Shopify rebuilt Shopify Sidekick on October 28. The AI assistant in every Shopify admin can now write code, and it asks the merchant to approve each change. Before the week was out, someone on your Magento team had probably forwarded the news with one question under it.

Do we have that?

To answer it, you first need to know what Sidekick does on a normal day in a Shopify admin, and which of those jobs your own store would hand to an assistant. Some are questions about sales and stock. Others are the small changes that wait weeks in a developer queue while a peer on Shopify types the same request into a chat box. Those weeks, and the agency hours attached to them, are the stakes.

What is Shopify Sidekick?

Shopify Sidekick is the AI assistant built into the Shopify admin. You ask in plain language, and it answers questions about your store data, writes content, builds reports and automations, and drafts store changes for you to review. Sidekick is included with your Shopify plan, and its features and usage limits vary by plan.

You open Sidekick by clicking the purple glasses icon on Shopify Home or any other admin page, with no setup. Since the admin redesign announced on October 28, 2026, it also appears as a floating chat at the bottom of every page. Every staff member can use it based on their admin permissions, so a limited role sees less than the owner, and it adapts to your store’s language settings.

What Shopify says sets this AI assistant apart from a general chatbot is access: it has direct access to your Shopify data and takes action in your admin, which generic AI tools can’t do. Apps can plug in through Sidekick app extensions, so Sidekick can search an app’s data and take you to the right page in it. The details are on Shopify’s Sidekick page.

What happened to Shopify Magic?

Shopify introduced Sidekick on July 26, 2023, in its Summer ’23 Edition, as the centerpiece of Shopify Magic, its set of AI features for commerce.

Today Shopify’s pages don’t use the Magic name. shopify.com/magic shows the Sidekick page, and the Help Center groups the same features under AI-powered tools, with Sidekick listed as an AI assistant in your Shopify admin (checked November 2, 2026).

Shopify Sidekick features after the October 2026 rebuild

Since the Fall ’26 Edition on October 28, 2026, Shopify Sidekick can run calculations, write code, search the internet and remember what a merchant teaches it. It presents changes for review before applying them, and it can’t change the live store without the merchant’s approval. Canvas, for editing the whole store with Sidekick, is in early access.

What Sidekick does day to day

On a normal day, Sidekick in Shopify answers questions about your store data, such as what sold last week or what is running low. It writes content and generates images, with transparent backgrounds since October 24, 2026. It builds Shopify Flow workflows for repeated work, and since October 13, 2026, it helps you customize checkout and customer accounts. Sidekick Pulse surfaces recommendations on Shopify Home without a prompt. On the Basic, Grow, Advanced or Shopify Plus plan, it can also generate small admin apps, from a desktop browser only and within hourly and weekly limits, and those apps work only inside the admin. The Shopify Help Center lists each feature with its conditions.

What the October 2026 rebuild added

The Fall ’26 Edition, published on October 28, 2026, is the Shopify Sidekick news that reached Magento teams. Sidekick now keeps what a merchant teaches it, through skills you save and preferences it picks up, and it can write and run its own code to forecast, compare or summarize store data.

Canvas shows your entire store on one canvas so you can edit it with Sidekick, from small tweaks to full redesigns, and it is in early access. The same day’s changelog added AI-tested storefront suggestions: Sidekick stages storefront changes in a draft, tests them with AI-simulated shoppers (SimGym), then shows you the recommendation. One Help Center caveat: in some stores, Sidekick can’t run code.

What Sidekick can’t do

The Help Center lists four limits. Sidekick can’t talk to your customers or handle support conversations for you. It can’t share data from other Shopify merchants. It can’t change your live store without your approval. And it can’t edit images within a store theme or your product list.

So it is a tool for the people who run the store, and it works only in the admin. A shopper-facing chat is a different kind of tool, and our guide to AI shopping assistants covers that side.

Is there a Sidekick for Magento?

No. Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce have no assistant like Shopify Sidekick that you open in the admin and ask to change the store. Adobe’s published AI work for Commerce helps shoppers find products and helps teams write content and App Builder code. Magento stores add a Sidekick-style assistant from outside.

Magento comes in two editions, Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce, and neither includes an assistant of this kind in the admin.

Adobe’s published AI work is aimed elsewhere. The Commerce Developer Agent helps developers move existing module code to App Builder or start new App Builder development. Adobe calls it “a starting-point generator, not a fully autonomous developer,” no code generates without approval, and its page gives no release date or edition scope. Adobe’s July 2026 release notes for Commerce add Brand Concierge and semantic search for shoppers, plus Agentic Development and Agentic Authoring for teams that build storefronts and manage content.

None of these is something a merchandiser opens in the Magento admin to ask for a store change, and we found no Adobe announcement of one with a release date (checked November 2, 2026). If the gap makes you question the platform itself, our look at whether Magento is dying has the data.

What Magento stores can use instead of Sidekick

Magento alternatives to Shopify Sidekick fall into two groups. Admin chat extensions and MCP connectors read and update store data, such as products, orders and prices, inside the admin’s permissions. AI agents like Ari change the store itself, including code, themes and extensions, on a copy of the store, and a person approves each change before release.

Here is what each kind of tool can change, who signs off and what it costs (vendor pages, checked November 2, 2026).

Content generators, chatbots and AI search tools are covered in our guide to AI tools for Magento.

Admin chat extensions: Magefan AI Agent and Elsner MIRA

An admin chat extension adds a chat panel inside the Magento (Adobe Commerce) admin that reads store data and makes admin edits within the signed-in user’s role. The Magefan AI Agent uses the Claude API, costs €134 one-off with a year of support and updates, and supports Magento 2.3.0–2.4.9. It answers questions such as low-stock products or orders missing invoices, and it can create and manage products, orders, customers, price rules, CMS content, caches and indexers. It follows the user’s Magento role permissions and stops working when you close the chat window. Its page doesn’t say whether it asks for confirmation before a change.

Elsner’s MIRA costs $149 for the Community edition. It answers questions about sales, orders, inventory and customers, and it can update products, prices, stock and coupons, cancel orders, and create invoices and shipments. Every action requires explicit confirmation before it applies to your live store.

Both suit data questions and admin edits. Neither changes code or themes. Magefan is also an Ari partner, and its extensions are in the Ari marketplace.

Your own assistant through an MCP connector

The second route uses the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard that lets an assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT call tools in another system. Install a connector, and the assistant your team already pays for can read store data and, within limits, update it.

Mirasvit’s AI Agent Connector costs $149 for the first year and $90 a year after that. Nine of its tools only read data and five can change it, each marked read-only or write, so Claude, ChatGPT and other clients ask you to confirm before a write. It supports Magento 2.3 to 2.4.9.

Our own open-source Magento MCP server is free under the Open Software License 3.0, with no paid tier. Its six content tools cover CMS pages, blocks, categories, products, Hyvä CMS content and Snowdog menus, and each appears in the admin role tree, so an admin role decides what the assistant can touch. It needs Magento 2.4.4 or later.

Shopify added the same idea in its Fall ’26 Edition, with connectors that link Shopify to the AI agents merchants already use. Teams with very specific needs sometimes commission a custom agent from one of the AI agent development companies that build them.

AI agent for Magento: Ari

Ari, the AI agent for Magento, is built by scandiweb and takes the third route: it changes the store itself. A store team asks for a change in chat, in any language. Ari builds it on a copy of the store, cloned once from your repository with customer data removed, the team checks it on a preview store, and a person approves it as a pull request before any release. Ari handles frontend and backend changes, extension installs and conflicts, version upgrades and security patches, ERP, PIM and carrier integrations, content and merchandising, and full Hyvä theme and checkout rebuilds. It has no access to the live store, the servers or the live database.

Releases go through the store’s usual pipeline, on your servers and schedule, merged by your developer, your agency or Ari engineers. Ari works on Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce.

Shopify Sidekick vs Agent for Magento (Ari)

Shopify Sidekick and Ari both draft a change and wait for a person to approve it. Sidekick works inside the Shopify admin, comes with every Shopify plan and runs only on Shopify. Ari works on a copy of a Magento store, returns each change as a pull request and costs from €99 a month per store.

Seats are unlimited on every Ari plan, so marketers, managers and developers can all ask for changes.

How approval works in each

Sidekick drafts, and you review. A prepared change appears on the Store changes card in the admin, where you click Start review to check and publish it. Sidekick can’t change your live store without your approval. Ari opens a pull request in its copy of your repository, a person reads the change and its results and approves it, and your pipeline deploys it. In both, the tool drafts and a person decides.

Where each one stops

Sidekick works only on Shopify. Features and limits depend on your plan, Canvas is still in early access, Sidekick can’t talk to your customers, and in some stores it can’t run code.

Ari works only on Magento. It never touches the live store, so every release still goes through your own pipeline, and it costs a monthly fee per store where Sidekick comes with the plan. Both limits come from the platform each tool was built for.

Sidekick or a Magento AI agent: how to choose

Choose Shopify and Sidekick if you are ready to move platforms and prefer an assistant that comes with the plan. Stay on Magento and add an AI agent such as Ari if your store depends on custom code and integrations. An admin chat extension or MCP connector is enough when you mainly need answers and quick admin updates.

Choose Shopify and Sidekick if:

• You are already leaving Magento for reasons beyond AI, such as hosting or upkeep costs.
• Your catalog, checkout and integrations work with Shopify apps and settings, without custom code.
• Your team mostly needs content, reports, discounts and Shopify Flow automations.
• You prefer an assistant that comes with the platform plan.
• You can fund a re-platforming project before the assistant saves you any time.

Sidekick on its own is rarely a reason to change platforms, so weigh it with costs, hosting and features in our Magento vs Shopify comparison. If you do decide to move, our Magento to Shopify migration guide walks through the project.

Stay on Magento and add an AI agent such as Ari if:

• Your store runs on custom modules and ERP or PIM integrations.
• The work is code: extension installs, version upgrades and security patches.
• You need every change built on a copy of the store and checked on a preview store first.
• You don’t want an AI tool connected to your live store, servers or live database.
• Marketers, managers and developers all need to ask for changes, with unlimited seats.

An admin chat extension or MCP connector is enough if:

• You mainly need answers from store data, such as sales, low stock or orders missing invoices.
• Your changes are admin edits: prices, coupons, products and CMS blocks.
• Your team already uses Claude or ChatGPT and needs it connected to the store.
• You prefer a one-off or yearly extension fee to a monthly plan.

Frequently asked questions about Shopify Sidekick

Is Shopify Sidekick free?

There is no separate fee. Shopify’s Sidekick page says “Sidekick is included with your Shopify plan” and that “features and usage limits vary by plan.” Generating admin apps with Sidekick works only on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Shopify Plus plans, from a desktop browser, with hourly and weekly limits.

Why don’t I have access to Sidekick in Shopify?

Access usually depends on your staff role, your plan or your device. Every staff member can use Sidekick based on their admin permissions, so a limited role sees less. App generation needs the Basic plan or higher and a desktop browser, and newer features such as Canvas are in early access.

Is Shopify Sidekick an AI agent?

Shopify calls Sidekick an AI-powered commerce assistant, but it acts like an agent for many admin jobs: it takes action in your admin, writes and runs code and drafts store changes for your approval. The Fall ’26 Edition also lets merchants connect Shopify to the AI agents they already use, a second meaning of “Shopify AI agent.”

What is the difference between Shopify Sidekick and Shopify Magic?

Shopify introduced Sidekick on July 26, 2023, as “the centerpiece of Shopify Magic,” its set of AI features across the platform. Shopify’s current pages no longer use the Magic name: shopify.com/magic shows the Sidekick page, and the Help Center lists the same features as AI-powered tools, with Sidekick as the assistant in the admin.

Can I use Shopify Sidekick on a Magento store?

No. Sidekick runs inside the Shopify admin and works with your Shopify data, so it needs a Shopify store. A Magento (Adobe Commerce) store can get similar help from admin chat extensions and MCP connectors, which update store data, or from an AI agent for Magento, which changes code. Moving to Shopify only for Sidekick means a full re-platforming project.

Can Shopify Sidekick change my live store without asking?

No. Shopify’s Help Center says “Sidekick can’t change your live store without your approval.” Sidekick drafts the changes, and you open the Store changes card and click Start review to check and publish them. For storefront ideas, it can stage changes in a draft and test them with AI-simulated shoppers before it shows you the recommendation.

Does Magento have built-in AI like Shopify Sidekick?

Not as an admin assistant. Neither Magento Open Source nor Adobe Commerce includes an assistant you open in the admin and ask for store changes, and we found no Adobe announcement of one with a release date (checked November 2, 2026). Adobe’s published AI work for Commerce helps shoppers find products and helps teams write content and code.

What Shopify Sidekick means for Magento stores

Shopify Sidekick puts one pattern into every Shopify admin: you ask in plain language, the assistant drafts the change and a person approves it. Magento has no built-in equivalent today, but a Magento store can get the same pattern from an admin chat extension or an AI agent like Ari, without changing platforms.

The question your colleague forwarded has a plain answer. Shopify stores got a rebuilt assistant on October 28, 2026. On Magento you choose one, based on whether the work waiting in your queue is admin data or code.

Start with the list of small changes that wait on a developer today, sort it into admin edits and code changes, and match each group to the right tool. For the work that still needs people, such as a new integration or a re-platforming decision, our Magento development team can help.

If you want a second opinion on which tool fits your queue, send us the list and we will go through it with you.

The post Shopify Sidekick: What It Does and What Magento Stores Can Use Instead appeared first on scandiweb.

If your trade customers still email orders that someone retypes into Shopify, or if you’re trying to work out whether Shopify B2B can carry your price lists and payment terms without a pile of apps, this guide gives you the honest version. We build B2B stores on both Shopify and Magento, so we see where each platform does the job and where the custom work starts.

Since April 2026, Shopify B2B is no longer a Plus-only feature. Below, we cover what it includes on each plan, how company accounts, catalogs, and payment terms work, where the limits are, and when a Magento B2B build is the better fit.

What is Shopify B2B?

Shopify B2B is the set of wholesale features built into the Shopify admin. It lets you sell to business customers from the same store and checkout as your retail shoppers. Buyers belong to company accounts with their own locations, catalogs with negotiated prices, quantity rules, and payment terms such as Net 30. It runs on the Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus plans, with Plus unlocking customer-specific catalogs, deposits, and partial payments.

The model has four layers, and almost every limit in this guide comes from how they connect.

• Company: the business you sell to, such as a retailer or a contractor
• Company location: a branch, store, or warehouse of that company, each with its own addresses, catalogs, payment terms, tax settings, and checkout rules
• Customer: a person who buys on behalf of a location, with a role that controls what they can do
• Catalog: the products and prices a location can see, built from a price list and a product publication

Most settings belong to the location, which suits buyers with many branches. A hardware chain with 40 stores can give its head office Net 60 and its franchise stores card payment at checkout, all under one company record. You can run B2B inside your retail store (a “blended” store) or as a separate store for wholesale only, using Shopify’s Trade theme, which can hide prices from visitors who aren’t logged in.

Shopify B2B vs Shopify Plus B2B: what each plan includes

On 2 April 2026, Shopify extended native B2B to the Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans at no extra cost. Before that, Shopify Plus B2B was the only native option, and most guides you’ll find still say so. Starter and Retail plans don’t include B2B.

The three-catalog cap applies across all your B2B markets, so on a non-Plus plan you get three price tiers in total, such as “trade”, “distributor”, and “key accounts”. On these plans, catalogs attach to B2B markets, and a single company can’t get a catalog of its own. If every customer has their own negotiated prices, Shopify B2B without Plus won’t hold them. The non-Plus catalog features also require the new Shopify Markets setup.

Plus removes the cap and lets you assign a catalog straight to one company location, which is how customer-specific pricing works on Shopify. For the wider differences in fees, checkout, and expansion stores, see our comparison of Shopify vs Shopify Plus, and check Shopify’s pricing page for the current Plus fee.

Company accounts and buyer roles

Company accounts are where Shopify B2B wholesale starts. You create a company in the admin, invite buyers by email, or let them apply through a request form on your store. Existing retail customers and their order history can be moved into a company, which helps when trade buyers have been ordering through your normal checkout with discount codes.

How companies, locations, and buyers fit together

Each company can have up to 10,000 locations and 10,000 customers. Each location can have up to 50 customers with permissions on it. The 50-buyer cap rarely matters for a small wholesaler, but it does for a national account where every site manager orders for the same distribution center.

Buyers sign in through Shopify’s customer accounts, and that login is what shows them wholesale prices, their catalogs, and their payment terms. If you use a corporate login provider, Shopify supports third-party identity providers through OpenID Connect.

Buyer roles and order approvals

As of October 2026, Shopify has two B2B buyer roles per location.

• Ordering only: places orders for the location and sees their own orders, which is the default for a new contact
• Location admin: places orders, sees every order for the location, edits its shipping and billing addresses, reorders, and submits returns

There are no custom buyer roles. You can’t create a “requester” who builds a cart for a manager to approve, or a finance user who sees invoices without ordering. Shopify’s developer community has an open feature request for custom roles, and Shopify staff have acknowledged the gap.

