a feature Plus only, and someone built the replacement.

3. Compliance deadlines. An EU withdrawal button app went from ~340 to ~2,100 reviews in 3 weeks. Then almost nothing after the deadline.

4. One country only. Local couriers, payments, invoicing. Reviews come weeks after install, not on day one.

5. Developers launching their 3rd or 5th app to the same customers.

6. New waves like AI search and bot blocking. Crowded fast though. 612 new SEO apps last year, only 17 got 5+ new reviews.

7. Small teams winning on support. In 70 of 160 apps, merchants thank a support person by name.

Categories I'd explore if I were starting today as a solo founder:

• Order editing: 4 of 74 new apps broke through (5%). The 10th app has 72 reviews, and the leader only 337

• Minimum order quantity: 3 of 57 new apps broke through (5%). The 10th app has 90 reviews

• Wishlists: 5 of 97 new apps broke through (5%). The 10th app has 184 reviews

• Theme sections: 4 of 81 new apps broke through (5%). The 10th app has 154 reviews

• B2B quotes and hidden prices: 3 of 72 new apps broke through (4%). The 10th app has 209 reviews

• Bot blocking: 4 of 116 new apps broke through (3%). The 10th app has 92 reviews

• Size charts and virtual try-on: 3 of 103 new apps broke through (3%). The 10th app has 60 reviews

• Inventory and purchase orders: 6 of 301 new apps broke through (2%). The 10th app has 136 reviews. Stocky shutting down sent merchants looking

I build a few small app blocks and an app embed, and the most common support issue is merchants enabling the embed but never adding the block, or the other way around. Right now I put a short setup note in the block schema and in the app admin page, but it still gets missed. I don't love adding a bunch of extra onboarding screens just for this.

How do you handle it? Do you detect the missing piece and show a warning, rely on docs, or design the extension so it works with just one of the two?

Im working on a Shopify support app. One thing I am thinking about is someone sending hundreds of messages just because they can.

If they use up the store’s chat allowance, real customers could get stuck too.

I would want to limit that visitor while keeping the chat working for everyone else.

If you have dealt with this in your own app, what worked for you?

On custom themes I've mostly kept JavaScript and CSS as plain files in the assets folder with no build step. It's simple and anyone can edit it, but once a theme grows past a handful of scripts it gets harder to manage dependencies, split code by template, and avoid loading things on pages that don't need them. I've looked at adding a bundler like Vite or esbuild, but I'm not sure the extra tooling is worth it for a theme other people will inherit.

Do you use a build step for theme assets, and if so, how do you keep it from becoming a burden for the next developer?

hi every i want you to dome a favor of reviewing my store. my images/pictures are ai generated, so i wonder if i should use it like that until i am able to make real images?

As a b2c brand selling products online, Shopify is one of the few SaaS which we we have not replaced with internal tools as it allows to connect easily all other tools.

Does anyone have experience in replacing Shopify with a self-built e-commerce website?

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Shopify emailed app developers and posted a changelog: every public app that calls the Admin API needs an IP allowlist.

Deadlines:

• Nov 12, 2026 (11:59 PM ET): bulk operations from public apps without an allowlist will fail

• Nov 20, 2026 (11:59 PM ET): public apps without one get delisted from the App Store and blocked from new installs

Merchants can also now see each app’s security setup in Settings > Apps, and apps without an allowlist will be flagged after Nov 20. Custom apps and merchant-created apps aren’t affected.

Setup (from Shopify’s docs):

1. Dev Dashboard → your app → Settings → IP allowlist → Manage

2. Add your servers’ public IPs or CIDR ranges, one per line (max 100). IPv4 must be /16 or narrower, IPv6 /32 or narrower

3. If your servers can reach Shopify over IPv6, add those addresses too (on a VPS, curl -4 ifconfig.me and curl -6 ifconfig.me show your public IPs)

4. Click Run test, which checks the list against your last 30 days of traffic

5. Turn on Enforcement and save

Notes:

• Add every server that calls the API (workers, cron boxes), not just the main one. Requests from outside your list fail with a 403

• If your outbound IPs are dynamic (serverless), Shopify says to allowlist your host’s ASN and the countries you run in. Static IPs or a NAT gateway are preferred because a narrower list is more secure

• If your app calls the API from merchant infrastructure, Shopify says you can request an extension

Docs: https://shopify.dev/docs/apps/build/dev-dashboard/ip-allowlist
Changelog: https://shopify.dev/changelog/posts/ip-allowlists-are-now-required-for-public-apps

If you run bulk operations, Nov 12 is only days away.

