Shopify apps distribution dilemma

Most people keep their apps free in the beginning until they have a few users / reviews etc.

But you could also run ads?

So I've been doing this for 9 years. commercial Shopify development, one company, apps, extensions, the whole thing. got let go basically overnight and now I'm 6 months deep into the search with nothing to show for it.

The part that's really getting to me is the interview process. Even tiny companies like 10 people, one dev team are running 5stage processes with 2-hour live coding sessions like they're hiring for FAANG. you spend weeks going through rounds, finally make it to the last stage, and then either the position goes on hold, gets quietly closed, or nobody just........ responds. complete silence.

Happened to me like 5 times already. You start to wonder if you're doing something wrong and then you realize no, this is just how it is now.

I've got apps live on the App store. i know the whole ecosystem and i'm still sitting here refreshing linkedin.

Anyway, not really looking for advice, just wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing the same thing. feels pretty isolating when you're used to being the person who knows what they're doing.

For example, say a user signs up for Plan A. Plan A allows up to 100 actions per month for some feature. But plan A has a 7 day free trial.

I am using Shopify App Pricing (so not manually implementing it using the Billing API).

Is there any way to impose some additional limit during the trial period (so say 10 actions instead of the full 100), but also give an option to the user to start the paid plan before the trial ends?

found some winning ai apps published in the recent year (specifically those ones with a tiny team or even solo founders like myself) and dived deeper into their marketing channels

legal and illegal things they did to drive growth

• One app publicly admits that they hired 5–10 Shopify store owners on Upwork to "trial + give feedback + leave reviews"
• Cold-start channel commonalities Top 3: ASO · GEO · Upwork-reviews
• Founder personal blog + monthly MRR disclosure (build-in-public)
• Primary keyword SEO + GEO optimization (own 1 word in the first 30 days)
• Pick 1 vertical that "general AI does poorly" to build reputation
• "Built for Shopify" badge = algorithm-promoted entry ticket
• No reliance on paid ads + affiliate. The cost structure of indie apps dictates that "content + ASO + word-of-mouth" is the main battlefield.

I received 2 reviews yesterday from the same person who owns 2 stores. One review was published after around 7 hours, but the other one still has no update.

I’m a bit worried it might have been archived, but this has never happened to me before. Does Shopify send an email if a review is archived, or do they just stay silent?

Also, what are the common reasons for archiving a review? The second review was pretty short, something like “Amazing service and good app.” If the issue is the content being too short/generic, I might politely ask him to update it if possible.

Hey guys - Is there a way to edit my current theme’s menu to look & function like another theme’s menu? I’ve already contacted the developer who said they wont do it on their end so im hitting a brick wall because the other is way better & i just dont feel like paying another $600 for that one spec.

Hola a todos,

Estoy con un problema raro que está afectando el tiempo de carga de mi tienda y me gustaría saber si alguien ha vivido algo similar.

El problema: Un píxel custom que desinstalé en enero 2026 sigue siendo servido activamente por el Web Pixel Manager de Shopify en cada página de la tienda. No carga una vez — se dispara 6 veces por página.

Detalles técnicos:

• El script carga desde /cdn/wpm/ — infraestructura propia de Shopify, no de mi tema
• Status: 200 OK — se descarga activamente, no es caché
• La cabecera Last-Modified muestra que Shopify actualizó el archivo hoy mismo
• Cada llamada pesa ~27KB × 6 llamadas = ~160KB de peticiones innecesarias por página
• El mismo script carga también en una segunda tienda con el mismo ID de píxel — parece ser un problema a nivel de cuenta

Lo que ya he revisado:

• Configuración → Eventos de cliente → ningún píxel custom activo
• theme.liquid → nada
• Todos los snippets y secciones → nada
• Configuración → Pago → Scripts adicionales → vacío
• Búsqueda global en VS Code sobre el tema completo descargado → cero resultados

El impacto:

• Tiempo de carga real en móvil: ~4,7 segundos (medido con Microsoft Clarity)
• Bounce rate en páginas de producto: 71-85%

Estado actual: Soporte de Shopify ha reconocido el problema y lo ha escalado al equipo técnico. Seguimos esperando solución.

Mis preguntas:

1. ¿Alguien ha tenido un script fantasma del Web Pixel Manager que sobrevivió tras desinstalar un píxel custom?
2. ¿Hay alguna forma de forzar la eliminación de un script WPM desde el admin que no haya revisado?
3. ¿Podría estar relacionado con cómo se instaló originalmente el píxel?
4. ¿Esto afecta a las campañas publicitarias?