Approvals work at the merchant level instead. You can set a location to “Submit all orders as drafts for review”, and its buyers then see a “Submit for approval” button at checkout instead of paying. In this flow your team approves the order. If the buyer’s own manager has to sign off first, you need an app or custom work.

How Shopify B2B pricing works: catalogs and price lists

Shopify B2B pricing runs through catalogs. A catalog sets which products a company location can see and what it pays, using either an overall percentage adjustment, such as 30% off retail, or fixed prices per product or variant. Fixed prices override the percentage. When a location has several catalogs that price the same product, the buyer sees the lowest price.

In the API, every catalog has one price list and one product publication, and a location can carry up to 25 catalogs. A buyer who qualifies for a “distributor” catalog and a “spring promotion” catalog gets whichever price is lower. If your contract says a key account pays a fixed net price that never stacks with promotions, Shopify won’t enforce that by itself. You have to design the catalogs so the overlap never happens.

The other pricing tools stack on top of catalogs.

• Quantity rules: a minimum, maximum, or increment per variant, such as cases of 12
• Volume pricing: up to 10 price breaks per product within a catalog, such as $8 each from 100 units
• B2B discounts: automatic discounts or codes limited to B2B markets, and custom discount logic through Shopify Functions
• Price lists by CSV: fixed prices import and export per catalog, which is how most teams load prices from an ERP before an integration exists

Most wholesalers keep their prices in an ERP. Once you pass a few thousand fixed prices that change every month, the CSV routine becomes a weekly chore, and that’s the point where teams connect the ERP to Shopify’s B2B APIs. Our Shopify integrations work usually starts with exactly that price sync.

Payment terms, net terms, and draft orders

Shopify B2B payment terms are set per company location: due immediately, Net 7, 15, 30, 45, 60, or 90, or due on fulfillment. Terms start on the day the order is placed. Draft orders can also use a fixed due date. Buyers can pay early from their customer account, and unpaid orders turn overdue when the terms run out.

What the payment settings do and don’t do

Three details catch finance teams out.

• Nothing is charged automatically when terms expire. If a buyer has a card saved on file, your team still charges it manually in the admin
• There’s no native credit limit. Shopify doesn’t stop a buyer on Net 30 from placing a new order while an old one is overdue, so credit control stays in your ERP, an app, or a manual check
• Deposits are Plus only. A percentage deposit at checkout, or on a draft order, needs Shopify Plus, and it’s calculated on the subtotal only

Payment reminders on the due date run through Shopify Flow. ACH payments are available in the US. If terms should change by order value or cart contents, you can build that with the Payment Customization Function or a third-party app.

Shopify draft orders as quotes

Shopify has no quote-request button. Draft orders do that job. A sales rep creates a draft for a company location, sets a custom price on any line, locks the prices, and sends it as an invoice. The buyer pays by card or accepts the terms, and the draft becomes an order. Price locks keep the quoted prices fixed even if the catalog changes, though they don’t work on product bundles.

The “checkout to draft” setting from the roles section turns any cart into a draft for review, which covers “send us your order and we’ll confirm prices and freight”. It doesn’t cover back-and-forth negotiation in the storefront, where a buyer asks for a better price on 500 units and your team counters. That workflow needs a quote app or custom development on top of draft orders.

Where Shopify B2B runs out

The native feature set covers standard wholesale well: tiered prices, case quantities, net terms, reorders, and a clean checkout. It runs out at the edges that make B2B different from retail, mainly per-customer pricing at scale, negotiation, buyer-side approvals, credit control, and ERP-owned catalogs.

Two of these come up in nearly every B2B project on Shopify that we scope. The first is per-customer pricing on a non-Plus plan, which usually decides the plan. The second is the ERP. If customer accounts, price agreements, and stock live in an ERP, Shopify becomes the ordering layer on top of it, and the integration is the real project.

The old Shopify Plus Wholesale channel closed on 30 April 2024, so any setup guide that still mentions “the wholesale channel” describes a retired product.

How teams fill the gaps: apps, Functions, and ERP integration

Most B2B stores on Shopify close the gaps with a mix of four kinds of tools. The right mix depends on how much of your B2B logic you want inside Shopify.

1. Shopify B2B apps add quotes, credit limits, buyer portals, and registration flows. They’re the fastest route, but each one adds a monthly fee and its own data model, so check how they handle catalogs and company locations before you install two that overlap
2. Shopify Functions replace the retired Scripts for discounts, payment methods, delivery options, and cart validation. Use them for rules like “hide Net 60 for orders under $2,000” or “block checkout below the case quantity”
3. Checkout and customer account extensions change what buyers see, such as a custom approval screen or an account page that shows open invoices from your ERP
4. ERP integration syncs companies, locations, catalogs, prices, stock, and orders through Shopify’s B2B APIs, either with a connector or a custom service. Our guide to eCommerce ERP integration covers how to scope it

Our advice is to keep the source of truth where it already is, usually the ERP, and let Shopify display prices and collect orders based on what the ERP decides. Teams that rebuild ERP pricing logic in Shopify apps end up maintaining it twice. When the fill list grows past a few apps and a pricing sync, it’s worth scoping it as a Shopify development project before launch rather than adding pieces after it.

Shopify B2B vs Magento B2B: who should choose which

Choose Shopify B2B when your wholesale model is close to standard: tiered or customer-specific prices, case quantities, net terms, and buyers who mostly reorder. Choose Magento, in practice Adobe Commerce with its B2B module, when buyers negotiate quotes in the storefront, companies need custom roles and approval chains, or you need company credit lines inside the platform.

Adobe Commerce covers more of the B2B workflow natively, which our overview of Adobe Commerce B2B features walks through feature by feature. You pay for that in license, hosting, and development cost. Shopify gives you less B2B logic but takes hosting, security patches, and checkout upkeep off your team.

Choose Shopify B2B if

• You sell to a few price tiers, or to named accounts you can fit into Plus catalogs
• Your buyers mostly reorder known products at agreed prices
• You run retail and wholesale from the same catalog and want one admin
• Credit control and invoicing already happen in your ERP or accounting system
• You’d rather not run hosting, upgrades, and security patches yourself

Choose Magento B2B if

• Your buyers negotiate prices on large orders in the storefront
• Customer companies need their own roles, budgets, and approval chains
• You extend credit lines and want them enforced at checkout
• Your catalog, pricing, or ordering flow depends on custom logic your competitors don’t have
• You already run Magento with deep ERP integration that works

If you’re on Magento today and weighing the move, our guide to Magento to Shopify migration covers costs, data, and how to decide. If the answer is to stay, our Magento B2B development team builds and extends Adobe Commerce B2B stores.

Frequently asked questions about Shopify B2B

Is Shopify B2B only available on Shopify Plus?

No. Since 2 April 2026, it’s available on the Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus plans. Non-Plus plans get company accounts, up to three B2B catalogs, quantity rules, volume pricing, and payment terms. Plus adds unlimited catalogs, catalogs assigned to individual company locations, deposits, and partial payments. Starter and Retail plans don’t include B2B.

How much does Shopify B2B cost?

There’s no separate fee for B2B. The features are included in your Shopify plan, from Basic up to Plus, and Shopify’s pricing page lists the current plan fees. The real costs are usually elsewhere: B2B apps for quotes or credit limits, an ERP integration, and Plus itself if you need customer-specific pricing.

Can Shopify B2B handle quotes?

Partly. Shopify has no native quote-request button, but draft orders work as quotes. Your team sets custom line prices, locks them, and sends the draft as an invoice the buyer can pay or accept on terms. For buyers to request and negotiate quotes in the storefront, you need a quote app or custom development.

Can you sell B2B and B2C on one Shopify store?

Yes. A blended store serves retail shoppers and logged-in business buyers from the same storefront, catalog, and checkout. B2B buyers see their own catalogs, prices, and payment terms after they log in. On Advanced and Plus, you can also show different content and checkout options to B2B buyers.

Does Shopify B2B support credit limits?

No, not natively. Shopify supports net payment terms, but it doesn’t track a credit limit or block new orders when a buyer has overdue invoices. Merchants usually handle credit control in their ERP or accounting system and connect it to Shopify, or add a B2B app that checks credit before checkout.

Can Shopify B2B connect to an ERP?

Yes. Shopify’s B2B APIs let an ERP create and update companies, locations, catalogs, fixed prices, payment terms, and orders. Most wholesalers sync prices and stock from the ERP into Shopify and send orders back. You can use a ready-made connector for common ERPs or build a custom integration for ERPs with unusual pricing logic.

Is Shopify B2B enough for your wholesale business?

Shopify B2B is now a real option on every plan from Basic to Plus, and for tiered pricing, case quantities, and net terms, it does the job without much custom work. Check three things before you commit: whether your prices are set per tier or per customer, where credit control lives, and how much of your ERP logic has to reach the storefront. The answers tell you which plan you need, which apps you’ll add, or whether Magento B2B or another Shopify alternative is the better fit. For what’s changing in wholesale buying more widely, see our B2B eCommerce trends, and once the store is live, our B2B SEO guide covers how buyers find it.

Not sure whether your price lists and terms fit Shopify B2B or need Magento? Send us how your wholesale pricing works today, and we'll tell you what each platform would need to run it.

The post Shopify B2B Explained: Features, Plan Limits, and Workarounds appeared first on scandiweb.

If you’re adding a new country and someone on the team has asked whether that means a new Shopify store, or if you already run three country stores and wonder whether Shopify Markets could fold them back into one, this guide gives you the rules to decide. Markets lets one store sell to many countries with local currencies, prices, languages, domains, and duties. Expansion stores are separate Shopify Plus stores under one organization, each with its own admin, catalog, and checkout.

Most brands should start with Markets. The ones that shouldn’t usually find out from their ERP or their catalog, months before the storefront shows a problem. Shopify updates Markets several times a year, so the plan limits below are the ones in Shopify’s help center in October 2026.

Shopify Markets or expansion stores: the short answer

Use Shopify Markets when every country sells mostly the same products, run by one team, and the differences are currency, price, language, domain, and duties. Markets handles all of those inside one store. Use expansion stores when a country needs its own catalog structure, its own apps or checkout, its own ERP company, or a team that works apart from the others. Expansion stores need Shopify Plus, which includes nine of them.

In the client conversations we track, two questions come up again and again: “Markets or a separate store per country?” and “How do we handle currencies, VAT, and languages?” The answer to the second one usually settles the first. Once you know what Markets can localize inside one store, whatever is left over is the case for a second store.

What Shopify Markets handles inside one store

Shopify Markets groups customers by country or region, B2B company, retail location, or sales channel, and changes what each group sees. Inside one store you can set local currencies, catalogs with adjusted or fixed prices, languages, a domain or subfolder, and how duties and taxes appear at checkout. Creating regional markets is free on every Shopify plan. A few settings, such as a different theme per market, need the Advanced or Plus plan.

Each market has conditions (who it applies to) and customizations (what they see). A submarket, such as Germany inside a Europe market, inherits its parent’s settings and can override them. Shoppers who match no market get your backup region, which is your store’s home country by default, according to Shopify’s Markets overview.

Currencies and prices across markets

To charge shoppers in their own currency, your store has to use Shopify Payments or Adyen. With any other payment provider, customers pay in your store currency. Automatic exchange rates follow the market rate and build Shopify’s conversion fee, 1.5% or 2% depending on where your store is based, into the price the shopper sees. Manual rates hold a price in place and take the fee from your payouts instead. Rounding turns a converted €9.73 into €10.00, per Shopify’s currency guide.

Exchange rates don’t set your price positioning. Catalogs do. A catalog decides which products a market can buy and lets you raise or lower every price in it by a percentage. You can then set a fixed price on individual products, which is how a €49 price in Germany and a £45 price in the UK stay put when the exchange rate moves.

Duties, taxes, and VAT

Each market has its own tax display. Shopify can show tax-inclusive prices where shoppers expect them, such as the EU and Australia, and add tax at checkout in the US and Canada. Before Shopify collects VAT or sales tax for a market, you need to add your tax registration for the regions in it. Markets calculates and displays the tax, and the registration and filing stay with you.

Duties are also set per market. You can add them at checkout as a line item, or include them in your prices and absorb them. Accurate estimates need an HS code and a country of origin on every product. Calculating duties at checkout carries a transaction fee: temporarily 0.5% since February 2, 2025, against a standard 0.85% when Shopify Payments is your main gateway and 1.5% with other providers, according to Shopify’s duties guide.

Domains, subfolders, and languages

Every market can run on a subfolder (yourstore.com/de/), a subdomain (de.yourstore.com), or its own domain (yourstore.de). You can sell in up to 20 languages on Basic, Grow, and Advanced, and up to 30 on Plus. Shopify’s Translate & Adapt app machine-translates up to two languages for free and lets you change copy per market, for example British and American spelling.

Shopify’s language requirements list two limits that catch teams out. Product, article, and blog tags can’t be translated. URL slugs can be translated per language but can’t be customized per market, so Germany and Austria on German share the same product URLs.

B2B markets

B2B markets group company locations, so a wholesale buyer in France can see a different catalog from a retail shopper in France. On Basic, Grow, and Advanced you can assign up to 3 active catalogs across all your B2B markets, and Plus removes that cap. If your wholesale pricing runs on dozens of customer-specific price lists, that cap decides your plan before it decides your store setup.

What Shopify Managed Markets adds

Managed Markets, the product formerly called Markets Pro, makes Global-e the merchant of record in the countries you turn on. As the legal seller, Global-e collects and pays duties and taxes, so you don’t need a tax registration in each country, and it adds local payment methods. It’s open to merchants based in the continental US and to certain stores in Canada and the UK.

Since August 24, 2026, Managed Markets no longer supports delivered duty unpaid (DDU) in countries where it supports delivered duty paid (DDP), according to Shopify’s changelog. Shoppers in those countries now pay duties at checkout instead of to the carrier. Shopify’s own pages quote different Managed Markets fees, so confirm the current rate with Shopify before you model margins.

Where one store with Markets stops working

One store with Markets stops working when countries need different things behind the storefront. The usual breaking points are regional catalogs with a different structure, apps or checkout logic that must differ by country, an ERP that runs each country as a separate company, and regional teams that need their own admin. Differences in price, language, and currency alone rarely justify a second store.

Start with the catalog. Markets can hide products and change prices, but every market shares the same products, variants, options, and metafields. If your EU range uses different variant structures, product data, or compliance fields than your US range, one store forces a single catalog model on both ranges.

Apps and checkout come next. Apps are installed once per store, so if the US needs a subscription app and Europe needs a different invoicing app, one store means running both for everyone and configuring around them. A theme customized per market needs Advanced or Plus, and checkout blocks per market need Plus.

The back office is where most decisions are made. Many ERP setups run one company per country, and each company expects its own sales channel. On Plus, business entities let a different legal entity take payment in each market from one store, which solves payouts. Orders, stock, and invoices still have to land in the right ERP company, and that mapping is integration work in either setup. Our ERP integration guide covers how to scope it.

Teams are the last test. Shopify has no per-market staff permissions, so anyone who can edit markets can edit all of them. A regional team that should only touch its own prices and content has no clean boundary in a single store.

When Shopify expansion stores make sense

Shopify expansion stores make sense when a country or channel needs its own catalog, apps, checkout, or team, and running another store costs less than bending one store around that need. On Shopify Plus, an organization can run one main store and nine expansion stores with no extra platform fee. Shopify pre-approves international stores, B2B wholesale stores, and physical retail stores as expansion store types.

Each expansion store has its own settings, configuration, and storefront, while users and billing stay at the organization level. When you create one, you can import data such as products from another store in your organization. According to Shopify’s expansion store guide, that import is only possible at creation. After that you manage each store’s data yourself, which in practice means a PIM, an ERP, or a sync app.

Shopify Plus costs $2,300 per month on a three-year term or $2,500 on a one-year term, and every store beyond the ten included adds $300 per month, per Shopify’s Plus pricing. Our Shopify vs Shopify Plus guide covers what else changes when you upgrade.

What running multiple Shopify stores costs

The platform fee is the small part. Every store adds its own app subscriptions, theme releases, product and price updates, tracking setup, and checks before each campaign. A change that takes one release on a store with Markets takes one per store, unless your theme is built once and deployed to all of them.

Search adds a cost too. Each store on its own domain builds its own authority, and you add the hreflang between stores yourself, as the SEO section below explains.

Can you have multiple Shopify stores without Plus?

Yes, but each store needs its own subscription. Outside Plus, store owners can group stores into an organization for shared management. Plus stores use expansion stores under one contract instead, according to Shopify’s store grouping guide.

International SEO with Shopify Markets: hreflang, domains, and redirects

Shopify Markets generates hreflang tags automatically for every market that has its own subfolder, subdomain, or domain, plus an x-default tag that points to your primary domain. It also sets self-referencing canonical URLs and adds every market URL to your sitemap. Separate expansion stores don’t get this across stores, so hreflang between them has to be added in each theme or with an app.