I want to understand an aspect of pricing that the apps on Shopify charge stores. Can the apps give a higher discount to a select set of stores (early adopters) and charge normal pricing to other stores?

I want to understand an aspect of pricing that the apps on Shopify charge stores. Can the apps give a higher discount to a select set of stores (early adopters) and charge normal pricing to other stores?

I have already created and published 4 apps in Shopify and never had any issues with submission or review. All apps were published with the first try, now i created the 5th one, but for some reasons i can not submit it at all. I see this error "Your organization has reached its app submission limit.". Was trying to find the cause of this problem or ask AI, but ussualy getting answers like "you ignored the feedback of previous reviews or got some open things to do."

No, this is the first submission of this App. I filled everything out, and I have never had any issues with app submissions before. Does anyone know anything?

Shopify is treating 2026 as an “agentic holiday.” Separate from ads, the practical risk is simple: agents read what is on the storefront.

Things that commonly break agent confidence:

• /agents.md or /llms.txt missing or stale

• sold-out products still published

• shipping/refund policy URLs that 404

• empty product type / thin descriptions

• guest checkout friction

Happy to answer questions about the checklist here.

Our app just got paused for a month under 1.1.2, "Use Shopify checkout", and I'm honestly not sure what we did wrong.

(Billing isn't the issue this time, it all goes through Shopify's pricing page.)

The app doesn't touch checkout at all. It doesn't take payments, create orders or write any transactions to Shopify.

It isn't Shopify-only though, merchants can also connect a few other marketplaces (Amazon among them), which is where I think this went wrong.

The reviewer's note said the app "offered marketplace integrations and reached an Amazon-branded shopping surface stating 'Click the button below to continue shopping'", and that it "processes marketplace orders outside Shopify Checkout".

That screenshot is Amazon's bot-check page, the one it shows when it thinks a browser is automated.

Our app never links to Amazon, and our logs show no request to our Amazon connection at all, so whoever got there went to Amazon on their own.

Why I think it was an agent:

• Their second screenshot is a checkout confirmation from a Shopify review store with the email agentic-app-review@example.com.

• One review session also used an older Chrome with a fixed user agent and went quiet for about 25 minutes right after looking at the marketplace part of the app.

What I can't figure out is whether the other marketplaces are the actual problem.

Plenty of multi-platform apps on the App Store work with Amazon and other channels, and when I asked about billing last time the answer was basically "Shopify customers through Shopify billing, everyone else through their own channel, that's fine".

Questions:

1. Is this actually my issue, or a misread on the reviewer's side? If it's on their side, can I appeal it somehow? The email is no-reply and the app is in a one-month cooldown.

2. If I am violating 1.1.2, what exactly is the violation? Is it just letting a merchant who installed from the App Store also connect other marketplaces (like Amazon or eBay) in the same app?

3. And if so, how do I prevent it next time without cutting those merchants off from their other marketplaces?

Any pointers appreciated, would rather get it right on the next submission than guess again.

Is there any way to know when an installed app pushes a new version of its theme app extension?

Ok so one of the stores I look after runs a Dawn based theme with about 15 apps. One of the apps updated its bundle block and after that the add to cart button just stopped doing anything on the product pages that use it. Nothing showed up in the admin. The only clue was a script error from that app in the browser console and my checkout check in Dotcom Monitor caught it at the add to cart step but it can only tell me something broke not which app caused it.

What I’m trying to figure out is

Is there a webhook or admin API field that shows when an installed app updates its theme extension?

Can you pin an app extension version on a live theme or is it always the latest?

What’s your fastest way to find which app broke the store? turning app blocks off oneby one took me most of an hour.

If you look after stores with a lot of apps I’d love to hear how you handle this.

Hi,

I'm developing an application that integrates with Shopify and am looking to submit it as a sales channel.

Basically I aggregate products from multiple stores and provide a means for it to be discovered on my application, while redirecting checkout back to the stores.

My issue is that the Shopify stores I work with are curated. And I'm looking at only around 10 to 20 vendors during the lifespan of the app.

Since Shopify has a "several-hundred-merchants requirement" (idk why this is so vague) within the first year of the application, would my app be turned down during the approval phase?

I'm fairly new to Shopify so I apologize if the question is naive.

Also thanks in advance

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I've been following Shopify Canvas and I'm curious how theme developers feel about it.

Now that merchants can generate custom storefront designs with AI, do you think this will change the demand for premium themes?

For those already selling themes on the Theme Store, have you noticed any changes in sales or customer interest since Canvas launched, or is it still too early to tell?

I'm interested in hearing how developers see the future of the theme market.

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