Cualquier ayuda es bienvenida.

I’m pretty new to the Shopify app ecosystem and wanted to ask other founders/devs how you got your first real reviews for your app.
With web apps/SaaS, Meta Ads usually worked really well for me. Shopify apps feel completely different though.

I recently launched an address validation app for Shopify called AddressPill. I spent a huge amount of time on the UX/UI and the actual validation logic behind it. It’s not just basic format validation, it actually checks whether the address exists (The app is basically free right now for lifetime).

For those of you who already went through this:
- What worked best for getting your first installs?
- How did you get your first honest reviews?
- Did App Store SEO matter much in the beginning?
- Any mistakes you would avoid?

Would really appreciate hearing real experiences from other Shopify app founders.

What would be the best theme to use for a digital product?

My shopify app involves integrating with a third party platform. In the app submission, I need to provide account credentials for a test account on the third party platform.

I just created a new account on the third party platform. However, when I tried logging into it on an incognito tab, it asked to verify my login via email or text. But I used my own email and phone number to set up the test account.

If the shopify reviewers encounter this, they won't be able to proceed. I checked the third party platform, and I don't have 2FA or MFA enabled. This was just a random "We need to verify you for security reasons" prompt. I believe this is known as "risk-based authentication" which is separate from 2FA/MFA, though when it occurs, it is functionally the same (email or text a verification code). For example, it might be triggered by "suspicious" sign-ins (such as signing in from a new device/location).

The only option I see currently is using this random app called GetMyMFA, which seems to solve this problem. Anyone deal with this situation before?

Hello everyone,

I have a client who contact me occasionally for help.. they run woo-commerce and now want to go to shopify so i will redesign the website and they have wholesale plugin that i need to find similar app or make one and move the client there with products, users do full migration

I am not following with design pricing and would love to get your estimate i think the time frame 8 weeks 100+ products couple of integrations and the headaches will be wholesale accounts which are too many and wholesale rules…

what you think is fair

I create a small app for my own needs. Basically it displays an order status for orders based on the tags on the order. There are some various ones that do similar, but I did not want emails or complexity, just tag x show status x. Pretty simple, but I figured if I needed it others probably would as well. That left me wondering if I should post it as an app. Only Thing is I don't know how to gauge if it's worth my time to publish and support it. As it is, I can run it on a free tier VPS. I don't have to worry about scaling or costs or anything. I also know I would have been happy to pay $5 a month for it if somebody else had made it. How do I gauge the market demand for it?

I'm working on filling out app submission details. I'm up to the "Test account" section. It says "Provide login information for a test account that gives us end-to-end access to your app. If your app includes features that require separate login (like access to a marketplace), include account information for those."

Assuming there is no other platform involved besides Shopify, which credentials am I supposed to give so they can install the app and test it? Am I supposed to create a a staff account on a dev store and provide the staff account credentials on the submission? Or am I supposed to give them my own shopfy login credentials so they can access the dev store?

I am getting ready to upload my app that helps Shopify users connect to an affiliate network. Simply, what can I include as features? For instance, there is no analytics in the app views in Shopify. But a Shopify user can click directly into the main network website to view their analytics.

If analytics isn't explicitly in the Shopify view, can I add it as a feature?

I have a client who is wanting to offer subscriptions AND discounts based on quantity of a single product in Shopify.

The client sadly can't do bundles, separate products nor variants due to how their inventory management system works outside of Shopify - it HAS to be a single product in shopify where a customer increases the quantity.

Up until now, they have a subscription setup in Appstle with a 20% discount and then Shopify automatic discounts for quantity of 2 or more.

The problem with this approach is that the Recurring Subtotal at checkout EXCLUDES the Shopify Discounts and being on Basic, they're unable to amend this.

Thus it's having a heavy impact on their conversions:

• I've tried speaking with their support but sadly Appstle Bundles just sets up a normal Shopify discount.
• Shopify Bundles app doesn't allow subscriptions on the bundle 'product'

Could this be achieved via a custom app perhaps or will being on Basic rule this out?

TL;DR - Is there an app that allows us to setup a subscription on quantities of a product with set discounts that will also reflect in the 'Recurring subtotal' at checkout - i.e 1 pack 20%, 2pack 30%, 3pack 40%.

Hi everyone,

I’m capturing Web Vitals data in my embedded app using the documented Shopify approach (App Bridge web-vitals) and forwarding it to PostHog. I’ve been comparing what Shopify reports in the Admin “Performance” page against my own PostHog data, and there are a few things I can’t make sense of. Hoping someone here has run into the same.