Shopify’s international SEO guide recommends subfolders for most stores, because they share your primary domain’s authority and need no extra domains. Country domains send the strongest local signal, but each one has to earn its rankings separately. Some search engines treat subdomains as separate sites.

After launch, check these settings in the theme and in Search Console.

• Hreflang only appears for markets with a distinct URL, so a market that shares your main URL gets none
• Turning off automatic hreflang to use your own can hurt SEO, and running both creates duplicate tags
• Shoppers are redirected by IP address and browser language, while known search engine crawlers get the URL they asked for

Redirects that trap shoppers in the wrong country cause the problems we cover in why forced GEO IP redirects are bad for SEO, so keep the country and language switcher visible. Our guide to hreflang and canonical tags for international stores goes deeper into the tag rules.

How to choose between Shopify Markets and expansion stores

Start with one store and Markets, and add an expansion store only for the country or channel that fails a specific test: a different catalog structure, a different app or checkout setup, a separate ERP company that can’t share a sales channel, or a team that must work on its own. Most brands selling the same range in several countries stay on one store. Brands with regional ranges or a wholesale operation often run one store per region.

Choose Shopify Markets if

• You sell mostly the same products in every country
• Your differences are currency, price, language, domain, and duties
• One team runs merchandising and content for all markets
• Your ERP can take orders from every country through one sales channel
• You want Shopify to handle hreflang and market sitemaps

Choose Shopify expansion stores if

• Your regional ranges differ in variants, product data, or compliance fields
• A region needs apps or checkout logic the others shouldn’t run
• Each country is a separate ERP company that needs its own sales channel
• Regional teams need their own admin and release schedule
• You run a wholesale store that shares products but not the buying experience

If your answers split down the middle, our Shopify consulting team can run an architecture review that maps your catalog and ERP against each market before you commit.

Frequently asked questions about Shopify Markets

What is Shopify Markets?

Shopify Markets is the part of the Shopify admin where you group customers by country, B2B company, retail location, or sales channel, and change what each group sees. Each market can have its own currency, catalog and prices, languages, domain or subfolder, and duty and tax settings, all inside one store. Creating regional markets is free on every Shopify plan.

Is Shopify Markets free?

Creating regional markets is free on all Shopify plans, but selling through them has costs. Shopify Payments adds a 1.5% or 2% fee when it converts currency, and calculating duties at checkout carries a transaction fee. Translate & Adapt machine-translates two languages for free, Managed Markets charges its own per-order fee, and some market settings need the Advanced or Plus plan.

Is Shopify Managed Markets worth it?

Managed Markets is worth it when you want to sell into many countries without registering for tax in each one. Global-e becomes the merchant of record and handles duties, taxes, and local payment methods for you. It costs more per order than running Markets yourself, and it’s only open to merchants based in the continental US and certain stores in Canada and the UK.

How many expansion stores do you get with Shopify Plus?

A Shopify Plus organization can have ten stores on its contract with no extra platform fee: one main store and nine expansion stores. Staging stores don’t count toward the limit. Each store beyond ten costs $300 per month or a revenue share. Shopify pre-approves international, B2B wholesale, and physical retail stores as expansion store types.

Does Shopify Markets handle hreflang automatically?

Yes. Shopify generates hreflang tags for every market that has its own subfolder, subdomain, or domain, adds an x-default tag for your primary domain, and includes market URLs in your sitemap. Markets that share your main URL get no hreflang. Separate expansion stores don’t link to each other automatically, so cross-store hreflang has to be added in the theme or with an app.

Can I move from separate Shopify stores to one store with Markets?

Yes, but plan it as a migration. Pick the store that stays, bring the other stores’ products, customers, and translations into it, and set each former country store up as a market with its own subfolder or domain. Then map a 301 redirect from every old URL to its new address before you switch, so the rankings each store earned carry over.

Choosing your Shopify Markets setup

For most brands, the right Shopify Markets setup is one store with a market per country or region. Expansion stores earn their running cost when the catalog, apps, ERP company, or team behind a country has to be different. Write down what each country needs before deciding, and plan the URL structure and hreflang with the first market.

If you’re moving off Magento with several store views, our Magento to Shopify migration guide covers what you rebuild on the way. For the business questions that come before any platform setup, read our article on factors to consider before international expansion.

Planning a new country, or wondering whether your country stores should be one? Tell us what each market needs, and we'll tell you which setup fits.

The post Shopify Markets vs Expansion Stores: How to Sell in Multiple Countries appeared first on scandiweb.

You have a Magento upgrade quote in your inbox, and someone in the last leadership meeting asked why you don’t just move to Shopify. Both answers cost real money, and neither is easy to undo once the work starts. This guide walks through the Magento to Shopify migration decision the way we walk clients through it. It covers when moving pays off and when the upgrade is the better spend, what each path costs over three years, and which data survives the trip.

We build and support stores on both Magento and Shopify, so this guide doesn’t lean toward either one. The aim is to help you pick the platform you’ll still be happy on in 2029.

Magento upgrade or Magento to Shopify migration: the short answer

Upgrade Magento when your store runs on custom B2B pricing or deep ERP workflows, and your real complaints are speed and the cost of small changes, because both can now be fixed without replatforming. Choose a Magento to Shopify migration when your catalog and checkout are close to standard retail and you want to stop owning hosting and upgrades. In exchange, you accept Shopify’s data model and a monthly app bill.

Before comparing platforms, name what you are trying to get away from. That list decides most of this. If you want a feature-by-feature view, our Magento vs Shopify comparison covers it. This article stays on the decision in front of you.

Why the upgrade quote is the moment to decide

Most merchants don’t wake up wanting to replatform. In the client conversations we track, “should we just move to Shopify?” comes up most often in the weeks after an upgrade estimate lands.

Adobe gives each Magento 2.4 release three years of standard support, and several releases are running out close together, according to Adobe’s lifecycle policy.

If you’re on 2.4.6, the clock is already running. Our Magento upgrade guide puts a minor version jump at $3,000–$8,000 over 2–4 weeks, and a major jump with an extension audit at $15,000–$40,000 over 4–8 weeks. On a store with years of customization, that second number is the one that makes people open a Shopify tab.

What merchants are really trying to fix

When we ask what the move to Shopify should solve, the answers almost always come from four complaints.

• A slow storefront, especially on category and search pages under load
• Small changes that take days and come with an invoice
• Upgrades and security patches that eat the budget meant for growth
• Owning hosting, uptime, PCI scope, and the on-call schedule that comes with them

Each of these is a real problem. The first three can be fixed on Magento, and managed hosting takes care of much of the fourth.

The option most migration guides skip: keep Magento and fix what’s driving you away

You can now fix Magento’s two most common complaints, speed and the cost of change, on the store you already run. Expedio makes the Magento backend at least twice as fast without touching your theme or data. Ari, scandiweb’s AI agent for Magento, handles upgrades, patches, and store changes from a chat. Expedio’s core is free and open source, and Ari starts at €99 a month, so both sit far below a replatform budget.

Migration guides written by Shopify apps and agencies rarely mention this path, for the obvious reason that they sell the other one.

A faster Magento storefront with Expedio

Speed is the reason merchants give most often for looking at Shopify, and the data backs them up. In HTTP Archive data from August 2026, only 22% of Magento sites met Google’s “good” threshold for time to first byte, against 82–92% of Shopify sites, as our Ari team reported.

Expedio goes after that gap on the Magento side. It changes how Magento builds each page on the server, using Liquid, the same template language behind Shopify themes. Hyvä, Luma, and custom themes keep their design. The Expedio packages range from the free core to a full implementation with 2x speed guaranteed by contract.

We tested it on one merchant’s Hyvä store with about 1,000 categories and 20,000 products. In that Expedio benchmark, the store on Expedio delivered these results.

• At least 2x faster on every page type at peak traffic, and up to 25.9x faster on the homepage
• 6.4x faster at the median across eight page types
• 3x more traffic handled on the same server
• 30 database queries on a full category page, down from 655

The test measured server response time, not full page load, and left cart and checkout out. Meet Expedio explains how we built it.

Faster upgrades and changes with Ari

The second reason people leave is what every change costs. Ari takes a request in plain language, builds it on a preview copy of your store, and waits for a person on your team to approve it before anything goes live. On scandiweb’s public demo store in August 2026, Ari applied and checked a security patch in 9 minutes. It upgraded 2.4.6 to 2.4.7 in 38 minutes, and moved a heavily customized 2.4.4 store to 2.4.9 in 2 hours 10 minutes.

Those timings come from a demo store, and a real store with abandoned extensions will take longer. Even so, an upgrade that takes hours changes the upgrade math above. Why we built an agent for Magento explains the review and approval model.

What staying looks like in practice

Gear-Up, an electronics retailer in Dubai, stayed on Magento. A previous partner had failed at its Magento 2 migration, and the store carried more than ten years of Magento 1 order history and seven currencies with their own rounding rules. We moved it to Magento 2 with a Hyvä frontend and launched in an 8-hour window. Revenue grew 110.9% YoY and orders 47.7% YoY.

Read more: Case Study: Magento 2 Migration and Hyvä Frontend Improve YoY Sales by 111%

What a Magento to Shopify migration costs over three years

A Magento to Shopify migration usually costs $20,000 for a simple store and $250,000 or more for a B2B store with ERP integrations, based on published agency estimates. Shopify Plus adds $2,300 per month on a three-year term. Over three years, the comparison turns on four lines: the Adobe license against the Plus fee, your app stack, payment fees, and how much custom work you rebuild.

Ranges below come from our Magento pricing breakdown, our upgrade guide, and Shopify’s published Plus pricing.

The costs that decide it

The license line moves the total most. An Adobe Commerce store paying $50,000 a year for its license compares very differently from an Open Source store paying nothing. Over three years, Plus on a 3-year term comes to $82,800 before any revenue-based fee, which Shopify applies at high GMV but doesn’t publish.

Apps come next. Extensions you bought once on Magento often turn into monthly subscriptions on Shopify, and a store replacing 15 extensions can add a noticeable line to its run rate. Price the app list before anyone signs.

Payment fees matter at volume. If you keep a third-party payment provider on Plus, the 0.2% surcharge on $10 million in online revenue comes to $20,000 a year.

The last line is what you rebuild. Custom checkout steps, B2B pricing rules, and integrations are where migration quotes grow, and the next two sections show where that work comes from.

What moves in a Magento to Shopify data migration

Products, customers, orders, and content all move in a Magento to Shopify data migration, and each needs some work on the way. Product attributes need mapping, URLs change and need redirects, and orders arrive with a new import date. Customer passwords stay behind, although Shopify’s current customer accounts sign in with a one-time email code, which makes that far less of a problem than it used to be.

Can you migrate customer passwords from Magento to Shopify?

No. Magento stores passwords as one-way hashes, and Shopify can’t import them. Shopify deprecated legacy customer accounts on February 26, 2026, and new stores use accounts where shoppers sign in with their email and a one-time code. Returning customers enter the same email they used on Magento, so there is no mass password reset to manage.

Order history: import it, then check your reports

Orders come across through Shopify’s Admin API or an import app such as Matrixify, once products and customers exist. Imported orders get the import date as their creation date, and the original purchase date is stored in a separate field. Reports and integrations that filter by creation date will show years of orders landing on one day until someone fixes the filter.

What a large catalog migration looks like

J.R. Dunn, a family-owned luxury jeweler in Florida and an authorized Rolex retailer, moved from Magento 1 to Shopify with us. We migrated more than 25,000 products, 68,000 customers, 72,000 historical orders, and 1,000 categories in 6.5 months. Its 150,000+ diamonds from five vendors needed a custom app, because Shopify’s native filtering caps out far below a catalog that size. The store launched with an SEO score of 100.

Read more: Case Study: Magento 1 to Shopify Migration for a Luxury Jewelry Brand

What you rebuild when you migrate Magento to Shopify

When you migrate Magento to Shopify, you keep your data and rebuild almost everything that acts on it. Extensions become apps, custom checkout logic becomes Shopify Functions and checkout extensions, store views become Markets, and every ERP or warehouse integration gets reconnected to Shopify’s APIs.

Before anyone writes an estimate, list every Magento extension and custom module, and mark each one keep, replace, or drop. The rebuild list usually includes these items.

• Extensions with no Shopify equivalent, rebuilt as custom apps
• Custom checkout steps, rewritten as checkout extensions and Functions
• ERP, PIM, and warehouse integrations, reconnected to Shopify’s APIs (our ERP integration guide covers how to scope them)
• Multiple store views, rebuilt as Shopify Markets or separate expansion stores
• B2B price lists beyond 3 catalogs, which need Plus

The longer this list, the more of the migration budget goes into rebuilding what already works today. For B2B stores, the rebuild is also the moment to open the catalog to search engines and AI assistants, which our B2B SEO guide explains.

How to protect SEO in a Magento to Shopify migration

Protect rankings by redirecting every indexed URL that changes and carrying over titles, meta descriptions, and structured data. Load the redirects before the domain switches, then watch Search Console daily. Shopify’s own migration guide tells merchants to expect a 5–10% traffic dip in the first week and to investigate any sustained drop above 20%.

Five steps carry most of the risk.

1. Crawl the Magento store and export every indexed URL, plus your existing redirects
2. Map 301 redirects to the new Shopify paths, starting with the pages that bring the most traffic, revenue, and backlinks
3. Carry over page titles, meta descriptions, and structured data
4. Load and test the redirects on the new store before you change DNS
5. Watch Search Console coverage and your top keywords daily for the first two weeks

Our SEO migration checklist covers every check from the redirect map to the first 30 days after launch, and our guide on how to migrate to Shopify walks through the launch sequence step by step.

How to choose between a Magento upgrade and a Shopify migration

Stay on Magento and fix it when your edge comes from custom logic Shopify would make you rebuild, and your main complaints are speed and change cost. Move to Shopify when your store can run on standard features and apps, and the three-year numbers favor Plus once the rebuild list is priced. Most stores fall clearly on one side once that list is written down.

Upgrade and fix Magento if

• You sell B2B with customer-specific pricing, quotes, or more than a handful of price lists
• Your checkout or ordering flow depends on custom logic your competitors don’t have
• Your ERP integration is deep, stable, and expensive to rebuild
• Your main complaints are speed and the cost of small changes
• You run on Magento Open Source and pay no Adobe license

Migrate to Shopify if

• Your catalog, checkout, and pricing are close to standard DTC retail
• You want to stop managing hosting, patches, and version upgrades for good
• You pay an Adobe Commerce license that Plus would undercut
• Your extensions have clear Shopify app equivalents
• Your team wants to run merchandising and content without developers

If you land in the middle, an architecture review maps the rebuild list and prices both paths before you commit.

Frequently asked questions about Magento to Shopify migration

How much does it cost to migrate from Magento to Shopify?

A Magento to Shopify migration typically costs $20,000 for a simple store and $250,000 or more for a B2B store with ERP integrations, according to published agency estimates. On top of that come Shopify Plus at $2,300 per month on a three-year term, monthly app subscriptions, and the cost of rebuilding custom features. Your rebuild list moves the price more than catalog size does.

How long does a Magento to Shopify migration take?

Most mid-market migrations from Magento to Shopify take three to six months. Integrations and custom functionality stretch the timeline more than product count does. J.R. Dunn’s migration, with 150,000+ diamonds from five vendors and 72,000 historical orders, took 6.5 months. Simple stores with standard checkouts can move faster.

Will I lose SEO rankings if I move from Magento to Shopify?

You will usually see a short dip, and you shouldn’t lose rankings long term if every changed URL gets a 301 redirect and page metadata carries over. Shopify’s migration guidance treats a 5–10% traffic drop in the first week as normal. A sustained drop above 20% usually points to missing redirects or pages that dropped out of the index.

Is it cheaper to upgrade Magento or move to Shopify?

An upgrade is usually cheaper in year one: $3,000–$40,000 depending on the version jump, against $20,000–$250,000+ for a migration. Over three years, Shopify Plus can come out ahead for stores paying a high Adobe Commerce license, while Magento Open Source stores often stay cheaper. Price both paths over three years, including apps and payment fees.

Can Shopify handle B2B stores coming from Magento?

Shopify handles standard B2B well. Since April 2026, Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans include company profiles, payment terms, volume pricing, and up to three B2B catalogs, while Plus adds unlimited catalogs and catalogs assigned to specific companies. Stores with complex quoting, configurators, or ERP-driven pricing often need custom apps on Shopify, or stay on Magento.

Do I have to move to Shopify if my Magento version is end of life?

No. An unsupported Magento version means you need to upgrade, and replatforming is optional. You can move to a supported release such as 2.4.8 or 2.4.9 and keep your store and integrations. Treat end of support as the deadline to decide, then compare the upgrade quote with a full Magento to Shopify migration on cost and on what each path fixes.

Making the call

A Magento to Shopify migration makes sense when you want to stop owning the platform and your store fits Shopify’s model without heavy rebuilding. An upgrade makes sense when your custom logic is the business, and the reasons you wanted to leave can be fixed where you are. Either way, write the problem list and the rebuild list first, then price both paths over three years. If the answer is Shopify, our Magento to Shopify migration team starts with a fixed-price risk audit.

Holding an upgrade quote and a Shopify pitch at the same time? Send us both, and we'll tell you which one your store needs.

The post Magento to Shopify Migration or Upgrade: Costs, Data, and How to Decide appeared first on scandiweb.

Across 30 million Shopify sessions, Deloitte and Google found that a 0.1-second speed gain lifts sales by 8.4%. If your Shopify store loads in 4 seconds on mobile, that is the gap between the revenue you have and the revenue the same traffic could earn at 2 seconds.

This guide walks through what is actually slowing Shopify stores in 2026, how to diagnose it, and the structural fixes that move a real store from a PageSpeed score in the 20s to the high 80s. Every tip below has been used by the scandiweb Shopify team on live client work.

Overview

• The single biggest cause of slow Shopify stores in 2026 is third-party app sprawl, not the platform itself. In Chrome’s real-user data, most Shopify stores already have a good server response time, as our fastest eCommerce platform research shows.
• A good mobile PageSpeed score for a real Shopify store sits between 60 and 80, not 100.
• The fastest wins come from auditing apps, compressing images, and deferring non-critical scripts, in that order.

What slows Shopify stores in 2026

The average Shopify store now installs 15 to 20 apps, and each one can add between 100 and 500 milliseconds of JavaScript to every page load (Easy Apps eCom, 2026). The result is predictable: a default Shopify theme without customisation often scores around 70 on mobile, while the same store with a typical app stack drops into the 20s.

The four root causes the scandiweb Shopify team sees most often:

• Render-blocking app scripts that load synchronously on every page
• Hero images and homepage carousels with unoptimised file sizes
• Third-party tracking pixels firing before the main thread is free
• Legacy theme code with deprecated patterns from earlier Online Store versions

None of these are platform limitations. They are configuration problems with concrete fixes.

How do I check my Shopify store speed?

The right way to audit Shopify performance in 2026 is to run three tools side by side and triangulate. No single tool gives the full picture. For the server side, our guide covers how to measure and improve server response time (TTFB).

• Google PageSpeed Insights for Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) and mobile/desktop scores
• Shopify’s own performance dashboard in the admin for the store-wide trend
• Google Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools for the detailed render trace and the unused-JavaScript report

Mobile results will always look worse than desktop. That is normal. The threshold to aim for: above 60 on mobile is a healthy ceiling for a feature-rich store, above 80 is excellent. Read our guide on reading PageSpeed Insights for the nuance most teams miss.

9 ways to speed up your Shopify store

These nine fixes are ordered by impact. Apply them in sequence, retest after each step, and you will see the cumulative score climb meaningfully within a single sprint.

1. Audit and remove unused apps

App bloat is the single biggest speed killer on Shopify (PageSpeed Matters benchmarks, 2026). Go to your Shopify admin, list every installed app, and remove every one that is not actively earning its keep. Then disable any leftover app embeds under Online Store, Themes, Customize, App embeds. Stopping the script from loading is faster than optimising it.

2. Compress images

Hero images and product photography in PNG or non-optimised JPEG are a common cause of long LCP times. Use a tool like TinyPNG or a Shopify-native image optimiser to bring file sizes down before upload, then verify by re-running Shopify Analyzer.

3. Implement lazy loading

Make sure the hero image above the fold loads eagerly, and every image below the fold uses loading="lazy". Shopify themes from 2024 onward generally do this by default, but custom theme work often breaks it.

4. Minify JavaScript and CSS

Use a tool like JavaScript and CSS Minifier to remove whitespace, comments, and dead code from theme files. The savings per file are small individually but compound across a real-world theme.

5. Reduce HTTP requests

Each request is a round-trip your browser pays for. Run Shopify Analyzer, identify the requests that fire on every page (often analytics, chat widgets, A/B test tools), and either consolidate them through Google Tag Manager or remove the ones that no longer have a business case.

6. Defer or remove third-party scripts

Tracking pixels for Meta, TikTok, Klaviyo, and similar services should not block the initial render. Move them behind a tag manager and load them after the main thread is free. If a script cannot be deferred, ask whether it is paying for itself in attribution value.

7. Optimize theme code

Reduce HTML parent elements where possible. Look for scripts that execute twice on the same page (common when a theme update introduced a duplicate call). Tighten the CSS structure. If your store uses custom JavaScript, profile it in Lighthouse and refactor the worst offenders.

8. Use a lightweight theme

Themes built on Shopify Online Store 2.0 with section groups load faster than older customised themes carrying years of legacy code. For a store with significant performance debt, a controlled theme rebuild often pays back faster than tip-by-tip optimisation.

9. Monitor with Web Vitals

Speed is not a one-time fix. Install a Web Vitals monitoring tool, set up alerts when LCP or INP regresses, and review monthly. New apps, new theme code, and seasonal traffic all push the numbers around.

scandiweb case study: From PageSpeed 20 to 89

The scandiweb Shopify team recently launched a store on Online Store 2.0 for a client who arrived with a mobile PageSpeed score of 20. Within one optimisation sprint, the score climbed to 59. After a second pass with the full nine-tip stack above and a controlled theme rebuild, the same store now sits at 89 on mobile.

The order of operations that produced the 20-to-89 climb:

• App audit and removal first, dropping nine non-essential apps. Mobile score climbed from 20 to 38.
• Image compression and lazy-loading pass next. Score moved from 38 to 51.
• Third-party tracking script consolidation under Google Tag Manager. Score climbed to 59.
• Theme refactor and unused-CSS removal. Final score of 89 on mobile, 96 on desktop.

The store’s add-to-cart rate climbed by 14% in the 30 days after the launch, and mobile bounce rate dropped by 11 percentage points. The 0.1-second-equals-8.4% Deloitte benchmark held up almost perfectly in practice.

How fast should a Shopify store load in 2026?

The honest answer in 2026 is that Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds on mobile is the target. Most Shopify stores sit between 3.2 and 5.1 seconds, which is above the Core Web Vitals threshold. A PageSpeed Insights mobile score above 60 is healthy for a real-world store with apps and product photography. Above 80 is excellent.

For comparison, the SERP top-three results on most commercial queries load in 1.8 to 2.4 seconds and score above 75 on mobile. That is the bar your store needs to clear to compete for the same traffic.

When should you hire a Shopify performance specialist?

If your store’s mobile PageSpeed score is below 40, or LCP is above 4 seconds, the in-house fixes above will move the number but rarely past 60 without theme-level work. That is the point to bring in a Shopify partner with Liquid optimisation experience and a track record of measurable speed gains on production stores.

The scandiweb Shopify team has shipped Shopify performance work across stores doing seven and eight figures in annual revenue. The pattern is consistent: app audit, image pipeline, theme rebuild, monitoring. The order matters more than the tactics.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my Shopify store so slow?

The most common cause is third-party app sprawl. The average Shopify store installs 15 to 20 apps, each loading 100 to 500 milliseconds of JavaScript on every page. Image weight and render-blocking tracking pixels are the next two most common causes.

What is a good PageSpeed score for Shopify?

For a real-world Shopify store with apps and product photography, above 60 on mobile is healthy and above 80 is excellent. Chasing 100 is rarely a good use of engineering time once you are past 80.

Does Shopify performance affect SEO?

Yes. Core Web Vitals are a confirmed Google ranking factor, and Largest Contentful Paint correlates strongly with mobile conversion. A faster store ranks better and converts more of the traffic that arrives.

How long does Shopify speed optimization take?

A first-pass app audit and image compression sprint typically takes one to two weeks and moves the score by 15 to 30 points. A full theme refactor for a store with significant performance debt takes four to eight weeks, depending on the catalog size and integrations.

Can I optimize Shopify performance without a developer?

Partly. The app audit, image compression, and lazy-loading setup can be done in the admin. Theme code optimisation, JavaScript profiling, and the deeper Liquid refactor work need a developer with Shopify experience.

Does Shopify Plus load faster than the standard plan?

Not directly. Shopify Plus and the standard plan run on the same infrastructure. What Plus unlocks is access to checkout extensibility, multi-storefront architecture, and theme customisation depth, all of which can be used to build a faster store but do not deliver speed automatically. See our Shopify vs Shopify Plus comparison for the full breakdown.

About this guide

Maintained by the scandiweb Shopify team. Reviewed by Rolands Popovs, COO. scandiweb is a Shopify Plus Partner with 20+ years of eCommerce delivery and 2,100+ projects shipped across Shopify, Adobe Commerce, and BigCommerce.

If your store is still slow after working through this playbook, the bottleneck is usually in the theme code or in an app that hides its impact behind a lazy load. Get in touch with the scandiweb Shopify team for a performance audit and a concrete fix plan.

The post Shopify Performance Optimization: A 2026 Playbook for Faster Stores appeared first on scandiweb.

If you’re weighing Shopify against Shopify Plus, you’re probably in one of three rooms: a Basic or Advanced store outgrowing rate limits, B2B requests, or expansion-store sprawl; a finance review where third-party gateway fees suddenly dwarf the subscription; or a planning meeting where someone said “headless” and the dev team quoted Plus.

All three end on the same spreadsheet, with the same question: when does the upgrade actually pay back?

Short answer — Plus pays back the day your third-party gateway fees plus your subscription cross roughly $2,300 a month, which usually happens between $500K and $700K monthly revenue, well before the often-quoted $1M GMV threshold.

The rest of this guide covers the features, pricing, and migration realities that shift that number for B2B, multi-region, and headless builds — drawn from 20+ Shopify migrations scandiweb has shipped since 2014 (The New York Times, Durex, Hope-sthlm, Kouboo, and Edasi).

Why trust this guide

• Shopify Plus Partner since 2014; Adobe Commerce Gold and Hyvä Platinum Partner
• 2,100+ eCommerce projects, $4B+ in annual client GMV, 700+ brands across 40+ industries
• ISO 9001, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, and PCI DSS certified
• Shopify clients include The New York Times, Durex, Hope-sthlm, Kouboo, and Edasi

What is Shopify Plus, and how is it different from standard Shopify?

Shopify Plus is the enterprise tier of Shopify. It runs on the same platform as Basic, Shopify, and Advanced – but removes the limits and adds an enterprise support and B2B layer. The standard plans fit stores up to roughly $1M–$2M annual revenue; Plus is designed for everything above that, plus any store that needs customer-specific B2B pricing, multi-region operations, a customized checkout, or a headless storefront.

Standard plan pricing: Basic $39/mo, Shopify $105/mo, Advanced $399/mo. Plus is $2,300/mo or 0.4% of monthly revenue (whichever is higher), capped around $40,000/mo at very high volume.

The full-feature delta is in the table below; the key one is that Plus removes Shopify’s 0.5% transaction fee on third-party payment gateways – the line that drives most of the upgrade math (see Shopify’s published rate limits for the API ceiling).

Shopify vs. Shopify Plus: side-by-side comparison

Pricing reflects Shopify’s published rates as of May 2026; verify against shopify.com before signing.

Where the gap actually matters: a deeper look at Shopify Plus features

Checkout and Checkout Extensibility

The largest functional gap between Shopify and Shopify Plus is checkout. Standard plans get Checkout Extensibility with restrictions on extension count, custom JS, and branding. Plus opens the full surface: apps and UI extensions on every checkout step, Shopify Functions for custom discount and shipping logic, and a Branding API for pixel-level visual control.

For high-AOV brands, checkout A/B testers, and B2B sellers with negotiated pricing, this single capability often justifies the upgrade. (Note: Shopify’s older Scripts layer is deprecated in favor of Functions, so any Scripts-dependent merchant should plan a Functions migration alongside the Plus move.)

B2B on Shopify and Shopify Plus

Since 2 April 2026, Shopify B2B is native on Basic, Grow, and Advanced: company accounts, up to three catalogs, quantity rules, volume pricing, net payment terms, and draft orders. Plus ships the full stack: unlimited catalogs, catalogs assigned directly to a company location for customer-specific pricing, deposits, and partial payments. The separate Wholesale channel closed on 30 April 2024, and B2B now runs inside the Shopify admin.

For merchants moving off Magento B2B, BigCommerce B2B Edition, or legacy ERPs, this is the feature that forces the decision. If B2B is more than 10–15% of revenue and your buyers have their own negotiated prices, you’ll need Plus. We cover the broader picture in our B2B eCommerce overview.

Shopify Functions, Flow, and the Scripts replacement

Shopify Functions (server-side WebAssembly modules for discounts, shipping, payments, and cart validation) are on every plan, but Plus gets higher execution limits and priority handling. Shopify Flow, the no-code automation engine, is also on every plan; Plus adds advanced templates and unlimited workflow runs that matter at scale – fraud auto-cancellation, B2B approval routing, post-purchase tagging for retention.

Multi-store and Organization Admin

If you sell into multiple regions or run multiple brands, the Organization Admin is the biggest operational reason to upgrade. From one dashboard you manage up to nine expansion stores plus dev stores, with unified permissions and consolidated analytics. Standard Shopify gives you exactly one store per plan. A typical international DTC config looks like five stores under one contract: US, EU, UK, APAC, plus a B2B Wholesale store.

APIs, rate limits, and headless commerce

The API ceiling is where standard Shopify breaks for technical teams. Plus has roughly 20× the call rate on REST and GraphQL, which is what makes a serious build on Hydrogen, React, or Next.js viable. If your roadmap includes a PWA, a native mobile app pulling live catalog data, or any real-time personalization layer, you’ll hit the standard rate limits within weeks of go-live. It is the single constraint we run into first on non-Plus stores; we cover it in our headless commerce practice.

POS Pro, staff accounts, and permissions

Plus includes Shopify POS Pro at up to 200 locations – the right answer for retail chains, pop-up networks, and omnichannel brands. Standard plans charge POS Pro per location as an add-on. Staff accounts go from 15 on Advanced to unlimited on Plus, with granular role-based permissions. See our omnichannel retail case studies for the patterns that work.

Apps, themes, and customization limits

The App Store and Theme Store are the same across all plans, but Plus merchants get earlier feature access, fewer Liquid restrictions, and higher limits on custom apps and metafields. See our best Shopify integrations and Shopify themes guide for the picks we install most.

Security, compliance, and uptime SLA

Plus is the only Shopify tier with a published 99.99% uptime SLA, and the only tier suitable for enterprise compliance reviews. PCI DSS Level 1 is baked into Shopify itself, but if procurement wants SOC 2 reports, ISO 27001 attestation chains, or audit logs, Plus is the practical floor.

How much is Shopify Plus in 2026?

Shopify Plus costs $2,300/mo or 0.4% of monthly revenue (whichever is higher), capped around $40,000/mo at very high volume. The variable component kicks in past ~$800K monthly revenue. In practice, almost every Plus merchant signs a one- or three-year contract and negotiates discounts at higher GMV commitments.

For comparison, standard Shopify plan pricing:

“Shopify enterprise pricing” is the same thing as Shopify Plus pricing – Plus is the enterprise tier. There is no separate enterprise SKU above Plus.

Hidden costs of Shopify Plus

The sticker price is only part of TCO. A realistic Plus budget includes:

• Apps and subscriptions: $500–$5,000+/mo (subs, reviews, search, loyalty, ERP connectors)
• Shopify Payments: 2.4–2.9% + 30¢/txn – Plus removes the 0.5% third-party gateway cut but processing fees still apply
• Theme dev or headless build: one-time $30K–$200K+
• Migration from Magento, BigCommerce, or legacy: $40K–$250K+ depending on data volume, integrations, and B2B complexity
• Ongoing dev and maintenance: 0.5–2 FTEs internal, or a Plus Partner retainer

For a breakdown against your stack, talk to scandiweb.

Shopify Plus vs. Shopify Advanced: when does the math flip?

The fastest payback test is transaction fees alone. On Advanced you pay $399/mo plus 0.5% on third-party gateway transactions; process $500K/mo through a third-party gateway and you’re at ~$2,900 all in. On Plus the 0.5% disappears – Plus is $2,300/mo flat at that volume. In practice the flip happens earlier because Plus also reduces some app costs and cuts operational workarounds.

When to upgrade from Shopify to Shopify Plus

Upgrade when the math pays back, or when a feature you need is only available on Plus.

Revenue thresholds

The industry rule of thumb is to consider Plus past $1M annual GMV and commit by $2M – which holds for single-region DTC on Shopify Payments. The threshold moves earlier for B2B-heavy merchants and multi-region rollouts (Plus removes third-party gateway fees and adds Plus-only B2B features and Organization Admin at the same time) and later for single-region Shopify Payments merchants, who often don’t hit payback until $3M–$5M annual GMV. Revenue is a lagging signal: if a B2B, headless, or multi-region launch is six months out, upgrade now – migration sits on its critical path.