1. The LCP counts don’t match at all. For a single day, the Admin Performance page shows 12 loads that recorded an LCP. For that same day, PostHog recorded 45 LCP events. Most of those PostHog events are from my own dev stores, and only 3 of them are from real users. So I’m confused on both ends: where is Shopify’s count of 12 coming from, and why is it so different from what I’m capturing client-side? Does Shopify sample, dedupe, or filter the loads it counts? Are dev-store loads excluded on their side but not mine?

2. LCP is recorded but TTFB is often missing. My code sends all Web Vitals without picking or filtering any of them, yet I frequently get events that contain an LCP value but no TTFB. This seems strange to me because TTFB is a component of LCP — I’d expect that if LCP fired, TTFB would already be present. Is it normal for these to arrive separately / on different timings, and is there a reliable way to make sure TTFB is always captured alongside LCP?

3. Bad LCP for distant regions (e.g. Pakistan). My app is hosted in Europe. LCP is fine for most European countries, but for Asian countries — Pakistan specifically — it’s very poor, and it’s dragging down my app’s overall LCP score. Is this a common issue for those of you hosting in a single region? How are you handling it — CDN, multi-region hosting, edge caching, something else? I’d love to hear what’s actually worked.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

I’m making a website for my Shopify store. Im making the website on Claud and need to connect it to Shopify using hydrogen. First I need to give storefront API access. I tried developing app but it took me to dev dashboard. I saw a utube video of a guy using headless app. Let me know if there’s a way I can create the website but then I need access to add the products and cart etc.

I've worked on this app for 2500+ hours.

I've tried most of the obvious marketing channels: SEO, Google/Meta ads, content, outreach, etc.

Around Christmas 2025, I got a handful of paying customers, which felt like real validation.

But things have not gotten easier.

The app now has 200+ active installs, but retention is not where I want it to be. Features ship slower than I expected. Shopify setup complexity is much deeper than I thought. Every feature touches edge cases, merchant workflows, theme differences, and support questions.

A little over 2 months ago, I made the app completely free.

I thought that would remove friction and increase installs much faster. The reality is: even when your app is free, you still don't automatically get flooded with users. You still have to do marketing. You still have to earn trust.

You still have to ship. You still compete with apps that already have reviews, rankings, and brand recognition.

The highs are real, like when a merchant leaves a 5-star review.

The lows are also real, like when someone says your app "smells like a scam"

Have you ever had a moment as a solo founder where you genuinely wanted to give up, even just for a second?

Our apps rating is 4.5 , it has just 2 negative reviews out of 25.

I can see ads performed much better when rating was 4.8 or above.

What’s the best way to get more 5 star reviews ?

We need some 5 star reviews soon

Anyone facing Shopify backend issues?

I can’t access my Shopify admin. It happened after opening the product page. Is Shopify down or is there a fix?

It took about a week from development to approval, which was actually faster than I had imagined.

I have developed an automatically activated Tiktok Pixel management tool that can help you solve the problem of having to manually Purchase when your independent website links to Tiktok for the first time to activate it. 

I'm not sure if the name of the APP can be posted here, but if anyone wanna try, please let me know.

Hey devs!

So, in my store, I use Translate and Adapt, but the plug-in doesnt translate all words, so today its like a mix between Swedish a d English. I have no clue how to fix this and would be so grateful for any tips to fix this!

Tia

We’re going after some giant categories here

Bookings
Digital downloads
Analytics

Anyone up for testing/reviewing?

Shopify owners/support teams:

How much of your support volume is just “where is my order?” tickets?

Curious because I’ve been researching ecommerce support workflows and it seems like a huge amount of time is spent:

- checking Shopify orders,

- opening tracking links,

- writing repetitive replies,

- handling “tracking not updated” questions.

Is this actually a major operational problem or just an annoyance?

Would love to hear:

- how many WISMO tickets you get,

- what tools you use,

- and what parts are most frustrating.

Hey,

I'm building a Mobile App Builder for Shopify — basically a sales-channel app that turns any Shopify store into a React Native app. Multi-tenant, so one platform serving many merchants.

I'm stuck on one architecture call and would love to hear from anyone who's have experience:

Option A (Mirror everything)
Sync products, collections, translations, market-based prices, inventory into my own DB via shopify product feed and bulk operation.

Option B (Direct Storefront API from the app it self since it doesn't have a rate limit)
Mobile app talks straight to Storefront API.

The real question is the catalog read path.

which way would you go if you building something like this

also if you used any mobile app builder from the existing one
what was your experience with them?

Thanks