Operational signals that override the revenue threshold

Upgrade when any of these are true, regardless of revenue:

• You need B2B with customer-specific price lists, more than three catalogs, deposits, or partial payments
• You’re launching in a second country and need a separate store with its own currency, language, and tax setup
• You need to customize checkout beyond what apps allow
• You’re going headless on Hydrogen or a custom front-end and need API headroom
• You operate more than 10 retail locations and need POS Pro at scale
• Procurement, legal, or compliance demands a published uptime SLA and enterprise contracts
• You’re hitting API rate limits or staff seat caps weekly

If two or more apply, it’s no longer whether to upgrade – only when.

How to upgrade to Shopify Plus, step by step

1. Contact Shopify or a Shopify Plus Partner. Sales conversation, needs assessment, contract negotiation – allow two to four weeks. A Plus Partner can usually shorten the cycle and negotiate better terms.
2. Plan the technical move. Existing Shopify stores upgrade in-place. From Magento, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, or custom: data migration, theme rebuild, and integrations are the real project – allow one to four months.
3. Configure Plus capabilities. Expansion stores, Organization Admin permissions, Flow workflows, custom checkout extensions, B2B catalogs. Get Organization Admin right the first time – it’s hard to refactor later.

Pair the move with a Shopify SEO checklist review and a performance optimization pass; those two account for most avoidable revenue loss during platform changes.

Is Shopify Plus worth it?

Below $1M GMV, single market, no customer-specific B2B pricing, no headless plans: not yet – standard Shopify gets you 90% of the way for a tenth of the cost. Above $1M GMV, or any merchant who needs customer-specific B2B pricing, multi-store, headless, or customized checkout: yes, and the payback usually lands inside 6–12 months. The case studies below show what the lift looks like in practice; see also our conversion rate optimization practice for the architecture work that compounds the Plus upgrade.

Shopify Plus case studies from our portfolio

A few of the migrations behind the numbers in this article.

The New York Times Store – Adobe Commerce to Shopify Plus in 60 days

A 170-year-old brand with 50,000+ catalog items replatformed off Adobe Commerce onto Shopify Plus in 60 days, ahead of Black Friday. Outcomes: ~20% YOY revenue lift, 40% organic traffic growth, and Black Friday peaks 10–15× baseline absorbed without incident. See our interview with Robyn Metzger at The New York Times.

J.R. Dunn Jewelers – Magento 1 to Shopify with 150,000+ diamond SKUs

A family-owned luxury jeweler moved off Magento 1 onto Shopify in 6.5 months, with a perfect 100 SEO score at launch and a structure ready for the planned ERP integration. Build scope: 150K+ diamond SKUs, 72K+ historical orders, bespoke multi-vendor catalog logic. Full write-up: Magento 1 to Shopify migration for a luxury jewelry brand.

Kouboo – SEO-led Magento 2 to Shopify migration, +107% organic revenue

A rattan furniture brand replatformed from Magento 2 onto Shopify with SEO continuity mapped before cutover, then continued on a multi-year on-page content program. Outcomes: +72% organic traffic, +107% organic revenue, +138% top-3 keywords, +100% visibility, +32% clicks. Read the Kouboo SEO and migration case study.

Mrs Wordsmith – multi-region Shopify, URL restructure, +150% conversion rate

An education brand running Shopify across US, UK, and AU was splitting authority across three duplicate-content subdomains. We consolidated to one global domain on subfolders, fixed hreflang, restructured URLs, and added structured data. Outcomes: +150% conversion rate, +200% organic revenue, +65% organic traffic, +100% visibility, +80% top-3 keywords, +45% clicks. Full write-up: SEO case study: URL restructure leads to +150% in conversion rate.

Shopify Plus vs. alternatives

If you’re shopping enterprise platforms, Plus is one of several serious contenders. The short verdict on each:

• Adobe Commerce (Magento). Plus has lower TCO and faster time-to-launch. Magento still wins for ERP-driven catalogs and deep B2B.
• BigCommerce Enterprise. Closer comparison on price predictability. Plus wins on app ecosystem, checkout, and POS.
• Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Plus wins on speed and cost. SFCC is the right call only if Salesforce already owns the rest of the stack.
• commercetools and composable. Plus wins on time-to-value. Composable wins for very large enterprises that have the dev team to support it. We compared both in our commercetools vs. Shopify breakdown.
• WooCommerce. Different category, but a frequent upgrade path. See our Shopify vs. WooCommerce comparison.

For more side-by-sides, our platform comparisons library covers most enterprise stacks.

Planning a Shopify Plus migration

Most Plus migrations we run land in one of three shapes:

• Fast-track, 2–4 weeks. Single store, clean data, no B2B or custom checkout, off a similar-shape platform.
• Standard build, 1–2 months. New theme, ERP/WMS/PIM integrations, data layer + analytics, SEO redirect map, launch QA.
• Complex migration, 3–6 months. Magento or commercetools origin, B2B + DTC side by side, multi-region, headless, multiple ERP/PIM/OMS integrations.

The biggest predictor of post-launch performance is whether SEO and data-layer continuity are planned before cutover, not patched after. We build both into every migration through our SEO services team, and increasingly through Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) for clients who want to show up in AI-generated answers, not just blue links.

FAQ

How much is Shopify Plus? $2,300/mo or 0.4% of monthly revenue (whichever is higher), capped around $40,000/mo at very high volume.

What is the difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus? Same platform; Plus removes the limits. Full checkout customization, unlimited B2B catalogs, up to nine expansion stores, ~20× API rate limits, 200 POS Pro locations, 99.99% uptime SLA, and a dedicated Merchant Success Manager. Complete list in the table above.

Is Shopify Plus worth it? Yes above $1M GMV or for any merchant needing customer-specific B2B pricing, multi-store, headless, or customized checkout. No below $1M with a single market and a standard checkout – Advanced is enough.

When should I upgrade to Shopify Plus? When two or more apply: above $1M GMV, launching B2B with customer-specific pricing, expanding to a new region, going headless, customizing checkout beyond apps, or scaling past 10 retail locations.

What is the Shopify Plus minimum revenue requirement? None published. The math typically works above $1M annual GMV for single-region DTC, and earlier for B2B-heavy or multi-region merchants.

Shopify Plus vs. Shopify Advanced: which should I pick? Advanced for a single-store, single-market DTC brand under $1M GMV. Plus if you need customer-specific B2B pricing, multi-store, headless, custom checkout, or you’re paying more in third-party gateway fees than the subscription delta.

Does Shopify Plus include B2B? Yes – native B2B with company accounts, unlimited catalogs, catalogs assigned to individual company locations, payment terms, draft orders, deposits, and partial payments. Since 2 April 2026, Basic, Grow, and Advanced also include B2B with up to three catalogs.

Can I run multiple stores on Shopify Plus? Yes – up to nine expansion stores plus dev stores, all managed from one Organization Admin.

How long does a Shopify Plus migration take? Two weeks for a fast-track move off a similar platform; three to six months for a complex enterprise migration with B2B, headless, and multiple integrations. Typical full build is one to two months.

Further reading on Shopify and Shopify Plus

• How to Migrate to Shopify: a Step-by-Step Guide for eCommerce Brands – the operational checklist behind every migration we run
• 8 Best Shopify Alternatives for Complex Commerce in 2026 – the four platforms that genuinely replace Plus when it is not the right answer
• Shopify Redesign and Growth Foundation for Salt Life – DTC fashion redesign and growth foundation on Shopify
• Mil-Coffee – new website design and build on Shopify – DTC subscription build on Shopify, focused on coffee, delivery, and accessories
• Conversational commerce brings back 31% of churned customers – Shopify plus an AI sales agent on WhatsApp at Zorro
• Building a €150K/month lifecycle revenue engine in 5 markets – Felco’s centralized email + SMS program live in 30 days across 5 markets and 3 languages
• Best Shopify Agencies in the US & EU: 2026 Picks – for buyers evaluating partner agencies
• scandiweb portfolio – complete portfolio across Shopify and enterprise eCommerce

If you’re weighing the Shopify Plus upgrade and want a model built against your actual numbers, current GMV, gateway fees, app stack, B2B and multi-region roadmap, talk to scandiweb. We’ll model the payback, scope the migration, and tell you when Plus actually starts working for your business.

The post Shopify vs. Shopify Plus: Features, Pricing & When to Upgrade appeared first on scandiweb.

If you’re running on Shopify Plus and wondering whether to stay, or if you’re already evaluating alternatives but unsure whether any of them actually fits your business better, you’re asking the right question. Shopify alternatives split into four serious replacements at the upper-mid-market level: Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce Enterprise, commercetools, and OroCommerce. Four others fit different buyers. The right choice depends on operational depth, B2B requirements, and integration scope, not feature counts. Adobe Commerce wins for ERP-driven catalogs, BigCommerce for SaaS simplicity without transaction fees, commercetools for composable architecture, OroCommerce for B2B distributors with negotiated pricing.

The pressure that pushes most upper-mid-market merchants into this question is structural, not aesthetic. Shopify Plus charges 2 percent on every transaction processed outside Shopify Payments. At $50M annual revenue, with even half of payments running through third-party gateways, that is roughly half a million dollars a year flowing to the platform on top of the license fee, and the math scales with growth instead of decreasing.

This guide compares the eight strongest Shopify alternatives in 2026, each rated against the same six criteria, with a side-by-side table you can take into a stakeholder meeting and a decision framework that maps each platform to a specific business condition.

Why most “Shopify alternatives” lists miss the point

If you’ve already read two or three Shopify alternatives lists and walked away with a longer list of platforms but no clearer answer, that is by design. Most articles in this category compare platforms by feature counts, app-store size, or theme libraries. That serves a creator picking a first cart, not a $50M to $500M business deciding what carries the next ten years of growth. The real question is system fit: when a business outgrows Shopify Plus, the constraint is rarely the cart itself. It is multi-store sprawl, B2B account hierarchies, ERP-driven pricing logic, or composable architecture.

This article uses a different lens, the one scandiweb applies in real replatforming engagements: Control, Foundation, Growth. Control means the system has become risky or unreliable. Foundation means the system cannot scale without a rebuild. Growth means the system is stable but commercial performance is lagging. The right Shopify alternative depends on which of those conditions a business is in. scandiweb works with all four of the main alternatives covered here, so there is no commercial reason to favor one over another.

Signs you’ve outgrown Shopify Plus

Most replatforming projects do not start with a feature gap. They start with a structural one. Businesses outgrow Shopify Plus when multi-brand or multi-region operations strain the one-store-per-brand model, when B2B requires deep account hierarchies and ERP-driven pricing, when integrations carry the catalog instead of the storefront, or when 2 percent third-party gateway fees scale into six and seven figures annually.

Multi-brand or multi-region operations strain Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus uses one store per brand or region. Each store has its own admin and its own apps, which means updating the same product copy across four stores is four separate jobs. At ten or twenty storefronts it becomes a coordination tax. Adobe Commerce, by comparison, runs 70 store views across 20 languages on a single instance for clients like OM System, with one admin and one product catalog flowing into every storefront.

B2B with negotiated pricing and account hierarchies

Shopify Plus added B2B price lists and quote tools in 2024, and they work for straightforward wholesale. They do not yet handle deep account hierarchies, multi-step approval workflows, RFQ-driven sales, or pricing logic that lives in an ERP. For a distributor with tiered customers, contract pricing, and an ERP that owns the catalog, OroCommerce or Adobe Commerce B2B is closer to the data model the business already runs on. A specialist B2B eCommerce build is rarely a good fit on a B2C-first platform.

Heavy ERP, PIM, or OMS integration requirements

When the integrations are the real product, the platform’s API depth and data model matter more than the storefront. scandiweb has built systems with 81,000 structured product records flowing through unified data layers (Rocket Industrial), and 10,000 plus product catalogs feeding global B2B operations (Macron, +29.8 percent YoY revenue and +132.5 percent conversion uplift). Those volumes work on Adobe Commerce or commercetools. They do not fit cleanly into a Shopify Plus data model.

Transaction fees that scale with revenue

Shopify charges 0.5 to 2 percent on transactions when you use a payment processor other than Shopify Payments, depending on plan tier. At $5M revenue that is up to $100K a year. At $50M revenue it is up to $1M a year. BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce, commercetools, and OroCommerce do not charge platform transaction fees. For high-volume operations, the math alone justifies a serious comparison.

How we evaluated these 8 Shopify alternatives

Every platform is rated against the same six criteria, so the comparison is apples-to-apples rather than vendor-to-vendor.

• Pricing tier: entry, mid-market, or enterprise
• Customization: low, medium, or high
• Best business size: SMB, mid-market, or enterprise
• Native B2B: full, limited, or none
• ERP integration depth: deep, moderate, or basic
• Implementation effort: low, moderate, or high

These are the dimensions that decide replatforming outcomes in actual scandiweb projects. App store size and theme count are not on the list because they almost never decide the outcome.

Shopify alternatives at a glance: comparison table

This table compares the eight Shopify alternatives across the six criteria that decide replatforming outcomes: pricing tier, customization, best business size, native B2B, ERP integration depth, and implementation effort. Only four of the eight are genuinely competitive replacements at the upper-mid-market level. The other four serve smaller businesses, EMEA mid-market, WordPress-native operations, or buyers who are not in this market at all.

1. Adobe Commerce: the deepest Shopify alternative for ERP-driven operations

Adobe Commerce, formerly Magento, is the strongest Shopify alternative when the catalog, the integrations, and the B2B workflows are where the real pressure sits. It supports multiple websites, stores, and store views under one admin. Native B2B includes price lists, account hierarchies, quotes, and RFQs. The trade-off is implementation effort: Adobe Commerce is a code-first platform that needs an experienced agency or in-house team and self-managed hosting.

For multi-brand or multi-region operations with deep system dependencies, Adobe Commerce is usually the first platform on the shortlist. It connects to ERP, PIM, OMS, and payment systems through mature integration patterns, and the customization ceiling is among the highest of any Shopify alternative.

Key strengths:

• Multi-store, multi-region, multi-brand under one admin
• Mature native B2B: price lists, hierarchies, quotes, approvals
• Deep ERP, PIM, and OMS integration patterns
• Highest customization ceiling among major platforms

Watch out for:

• High implementation effort and skilled engineering capacity required
• Hosting and infrastructure are your responsibility, not the vendor’s
• License pricing for Commerce Cloud edition starts in six figures annually

Best for: mid-market to enterprise operations with multi-store, B2B depth, or ERP-heavy catalogs. A structured discovery engagement is the right way to scope an Adobe Commerce build before signing a license.

Read more: Magento vs Shopify platform comparison

2. BigCommerce: a SaaS Shopify alternative without platform transaction fees

BigCommerce Enterprise is the closest SaaS-to-SaaS replacement for Shopify Plus. It keeps managed-platform simplicity, removes Shopify’s 2 percent third-party gateway fee, and brings stronger native B2B than Shopify Plus offered until late 2024. BigCommerce earned 24 of 24 medals in the 2025 Paradigm B2B Combines for the third year. Trade-offs are a smaller app ecosystem and revenue thresholds that push merchants up tiers automatically.

The architecture is more open than Shopify on payments and integrations. Headless storefronts are well supported, the API surface is broad, and there is no penalty for using your preferred payment processor.

Key strengths:

• Zero platform transaction fees, regardless of payment processor
• Strong native B2B: price lists, customer groups, quotes, bulk pricing
• Open headless and API-driven architecture
• Lower total cost of ownership than Shopify Plus at high volume

Watch out for:

• Smaller app ecosystem and theme library than Shopify
• Annual revenue thresholds can push merchants up tiers automatically
• Some advanced merchandising features still rely on apps

Best for: mid-market to enterprise SaaS-style operations that want managed-platform simplicity without Shopify Plus transaction-fee drag.

Read more: BigCommerce vs Shopify platform comparison

3. commercetools: composable commerce as a Shopify alternative

commercetools is built on MACH architecture: microservices, API-first, cloud-native, headless. Where Shopify bundles storefront, checkout, and admin in one ecosystem, commercetools exposes them as composable services. It is the right Shopify alternative for enterprises that need full architectural control across multiple brands, regions, and channels. The trade-off is real: commercetools is not a lift-and-shift from Shopify and needs frontend, architecture, and integration teams from day one.

scandiweb’s commercetools vs Shopify comparison covers the architectural differences in depth, and the commercetools development team handles the build and the post-launch operation. commercetools is a Forrester Wave Leader in both B2C and B2B Digital Commerce.

Key strengths:

• True composable, headless, API-first architecture
• Designed for multi-brand, multi-region, multi-channel at enterprise scale
• Long-term flexibility: replace any service without replacing the platform
• Forrester Wave Leader for B2C and B2B Digital Commerce

Watch out for:

• Highest implementation effort and skill bar of any platform here
• No managed storefront, you build and host the frontend
• Enterprise-only pricing model

Best for: enterprise organizations pursuing composable commerce with the team and budget to operate it.

Read more: commercetools vs Adobe Commerce platform comparison

4. OroCommerce: the Shopify alternative built for B2B distributors

OroCommerce was built B2B-first from day one. The data model assumes multi-level account hierarchies, negotiated pricing, RFQ workflows, contract orders, and ERP-driven catalogs. Native CRM, CPQ, payments, and invoicing are bundled under one license. For a distributor, manufacturer, or B2B-heavy mid-market operation, the system fit is closer than any Shopify alternative built for B2C and retrofitted for B2B.

scandiweb has been an official OroCommerce partner for over seven years. Account-hierarchy depth is the most consistent reason buyers choose OroCommerce over Shopify Plus B2B or Adobe Commerce B2B.

Key strengths:

• B2B-first data model, not retrofitted from B2C
• Native CRM, CPQ, payments, and invoicing in one license
• Strong account hierarchy, RFQ, and approval workflows
• Built for ERP-driven catalogs and contract sales

Watch out for:

• Smaller agency partner network than Adobe Commerce or Shopify
• Pure B2C use cases are not the strongest fit
• Implementation effort is comparable to Adobe Commerce

Best for: mid-market and enterprise B2B distributors and manufacturers, particularly those with negotiated pricing.

5. Salesforce Commerce Cloud: the Shopify alternative for Salesforce-heavy stacks

Salesforce Commerce Cloud is the right Shopify alternative when an organization is already on Salesforce: Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Data Cloud. The native data integration is the hardest thing to replicate elsewhere. Outside the Salesforce ecosystem, Commerce Cloud’s value over Adobe Commerce or commercetools narrows quickly. It is also the most expensive option in this list and carries the strongest vendor lock-in.

For an organization with Salesforce CRM and Marketing Cloud already in production, the operational gravity of staying inside the ecosystem usually outweighs the cost premium.

Key strengths:

• Native integration with the Salesforce ecosystem
• Mature B2B and B2C, multi-region, headless support
• Strong customer data and personalization capabilities
• Enterprise-grade reliability and support

Watch out for:

• Highest licensing cost in this list
• Strongest vendor lock-in: hard to leave once embedded
• Less compelling outside the Salesforce ecosystem

Best for: enterprises already running on Salesforce CRM and Marketing Cloud who want one connected stack.

6. Shopware: the mid-market Shopify alternative with strong native B2B

Shopware is a German-built platform with traction in European mid-market and B2B segments. It runs on a modern PHP stack, supports headless natively via its API, and ships with a credible B2B Suite covering price lists, customer-specific catalogs, and quote workflows. It sits between Shopify Plus and Adobe Commerce in cost and engineering effort. The main caveat outside Europe is a thinner partner network.

Key strengths:

• Strong native B2B Suite included in commercial editions
• Native headless and modern API architecture
• Mid-market pricing between Shopify Plus and Adobe Commerce
• Active development and roadmap

Watch out for:

• Smaller partner network outside of Europe
• Some enterprise-grade integrations less mature than Adobe Commerce
• English-language documentation and community thinner than Shopify or BigCommerce

Best for: mid-market operations, particularly in EMEA, with B2B requirements and a preference for European tooling.

7. WooCommerce: the open-source Shopify alternative for WordPress-native businesses

WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin that turns WordPress into an eCommerce platform. License cost is zero and the customization ceiling is high, riding on the largest plugin and theme ecosystem in web publishing. The hidden costs are infrastructure and engineering: WooCommerce is self-hosted, so hosting, scaling, security patching, and plugin maintenance are your responsibility.

For a content-heavy business or a brand whose marketing site already runs on WordPress, WooCommerce is an obvious option to evaluate. A serious WooCommerce build at mid-market scale often needs a dedicated web development team to keep performance and uptime in line with what a SaaS platform delivers by default. Open-source shoppers can also weigh Magento vs PrestaShop.

Key strengths:

• No license cost, fully open-source
• Native WordPress integration: best content-plus-commerce experience
• Largest plugin ecosystem of any open-source eCommerce platform
• Full code-level control

Watch out for:

• Self-hosted: hosting, scaling, security, and patching are on you
• B2B features are plugin-dependent and uneven
• Performance at high SKU and traffic volume needs serious tuning

Best for: content-led brands and SMB-to-mid-market operations that already run on WordPress and have engineering capacity.

8. Wix: the consumer-grade reference point

Wix is included for honesty, not because it is a serious replacement for Shopify Plus. For a creator, a small DTC brand under $1M revenue, or a service business adding light commerce, Wix is faster to launch and easier to maintain than any other platform in this list. For an enterprise B2B catalog, Wix is not the answer. AI tooling has improved meaningfully in 2024 to 2026, but the customization ceiling is still low.

Key strengths:

• Fastest time to launch in this list
• Strong design and AI tooling for non-technical users
• Lowest total cost for very small operations

Watch out for:

• B2B is not on the menu, neither is headless or any serious ERP integration
• The customization ceiling drops fast at mid-market scope
• Not a serious comparator for Shopify Plus replatforming

Best for: SMBs, creators, and service businesses adding light commerce.

How to choose between these 8 Shopify alternatives

The right Shopify alternative depends on the system condition the business is in, not on the longest feature list. If the system is unstable, stabilize before replatforming. If the system is stable but cannot scale, the question is architecture: Adobe Commerce wins for ERP-heavy operations, BigCommerce for SaaS simplicity without transaction fees, commercetools for composable architecture, OroCommerce for B2B-first data models. If the system is stable and the constraint is commercial performance, the platform may not be the problem at all.

Choose Adobe Commerce if:

• You run multi-brand or multi-region operations on a single product catalog
• You have heavy ERP, PIM, or OMS integration requirements
• You sell B2B with deep account hierarchies, RFQs, and contract pricing
• You have in-house engineering capacity or a long-term agency partner
• You need the highest customization ceiling without leaving SaaS-adjacent tooling

Choose BigCommerce Enterprise if:

• You want SaaS simplicity without Shopify Plus’s 2 percent third-party gateway fee
• You sell B2B but do not need Adobe Commerce’s full hierarchy depth
• You need open headless and API-driven architecture out of the box
• You operate at high volume where transaction fees compound into real money
• You want the closest behavioral match to Shopify Plus with stronger native features

Choose commercetools if:

• You need full architectural control across multiple brands, regions, or channels
• You are pursuing composable commerce and have the team to operate it
• Your customer journey is non-standard and cannot be served by a managed storefront
• You can budget for an enterprise-only license and a custom-built frontend
• You think in 5 to 10 year platform horizons, not 2 year ones

Choose OroCommerce if:

• You are a B2B distributor, manufacturer, or operation with negotiated pricing
• Your catalog is driven by your ERP, not your storefront
• You need multi-level account hierarchies, RFQ, and approval workflows from day one
• You want CRM, CPQ, payments, and invoicing under one license
• You prefer a B2B-first platform over a B2C platform retrofitted for B2B

Before signing a license on any of these, a structured discovery and planning engagement tells you which condition your business is actually in.

Read more: How to choose an enterprise eCommerce platform

Frequently asked questions about Shopify alternatives

What are the best alternatives to Shopify for enterprise eCommerce?

The best alternatives to Shopify for enterprise are Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce Enterprise, commercetools, and OroCommerce. Adobe Commerce wins for ERP-heavy operations and large catalogs, BigCommerce for SaaS teams that want lower transaction costs, commercetools for composable architecture, OroCommerce for B2B distributors with negotiated pricing. The right choice depends on system requirements and operational depth, not feature counts.

When should a business move from Shopify Plus to Adobe Commerce?

Move from Shopify Plus to Adobe Commerce when you have heavy ERP, PIM, or OMS integration requirements, large multi-brand catalogs, custom B2B workflows, or in-house development capability. Adobe Commerce supports bulk pricing rules, custom quoting, and real-time ERP syncs that Shopify Plus cannot match natively. Replatforming typically takes 4 to 9 months and requires structured discovery before commitment.

Is BigCommerce a better alternative to Shopify for B2B?

BigCommerce Enterprise is a better Shopify alternative when you want SaaS simplicity but need native B2B features and zero platform transaction fees. It includes B2B price lists, customer groups, quote management, and bulk order tools without paid apps. BigCommerce earned 24 of 24 medals in the 2025 Paradigm B2B Combines, making it competitive with Shopify Plus B2B for mid-market wholesalers.

What is the difference between Shopify and commercetools?

Shopify is a SaaS platform that bundles the storefront, checkout, and admin in one ecosystem. commercetools is an API-first, headless commerce platform built on MACH architecture: microservices, API-first, cloud-native, headless. commercetools gives full control over front-end and integrations but requires composable architecture skill. Shopify is faster to launch, commercetools is built for organizations that need long-term architectural flexibility.

Why do brands switch from Shopify to Magento or Adobe Commerce?

Brands switch from Shopify to Magento or Adobe Commerce primarily for customization depth, large catalog support, and ERP and PIM integration capability. Shopify caps each product at 3 options and 100 variants, restricts checkout customization on lower plans, and charges 2 percent transaction fees on third-party gateways. Adobe Commerce removes those constraints in exchange for higher implementation effort.

Which Shopify alternative is best for multi-brand or multi-region stores?

For multi-brand or multi-region operations at scale, Adobe Commerce and commercetools are the strongest Shopify alternatives. Adobe Commerce supports multiple websites, stores, and store views under one admin: scandiweb has run 70 store views across 20 languages on a single Adobe Commerce instance. commercetools handles the same scope through composable architecture. Shopify Plus requires separate stores per market, increasing operational overhead.

How much does it cost to migrate from Shopify Plus to a different platform?

A Shopify Plus migration to Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce Enterprise, commercetools, or OroCommerce typically ranges from $80,000 to $500,000 plus, depending on catalog scope, ERP and PIM integrations, custom workflows, and front-end requirements. Implementation timelines are usually 4 to 9 months. The first commercial step should be a structured discovery to scope risk and dependencies before committing to a platform.

Is OroCommerce a real alternative to Shopify for B2B distributors?

Yes, OroCommerce is built specifically for B2B distributors, manufacturers, and organizations with negotiated pricing, multi-level account hierarchies, RFQ workflows, and deep ERP integration needs. It includes native CRM, CPQ, payments, and invoicing under one license. Shopify Plus B2B added similar features but does not match OroCommerce’s account hierarchy depth or B2B-first data model. scandiweb has been an official OroCommerce partner for over seven years.

What are the risks of replatforming from Shopify to another eCommerce platform?

The main replatforming risks are SEO loss from URL changes, integration breakage between ERP, PIM, and OMS systems, data migration errors, checkout regression, and extended go-live timelines. Mitigation requires structured discovery, phased data migration, redirect mapping, parallel-running environments, and integration testing before cutover. Skipping discovery to save time consistently produces the most expensive replatforming failures.

Which Shopify alternative has the lowest total cost of ownership?

Total cost of ownership depends on revenue scale and operational depth, not list price. BigCommerce Enterprise typically has the lowest 3-year TCO for SaaS-style mid-market operations because it eliminates Shopify’s 2 percent third-party gateway fee. Adobe Commerce and commercetools have higher implementation costs but lower per-order costs at high volume. WooCommerce and Magento Open Source are cheapest in license but require infrastructure and engineering investment.

Which Shopify alternative is best for photographers, artists, and designers selling their own work?

For creative professionals who sell their own work rather than run a catalog, none of the enterprise four is the right fit, and neither is Shopify Plus. A portfolio-first builder will be better suited to this use case. A good example is Pixpa, a solid website builder that combines a few options: you can create a portfolio website, use client galleries with proofing, and get ecommerce tools in one no-code platform. Such builders are set up more around selling creative work than managing B2B, headless, or ERP-heavy selling operations. They can also be easier on the budget for independent creators (Pixpa, for example, charges 0 percent platform commission, apart from standard payment processing fees).

Replatforming from Shopify is a system decision, not a platform comparison

The eight Shopify alternatives in this guide each fit a specific system condition. Adobe Commerce for ERP-driven operations. BigCommerce for SaaS simplicity without transaction fees. commercetools for composable architecture. OroCommerce for B2B-first operations. Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Shopware, WooCommerce, and Wix each fit narrower buyers.

The wrong question is “which Shopify alternative is best?” The right question is “which system condition is my business in, and which alternative fits it?” Answer that first and the platform shortlist usually reduces to two or three candidates.

If you are weighing alternatives to Shopify and want to pressure-test the system fit before you commit, get in touch with our eCommerce experts for a structured discovery call.

The post 8 Best Shopify Alternatives for Complex Commerce in 2026 appeared first on scandiweb.

Should you build your first online store on Shopify, and once you commit, what actually needs setting up before you can take your first order? This guide walks through setting up a Shopify store step by step, then answers the questions our Shopify team fields most often from merchants on pricing, payments, international selling, and performance. Shopify processed $378 billion in gross merchandise volume in 2025 and powers more than 2.4 million live stores across 175+ countries, so these are decisions a very large number of merchants make every year.

How to set up a Shopify store, step by step

Here is the full sequence from a blank account to a live store. None of it requires writing code.

Step 1: Plan your store before you sign up

Decide what you are selling, who you are selling to, and how you will source and ship it before you touch the platform. Settle on a business name and a short list of products, and sketch the pages you will need. Ten minutes of planning here saves hours of rework once the store is live.

Step 2: Create your account and choose a plan

Sign up at shopify.com with your email and store name, which starts a free trial. You do not need to lock in a paid plan immediately, but pick the tier that fits your stage early so checkout and reporting behave the way you expect. Plan guidance and current pricing are in the cost section below.

Step 3: Add your products

From the admin, go to Products and add each item with a clear title, a description written for shoppers rather than search engines, and high-quality images. Set prices, SKUs, and inventory, and add variants for size or color where they apply. Group related items into collections so customers can browse by category.

Step 4: Choose and customize your theme

Pick a theme from the Shopify Theme Store as your starting base, then customize it in the theme editor: add your logo, set brand fonts and colors, and build out the homepage, product pages, and navigation menu. Start from a solid base rather than the flashiest demo. More on choosing a theme is below.

Step 5: Set up payments

Activate Shopify Payments under Settings > Payments so you can accept cards without a third-party gateway, and enable wallets like Shop Pay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay to reduce checkout friction. If you sell higher-ticket products, turn on Shop Pay Installments so customers can pay over time.

Step 6: Configure shipping

Under Settings > Shipping and delivery, set your shipping zones and rates. You can charge flat rates, free shipping above a threshold, or carrier-calculated rates, and you can use rate tables to match cost to weight, price, or destination. Set this before launch so customers see accurate totals at checkout.

Step 7: Connect a custom domain

Buy a domain through Shopify or connect one you already own under Settings > Domains. A branded domain (yourstore.com) builds trust and is better for SEO than the default myshopify.com URL. Set your primary domain so all traffic resolves to one address.

Step 8: Add essential pages and policies

Create the pages customers and Shopify both expect: About, Contact, and your store policies (refund, privacy, terms, and shipping). Shopify can generate policy templates you then tailor. These pages reduce support questions and are a trust signal at checkout.

Step 9: Test your store

Place a test order to confirm the full path works: add to cart, checkout, payment, order confirmation email, and the order appearing in your admin. Check the store on mobile, since most traffic will be there, and click through navigation and links to catch anything broken.

Step 10: Remove the password and launch

New stores sit behind a password page. Once testing passes, go to Online Store > Preferences and remove the password to make the store public. After launch, the work shifts to getting found and converting traffic, which is where the sections below come in.

How much does a Shopify store cost in 2026?

Shopify plan fees start at $39 per month on Basic and rise with the features and lower card rates you get at each tier. Annual billing brings the monthly cost down. Here is how the core plans compare in 2026.

Fees and rates are current Shopify pricing as published on shopify.com/pricing and can change. Shopify occasionally renames the mid-tier plan, so check the live page before you commit.

How do I know which Shopify plan is right for me?

Start with Basic if you are launching and want to test the market. The clearest reasons to move up a tier are lower card rates once your sales volume makes the difference material, the need for more staff accounts, and access to professional reports. Identify the two or three features you actually need, then pick the lowest plan that includes them rather than the highest plan you can afford.

How much do Shopify apps cost?

Many Shopify apps are free, and paid apps commonly run from a few dollars to around $50 per month each. A handful of specialized apps cost more. The practical risk is not any single price but stacking ten subscriptions that quietly add up, so review your app list every quarter and remove what you no longer use.

Payments and paying over time on Shopify

Shopify Payments is built into the platform, so most merchants can accept cards without a third-party gateway. Online card rates run from 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic down to 2.5% + 30¢ on Advanced, with the most competitive rates on Plus.

Can customers pay in installments?

Yes. Shop Pay Installments, powered by Affirm, lets customers split a purchase into four interest-free payments or pay monthly over a longer term. You are paid in full upfront, usually within one to three business days, and Shopify handles the financing. It is a useful option for higher-ticket products where the price is the main hesitation at checkout.

Can I set different prices for the same product in different markets?

Yes. Shopify supports up to 50 markets with price differentiation per market, and several countries can be combined under a single market. For example, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and other euro countries can sit under one EU market, while a catch-all “Other countries” market in USD serves the rest. That lets you serve more than 50 countries despite the market ceiling.

Selling internationally with Shopify Markets

Shopify Markets manages international selling from a single admin, and Shopify Payments supports 130+ currencies natively. Two questions come up almost every time a merchant goes cross-border.

What is the SEO-friendly way to set up international domains?

If you are setting up Shopify Markets for the first time, subfolders are usually the best option. A subfolder is a path within your primary domain, for example johns-apparel.com/en-ca for Canada and johns-apparel.com/fr-fr for France. Subfolders require minimal setup, direct visitors to the right language and region, and inherit your primary domain’s existing search authority instead of starting from zero. If you want to pressure-test the rest of your setup for search, our Shopify SEO checklist walks through the on-page basics.

How do I handle VAT for different countries?

With Shopify Markets you can specify the VAT rate per country, and the correct rate is applied automatically at checkout. This keeps tax handling accurate as you sell across multiple European countries from one store.

Will my store’s load times vary by region?

No significant difference is expected between regions. Shopify serves stores through a global content delivery network backed by Cloudflare, with servers worldwide, so load times stay consistent regardless of where a customer is shopping from.

Performance, security, and technical questions

These are the questions developers and technically minded founders raise once the storefront basics are settled.

Does Shopify’s CDN cost extra, and can I use my own?

The CDN is included in every Shopify plan at no additional cost, and it is backed by Cloudflare. You can technically route through a different CDN, but it is not recommended, since the built-in network is already a first-rate solution and the added complexity rarely pays off. If you want to push speed further within Shopify’s setup, our guide to store performance covers what actually moves the needle.

Why doesn’t minification always work on Shopify?

Shopify automatically minifies CSS and JavaScript that use valid syntax up to ES5 when the storefront requests them, which shortens load times. It serves the original file instead in two cases: when minifying would produce a larger file because the file is already compressed more efficiently, and when the file already carries a .min.js or .min.css extension.

Do I need an EV SSL certificate to make my store secure?

No. Every Shopify plan includes a free SSL certificate that secures your store. An EV SSL certificate can add a layer of visible trust for some customers, but it is not required for a secure, functioning Shopify store. Treat it as optional.

Why don’t Shopify URLs end in .html, and is that bad for SEO?

It is not bad for SEO. Shopify uses a clean URL structure that keeps addresses short and readable. Including .html would only make URLs longer without any search benefit, so leaving it off helps both usability and SEO.

Do Shopify Plus users get more bandwidth?

Shopify Plus adds custom data transfer limits, a dedicated account manager, and advanced features that help optimize larger stores. That said, all Shopify plans come with unlimited bandwidth, and exceeding data transfer limits is not a common problem for most businesses. Weigh Plus against your actual scale and budget rather than bandwidth alone.

Themes, customization, and getting found

How do I find the right theme for my store?

The Shopify Theme Store now lists well over a thousand themes, all built on Online Store 2.0, alongside countless third-party options. The goal is to choose the best base to build on rather than the flashiest demo. Decide on the look you want and the functionality you need first, then shortlist themes that deliver both. Our roundup of the best Shopify themes is a useful starting shortlist.

Can I use tables to set shipping rates?

Yes. Shopify makes it straightforward to set shipping rates using rate tables, so you can match costs to weight, price, or destination without custom development.

What if I already have a store on another platform?

Then your setup starts with migration rather than a blank store. The priorities shift to moving products, customers, and order history cleanly, preserving your URLs and search rankings, and rebuilding integrations. Our step-by-step guide to migrating to Shopify covers the sequence and the common pitfalls.

Common mistakes to avoid when setting up a Shopify store

• Launching with thin product descriptions. Copy lifted from a supplier hurts both conversions and SEO. Write descriptions that answer real buyer questions.
• Skipping the test order. Many stores go live without confirming the full checkout path, then lose early orders to a broken payment or shipping rule.
• Ignoring mobile. Most traffic is mobile, so a layout that only looks right on desktop costs sales.
• Over-installing apps. Every app adds weight and cost. Add only what earns its place, and audit the list regularly.
• Leaving the default domain. Staying on myshopify.com weakens trust and SEO. Connect a branded domain before launch.
• Forgetting policy pages. Missing refund, privacy, and shipping policies create friction at checkout and can block payment provider approval.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to set up a Shopify store?

A basic store can be set up in a day or two once you have your products and images ready. A polished, fully customized store usually takes one to a few weeks depending on catalog size and design needs.

Do I need coding skills to set up a Shopify store?

No. The full setup, from account to launch, is done through Shopify’s admin without code. Coding only becomes relevant for advanced theme customization or custom app development.

How much does it cost to start a Shopify store?

Plans start at $39 per month on Basic ($29 on annual billing), plus card processing fees and any paid apps or themes. Budget for a domain (around $10 to $20 per year) and optional design or development help.

Can I set up a Shopify store for free?

You can build and explore a store during the free trial, but you need a paid plan to launch and accept orders. There is no permanently free Shopify plan.

Planning your Shopify build and want it done right the first time? scandiweb has launched and scaled Shopify and Shopify Plus stores for brands across more than 175 countries. Tell us where you are and our team will map the setup with you – talk to our Shopify development team.

The post How to Set Up a Shopify Store: Step-by-Step Guide (2026) appeared first on scandiweb.

If you’re looking to extend your Shopify store with new functionality through integrations, you’ve probably already noticed how quickly the volume of options turns a five-minute task into a half-day rabbit hole. The Shopify App Store now lists more than 13,000 third-party apps, which makes the hard part of choosing Shopify integrations less about finding tools and more about deciding which ones earn a slot in the stack and which ones quietly tax performance, support time, and data quality.

The wrong picks cost money on every order: dropped checkouts when payments are misconfigured, oversold inventory when marketplace sync lags, finance teams reconciling Shopify payouts by hand because the accounting connector posts every order separately. The picks below are organized by the six integration categories that move the most revenue: payments, CRM, marketplaces, email marketing, accounting, and POS.

What are Shopify integrations?

Shopify integrations are third-party apps, native connectors, or custom-built APIs that let your Shopify store exchange data with another system, such as a payment gateway, CRM, accounting tool, marketplace, or POS. They keep inventory, orders, customers, and financial data in sync across the tools your business already runs on, so a sale on Shopify updates QuickBooks, a return triggers a refund in Stripe, and a wholesale customer in HubSpot sees their B2B catalog at checkout.

There are three architectural layers worth knowing before evaluating apps:

• Native Shopify integrations. Built and maintained by Shopify (Shopify Payments, Shopify POS, Shop Pay). Best uptime, best checkout conversion, fewest moving parts.
• App Store integrations. Built by third parties and listed in the Shopify App Store. Quality, support, and data sync depth vary widely between vendors.
• Custom or middleware integrations. Built through Shopify’s REST and GraphQL APIs, often with iPaaS tools (Celigo, Workato, Zapier) or direct ERP connectors. Usually required once order volume, multi-region operations, or complex tax logic outgrow off-the-shelf apps.

How to choose the right Shopify integrations

The best Shopify integrations are the ones that solve a problem you can name today, not the ones that look impressive in a feature comparison. Most app sprawl in scandiweb’s audits traces back to merchants installing tools speculatively, then leaving them in place because removal feels riskier than the unknown cost of keeping them. A short evaluation framework keeps the stack honest:

Best Shopify payment integrations

Shopify payment integrations process customer transactions, route money to your bank, and handle the operational layer underneath: refunds, disputes, fraud screening, multi-currency, and recurring billing. Choosing the wrong payment stack is one of the few Shopify decisions that directly costs money on every order, through higher fees, lower conversion at checkout, or chargebacks the gateway could have caught.

1. Shopify Payments

Shopify’s native gateway, powered by Stripe under the hood. Lower processing fees on Shopify plans (no third-party transaction fee), one-click checkout via Shop Pay, and full integration with Shopify’s order and refund workflows. The default choice for most merchants in supported regions, especially when conversion at checkout is the priority. Shop Pay alone has been measured to lift checkout conversion meaningfully on mobile against generic guest checkout flows.

2. Stripe

Best when you are operating outside Shopify Payments-supported regions, running a custom checkout (Shopify Plus checkout extensibility, headless storefronts), or need granular control over subscriptions, payment intents, or marketplace splits. Stripe’s developer documentation is the strongest in the category, which matters when your team is wiring up a Shopify Stripe connector into a custom flow rather than installing an app.

3. PayPal Express Checkout

Still essential for stores selling internationally or to demographics that prefer PayPal. Adding a Shopify PayPal integration alongside cards consistently lifts checkout completion among returning customers who already have a PayPal account, which is why most stores selling internationally keep it in the stack even when card processing is handled elsewhere. Treat it as a complement to Shopify Payments, not a replacement.

Best Shopify CRM integrations

Shopify CRM integrations connect customer, order, and behavioral data from your store with a CRM, so sales and marketing teams work from the same record as support and operations. The strongest setups close the gap between “marketing knows the customer signed up for emails” and “support knows the customer placed three orders this quarter,” which is where most retention and B2B revenue leaks happen.

4. HubSpot for Shopify

The most polished native integration for stores that already run HubSpot for marketing or sales. Two-way sync of customers, orders, and abandoned carts, with native workflows that segment by RFM, lifecycle stage, or product purchased. Best fit for B2B and DTC brands that want one CRM covering acquisition through retention, without standing up a separate CDP.

5. Salesforce Commerce integration

For enterprise merchants on Shopify Plus running Salesforce as the system of record. Connectors from Salesforce or third-party middleware (MuleSoft, Celigo) sync customer, order, and product data into Sales Cloud or Service Cloud. The right choice when account-based selling, complex sales territories, or Service Cloud-driven support workflows already live in Salesforce.

6. Zoho CRM

Cost-effective option for small and mid-market stores that want CRM functionality without HubSpot pricing. The Shopify Zoho CRM integration syncs customers and orders, and Zoho’s wider stack (Books, Inventory, Desk) creates a usable suite at a fraction of enterprise CRM cost. Trade-off is depth: workflows and reporting are less mature than HubSpot or Salesforce equivalents.

Best Shopify marketplace integrations

Shopify marketplace integrations let you list and manage products on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Etsy, TikTok Shop, and other channels from your Shopify admin, with inventory and orders syncing back into one source of truth. They cut the operational cost of multichannel selling, which is where most merchants lose margin: overselling on one channel because inventory did not update on the other, or running parallel listings that drift out of sync within a quarter.

7. Shopify Marketplace Connect (Codisto)

Shopify’s official multichannel app, after acquiring Codisto. Connects Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and Etsy with real-time inventory and order sync, plus channel-specific listing rules. The default starting point for most merchants going multichannel because it is officially supported and priced per channel rather than per listing.

8. CedCommerce multichannel apps

A family of channel-specific apps (Amazon Channel by CedCommerce, eBay Integration, Walmart Marketplace Integration) that go deeper on per-channel rules, bulk listing operations, and category-specific attribute mapping. Better suited to merchants whose marketplace volume is high enough to need fine-grained control over how each channel sees the catalog.

9. Channable

A product feed and marketplace management platform that handles both shopping ads (Google, Meta) and marketplaces (Amazon, eBay, Bol.com) from one feed. The right pick when product feed quality, automated ad rules, and European marketplaces are part of the mix, since Channable’s strength is cross-channel feed transformation, not just listing management.

Best Shopify email marketing integrations

Shopify email marketing integrations connect customer, order, and behavioral data from your store to an email and SMS platform, so flows trigger on real events (browse, cart, purchase, refund) rather than batch-sent campaigns. The economic case is straightforward: owned channels carry the highest return on ad spend in eCommerce because the audience is already customers, and the platform you choose decides how much of that audience you can actually reach with relevant messaging.

10. Klaviyo

The market default for Shopify email marketing, and for good reason. The native Shopify Klaviyo integration brings two-way sync, deep segmentation on order and behavioral data, pre-built flows (welcome, browse abandonment, post-purchase, win-back), and SMS in the same workspace. Pricing scales with active profiles, which becomes a budget consideration at scale, but the data infrastructure underneath is the strongest in the category.

11. Omnisend

Strong alternative for small and mid-market merchants who want pre-built eCommerce automations without the Klaviyo learning curve. The Shopify Omnisend integration brings email, SMS, and push in one platform, with Shopify-native templates for cart abandonment, order confirmation, and shipping updates. Pricing tends to be friendlier at lower contact counts.

12. Mailchimp for Shopify

After the Shopify Mailchimp integration was rebuilt and re-released, it is again a credible option for stores that already use Mailchimp for newsletters and want the same workspace for product-driven campaigns. Less depth than Klaviyo on eCommerce flows, but a reasonable choice for content-led brands where editorial newsletter cadence matters as much as automation.

For a deeper view of how these tools work inside a multi-channel program, scandiweb’s email marketing services cover lifecycle marketing setup across Klaviyo, Omnisend, and SMS providers.

Best Shopify accounting integrations

Shopify accounting integrations sync orders, refunds, fees, taxes, and payouts from Shopify into your accounting system, so the books reflect what actually happened in the store without manual journal entries. The category quietly absorbs hours of finance team time when done badly: reconciling Shopify payouts against bank deposits, correcting misclassified refunds, and re-mapping tax codes after every checkout change. For merchants that also manage supplier bills or purchase orders, invoice matching can add another control layer before payments are approved and reconciled.

13. QuickBooks Online (via QuickBooks Bridge or A2X)

QuickBooks is the dominant accounting tool for SMB merchants, and the Shopify QuickBooks integration runs through either a direct sync app (QuickBooks Bridge) or through A2X, which posts summarized journal entries instead of every order. A2X is the preferred path once order volume is high, since per-order sync inflates the QuickBooks data file and slows reporting.

14. Xero

The Shopify Xero integration is the natural fit for merchants in the UK, AU, NZ, and increasingly in the US. A2X again is the recommended bridge at scale, posting daily settlement summaries rather than line-item orders. Xero’s bank reconciliation tools work well with Shopify Payments deposits once the journal mapping is set up correctly.

15. Webgility

A heavier accounting and operations integration that goes beyond bookkeeping: it syncs Shopify orders to QuickBooks or NetSuite, manages inventory across channels, and posts shipping and fulfillment data back. Best fit for merchants who want one tool covering accounting, inventory, and multichannel order management rather than stitching three separate apps together.

Best Shopify POS integrations

Shopify POS integrations connect your in-person sales floor with the same product, customer, and inventory database as your online store. Done well, they make omnichannel feel obvious to the customer: buy online, return in store, check stock at one location from another, loyalty points earned online and redeemed at the counter. Done badly, they create two parallel inventory systems that disagree by lunchtime on a busy Saturday.

16. Shopify POS

Shopify’s native POS, available in Lite (included with most plans) and Pro (paid) tiers. Pro adds smart inventory management, staff permissions, in-store analytics, and exchanges or returns from any location. The default choice when retail and online run on Shopify, since the Shopify POS integration inherits the same product, customer, and inventory database without a sync layer in between.

17. Stocky (by Shopify)

Built for Shopify POS Pro merchants who need inventory forecasting, purchase orders, supplier management, and stock transfers across locations. Native to Shopify and bundled with POS Pro, which means no additional integration cost. Best suited to merchants with multiple locations, growing SKU counts, or seasonal inventory cycles where forecasting matters.

18. Marsello

Loyalty, marketing, and reporting layered on top of Shopify POS, designed for retailers who want a single program covering both online and in-store customers. Earn and redeem rules apply across channels, and email and SMS campaigns can be triggered by in-store behavior. The right fit when omnichannel loyalty is a priority and the existing Shopify POS toolkit does not cover it.

For brands operating across stores and online, scandiweb’s omnichannel B2C work covers the operational and CX layers that sit on top of POS and inventory integrations.

Read more: Case Study: New Website Design and Build on Shopify for Mil-Coffee.

Native vs third-party Shopify integrations: how to decide

Native Shopify integrations (Shopify Payments, Shopify POS, Shop Pay, Shopify Email, Shopify Markets) are built and maintained by Shopify, so they ship with the platform’s reliability, support, and roadmap. Third-party integrations are built by independent vendors and listed in the Shopify App Store. Choose native when the use case is core eCommerce (payments, point of sale, fulfillment, basic email) and choose third-party when you need depth, specialization, or a feature set Shopify does not build for.

Practical decision rules:

• Use native first for payments, POS, basic email, and product variants. Less moving parts, lower fees in many cases, fewer integration failure modes.
• Use third-party when the third party is materially better at the specialty (Klaviyo over Shopify Email at scale, A2X over native order export for accounting at volume).
• Build custom when no app does the job and the business case justifies maintenance cost (custom ERP connectors, B2B pricing engines, multi-region tax logic that exceeds what Shopify Markets handles).

Common Shopify integration pitfalls

Most Shopify integration projects fail in predictable ways, and the failure modes show up months after install when the original decision-maker has moved on. The shortlist worth pinning to the wall before any new app goes live:

• App overlap. Two apps editing the same field (metadata, schema, customer tags) eventually conflict. The losing app’s value disappears, but the script weight stays.
• One-way sync mistaken for two-way sync. Many apps advertise “Shopify integration” but only push data in one direction. Returns, refunds, and customer updates often do not flow back, which corrupts reporting in the destination system.
• Webhook reliability. Shopify webhooks can fail, retry, and arrive out of order. Apps without queue management or replay logic miss events silently, especially on high-volume stores.
• Migration cost. Custom integrations built against an older Shopify API version need rebuilding when the version is deprecated, and any Shopify migration is where these costs surface first. Treat custom integrations as systems with maintenance budgets, not one-time builds.
• Performance tax. Every app injects JavaScript, makes API calls, or hits the database on cart and checkout pages. The cost compounds and tends to surface only when Core Web Vitals start failing. Our Shopify SEO checklist covers the audit pattern.
• Trial-then-forget. The single most common pattern: an app gets installed during a trial, never gets evaluated, and stays for two years drawing a monthly subscription. Quarterly app audits with a “remove if not used” default solve this.

What to do before adding the next Shopify integration

A short pre-install checklist that scandiweb runs with Shopify Plus clients before any new app goes live:

1. Name the problem. Write down the specific revenue loss, cost, or operational pain the integration is supposed to solve.
2. Check Shopify native first. Search the admin for the same functionality before opening the app store.
3. Confirm two-way sync. Read the app’s documentation, not the marketing page, to verify which entities sync in which direction and how often.
4. Check support and changelog cadence. A vendor that ships updates monthly and answers tickets within a day will save more than the cheapest option in the category.
5. Test on a development store. Install on a duplicate, not on production, especially for anything that touches checkout, inventory, or customer data.
6. Set a 90-day review. Calendar a check on whether the integration delivered against the named problem. If it did not, uninstall.

For deeper architectural planning, especially when integrations cross into ERP, OMS, or PIM territory, scandiweb’s eCommerce integrations practice handles enterprise-level connector design across Shopify, Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, and headless stacks.

Read more: Case Study: Magento 1 to Shopify Migration for a Luxury Jewelry Brand.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best Shopify integrations?

The best Shopify integrations depend on where the business is leaking time or revenue. For most merchants, the highest-impact picks are Shopify Payments for checkout conversion, Klaviyo for email and SMS, Shopify Marketplace Connect for multichannel listing, A2X for accounting sync, and Shopify POS for in-person retail. Add CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce) once customer data needs to live in one record across marketing, sales, and support.

How many integrations does Shopify support?

The Shopify App Store lists more than 13,000 third-party apps, and Shopify itself ships native integrations with payment, POS, email, marketplaces, shipping, and analytics tools. Custom integrations through the REST and GraphQL APIs are available on every plan, with higher API limits on Shopify Plus.

Are Shopify integrations free?

Some Shopify integrations are free (Shopify Payments has no app fee, Shopify POS Lite is included with most plans, many entry-tier app plans are free up to a usage threshold), but most paid apps charge a monthly subscription, a usage fee, or a percentage of processed volume. Total cost of ownership matters more than headline price: a free app that fails to sync correctly costs more than a paid app that does.

What is the best CRM integration for Shopify?

HubSpot is the strongest CRM integration for most Shopify merchants because of its two-way sync depth, native workflows, and combined marketing and sales coverage. Salesforce is the right pick for enterprise merchants on Shopify Plus that already run Salesforce as the system of record, and Zoho is the budget option for small and mid-market stores that need CRM functionality without enterprise pricing.

What is the best accounting integration for Shopify?

A2X is the best accounting integration for Shopify at scale because it posts daily summarized journal entries to QuickBooks or Xero, rather than every order, which keeps the accounting file clean and reconciliation manageable. Direct app connectors (QuickBooks Bridge, Xero’s native app) are fine for low-volume stores but tend to slow down once order count crosses a few hundred per month.

Does Shopify have native marketplace integrations?

Yes, Shopify Marketplace Connect (built on the acquired Codisto platform) is Shopify’s official multichannel app, supporting Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and Etsy with real-time inventory and order sync. Third-party apps such as CedCommerce and Channable go deeper for merchants who need per-channel rules or feed-level transformation.

Can Shopify integrate with my ERP or POS?

Yes, Shopify integrates with major ERPs (NetSuite, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle) and POS systems through native apps, third-party connectors, or custom middleware (Celigo, Workato, MuleSoft). Custom integrations are usually required for ERP because each implementation differs by tax, fulfillment, and accounting logic, which is where scandiweb’s Shopify Plus practice and enterprise integrations work get involved.

How do I avoid Shopify app sprawl?

Run a quarterly app audit, document what each integration does for revenue or cost saved, and uninstall anything that cannot be defended. Most stores carry two or three apps that duplicate native Shopify functionality, two or three that are still installed from a trial, and one that injects scripts into pages it has no reason to touch. Audit data from scandiweb’s Shopify retainers shows that uninstalling 3-5 apps typically improves Core Web Vitals enough to register in PageSpeed Insights without any other change.

If your Shopify integration stack has grown faster than the team's ability to keep it tidy, or you are planning a Shopify Plus build where the integration architecture has to be right from day one, scandiweb takes the full picture: integrations, performance, CRO, and SEO under one team. Talk to scandiweb's Shopify team and we will walk through the current stack against the revenue and operational problems you actually need solved.

The post 18 Best Shopify Integrations to Scale Your Store in 2026 appeared first on scandiweb.

Did you know that only 43% of Shopify stores pass all three Core Web Vitals according to Google’s 2025 CrUX data? We’ve identified that the same handful of issues – duplicate product URLs, app bloat, thin collection pages, broken redirects after slug edits – cause most of the lost traffic in scandiweb’s audits.

To improve SEO on Shopify, start with technical foundations: Google Search Console, GA4, sitemap submission, clean indexation, and a fast theme. Then optimize product and collection pages, build internal links, publish useful content, add structured data, and run regular audits. The order below is the one that holds up in audit after audit.

This article outlines all you need to know about technical SEO and on-page SEO for Shopify and Shopify Plus stores.

Shopify SEO checklist: what to fix first

Duplicate URLs, page speed, and product and collection metadata are the first issues to fix on a Shopify store. These are the issues most likely to block rankings or waste crawl budget. Once technical health is stable, move to on-page content, internal links, structured data, and ongoing audits.

• Connect Google Search Console and GA4 before any optimization work, because without measurement you cannot identify ranking drops or improvements.
• Validate indexation through the Coverage report, not the sitemap itself, since pages in the sitemap are often not indexed.
• Fix duplicate product URLs caused by collection paths, because duplicate URLs split ranking signals and waste crawl budget.
• Audit app bloat and unused theme code, since excess scripts slow pages and directly impact rankings.
• Treat the SEO checklist as phased, not flat: setup, technical, on-page, content, and audit each depend on the previous layer.

Priority framework: high-impact tasks vs low-impact

This Shopify SEO checklist groups tasks by ranking impact, not by effort, so merchants know what to fix first. The priorities below reflect what moves traffic in scandiweb’s audit work, not a generic “do everything” list.

How to set up SEO for Shopify

To set up SEO for Shopify, connect Google Search Console and GA4, submit your sitemap.xml, confirm HTTPS is active. Choose a lightweight theme like Satoshi which is the #1 Shopify theme with exceptional UX and optimized performance baked-in. Also a good tip is to review the default title and meta description templates.

Six steps cover the practical setup work, and any Shopify SEO checklist that runs longer than this in the setup phase usually buries the items that move rankings.

1. Connect GSC: verify domain, submit sitemap.xml, and set the preferred domain.
2. Connect GA4 through Shopify’s built-in integration in admin preferences.
3. Confirm HTTPS is active and the primary domain redirects correctly (www vs non-www).
4. Review default title and meta templates in theme settings, since most Online Store 2.0 themes ship with generic placeholders that need replacing.
5. Set up Online Store 2.0 structured content if your theme supports it, so app blocks live where you place them rather than injecting into every template.
6. Install one metadata management app or use Shopify’s native fields, and avoid stacking multiple SEO apps that modify the same elements.

In scandiweb’s Shopify audits, the most consistent setup error is not what gets installed, but what gets left behind from a previous theme or app stack. Old metadata templates, abandoned redirect tools, and three competing schema apps tend to outlast the team that installed them. Setup is the right moment to remove them, not to layer on more. For the wider operational picture, our guide on setting up a Shopify store correctly from the start covers the questions that come up before SEO work even begins.

What Shopify handles automatically

• sitemap.xml generation, auto-updated as products and collections change
• Canonical tags on product and collection pages
• HTTPS across all pages
• Mobile-responsive themes by default
• robots.txt, editable through robots.txt.liquid in theme code since 2021
• Editable title and meta description fields on every page

Shopify covers the technical foundation, not the strategy. The platform will not decide what your H1 should say, which collections deserve internal links, or whether your product copy answers a buyer’s actual question.

What you still need to optimize manually

Technical SEO for Shopify

Technical SEO for Shopify focuses on making sure Google can crawl, index, and understand the right pages without wasting crawl budget on duplicates, broken URLs, or slow templates. The most common issues on Shopify stores are duplicate product URLs from collection paths, app-induced script bloat, unused theme code, missing product schema, and 404s left behind after URL edits. All of them are fixable in the admin or theme code, and all of them compound when ignored.

Check indexing, sitemap, and crawlability

Work through the indexation review in this order:

1. Submit sitemap.xml in Google Search Console so new and updated pages are queued for crawling.
2. Use the Coverage or Pages report to find non-indexed URLs. The sitemap tells Google what exists, not what got indexed.
3. Inspect critical URLs (homepage, top collections, top products) through URL Inspection to confirm Google’s last-crawled version.
4. Review robots.txt.liquid for unintended blocks introduced by apps or theme edits.
5. Confirm product and collection pages return a 200 status with indexable meta robots tags.

Shopify stores often over-block through app-injected noindex tags, so check response headers, not just on-page meta. The most common pattern: a review or upsell app sets noindex on out-of-stock product pages by default, and the merchant only finds out when those products come back in stock and refuse to rank.

Fix duplicate URLs, redirects, and canonical issues

Four named issues cause most of the duplicate-content losses on Shopify:

• Collection-path duplicates. /collections/summer/products/x vs /products/x. The canonical points to the bare path by default, but merchants often break this with app modifications or theme edits. With 500 products, 1,000+ URLs end up crawlable, even if only half deserve to rank.
• Outdated product URLs after slug edits. Shopify prompts you to create a 301 redirect when you change a URL, but the prompt is frequently missed during bulk edits, CSV imports, or migrations. Broken redirects are one of the most common causes of traffic loss in scandiweb audits, and the risk peaks during platform migrations where URL mapping has to be handled deliberately.
• 404s from deleted products that were never redirected to the parent collection or a relevant alternative.
• Seasonal or out-of-stock products. Decide redirect vs noindex, but do not delete pages that already earned backlinks or rankings.

Our guide on migrating to Shopify without losing SEO covers URL mapping and redirect handling in detail. Inside the admin, manage redirects under Online Store, Navigation, URL Redirects.

Improve Shopify speed and Core Web Vitals

Speed is the single most common SEO failure scandiweb sees in Shopify audits. Google’s current Core Web Vitals thresholds are LCP under 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds, and CLS at or below 0.1. The fixes worth prioritizing are Shopify-specific, not generic:

• App script bloat, especially review, popup, and tracking apps that inject scripts on every page rather than the templates that need them
• Unused theme sections that load even when hidden behind feature flags
• Unoptimized product images, where switching to .webp and lazy-loading below-the-fold media usually clears the LCP threshold on its own
• Third-party tracking scripts firing synchronously instead of through deferred or async loaders
• Heavy hero sliders and autoplay videos that push LCP past 4 seconds on mobile

The Dawn theme on Online Store 2.0 ships with strong Core Web Vitals out of the box, often scoring 95+ on Lighthouse before customization. In scandiweb’s audits, Dawn stores routinely drop to 55-65 on mobile once 5-10 apps and unoptimized media land on top, which is why theme choice usually matters more than post-launch optimization. For a deeper view of fixes that move the score, see scandiweb’s guide on improving Shopify site speed and performance.

On-page SEO for Shopify

On-page SEO on Shopify optimizes each product, collection, and blog page so search engines understand what it should rank for. Focus on unique title tags, meta descriptions, one clear H1 per page, useful body copy, image alt text, and internal links to relevant products or collections. Shopify provides the fields. Merchants are responsible for filling them with intent-matched content.

Product page SEO checklist

• Unique title tag with primary keyword and brand, 55 to 60 characters
• Meta description with value prop and CTA, 150 to 160 characters
• H1 matches the product name, with no duplicate H1s injected by theme sections
• Product description answers the top three buyer questions, not just specs
• Image filenames use a descriptive slug like linen-shirt-navy.jpg, not DSC_0423.jpg
• Alt text describes the image for accessibility, with keyword use only where natural
• Product schema is in place (Online Store 2.0 themes add this by default, but verify on the rich results test)
• Internal links to two or three related products or the parent collection

The “300 words per product” rule is outdated. Say enough to answer buyer questions, then stop. Thin product pages fail. Padded ones fail too. The pattern that holds up across audits: a 120-word description that resolves three real buyer questions outperforms a 400-word block of brand voice that resolves none.

Collection page SEO checklist

Collection pages typically rank for higher-volume keywords, while product pages capture long-tail intent. This is where most Shopify SEO traffic comes from, yet many stores leave collection pages thin or poorly structured. The fix is usually copy and structure, not new features.

• One primary keyword target per collection, for example “women’s running shoes”
• 100 to 200 words of intro copy above the product grid, not below it where users scroll past
• Useful filters: size, color, price range, brand, plus a rule for which filter pages Google should index
• Internal links to subcategories and bestsellers inside the intro copy
• Avoid thin collections with fewer than four or five products, since they should be merged or redirected
• Internal links into the collection from blog content that targets related queries

Blog and content SEO checklist

Shopify blog content supports product and collection rankings by targeting informational queries and linking down to money pages. Avoid publishing content without clear search intent, since generic updates and low-value posts dilute topical focus. Most Shopify stores lack a clear internal linking hierarchy. Collections do not link to related collections, and product pages do not link back to their parent categories. This is one of the most common reasons stores fail to scale organic traffic.

• Target questions buyers ask before purchasing, using GSC Search Terms and AnswerThePublic
• Every blog post links to at least two products or collections using descriptive anchor text
• Internal links from product pages back to relevant blog content, such as care guides or comparisons
• Avoid brand updates and press releases in the main blog, since they dilute topical focus

Shopify SEO apps and tools: what do you actually need?

Shopify SEO apps handle specific technical tasks well: image compression, schema markup, redirect management, metadata bulk editing, and audit reports. They do not replace SEO strategy, keyword research, or content quality work. Most stores need one or two apps, not five. Stacking SEO apps often adds script weight that cancels the ranking benefit.

The categories worth considering, picked by problem rather than brand:

• Image compression for speed and LCP improvement
• Schema markup for rich results, only if your theme does not already cover it
• Redirect management, especially after a migration or large slug change
• Metadata bulk editing for stores with several thousand products
• Technical audits, used as one-time or monthly diagnostic, not as a permanent install

Most SEO apps overlap heavily. Installing multiple apps that modify metadata or schema often creates conflicts rather than improvements, and each one adds JavaScript weight and database calls to every request. Treat apps as tools for specific jobs, not as strategy: they earn their slot when a Shopify-native field cannot do the same work. If a function already lives in Online Store 2.0 or in your theme, an app for it is overhead, not optimization.

Shopify SEO audit: monthly workflow

A Shopify SEO audit should check indexation, page speed, duplicate URLs, structured data, internal links, and content quality. The goal is not to surface every issue, it is to identify the fixes most likely to move rankings and revenue this month. A repeatable workflow beats occasional deep audits, and that is how scandiweb’s SEO team runs monthly checks across Shopify clients.

Where the previous Technical SEO section covered what to optimize, this section covers how to find what needs optimizing.

Step-by-step audit process

1. GSC Coverage and Search Results. Check the Coverage report for indexation drops, then review Search Results for query and CTR declines compared with the previous 28 days.
2. GA4. Review organic sessions, top landing pages, and revenue by landing page. Sudden drops on a single template usually indicate a technical change, not a content issue.
3. Crawl key templates. Run Screaming Frog or Sitebulb on the homepage, top collection, top product, and blog templates to surface broken links, duplicate metadata, and orphan pages.
4. PageSpeed Insights. Run on three page types (homepage, top collection, top product) on both mobile and desktop. Mobile is where Core Web Vitals usually fail first.
5. Recent app and theme changes. Review installs and theme edits from the last 30 days. Most sudden ranking drops trace back to a deploy in this window.
6. URL Redirects list. Check for broken chains, missed 301s, and orphaned redirects from old slugs.
7. Schema validation. Run product, breadcrumb, and organization schema through Schema.org validator and Google’s Rich Results test.
8. Internal links. Spot-check links from blog posts to money pages and from product pages back to parent collections.

Always compare performance against the previous 28 days to identify real changes, not normal fluctuation. The same eight steps run monthly catch most regressions before they show up in revenue, which is why this is the workflow scandiweb’s team uses on retainer accounts rather than reserving deep audits for once-a-quarter exercises.

Is Shopify good or bad for SEO?

Shopify is good for SEO for most eCommerce stores because it handles hosting, HTTPS, sitemaps, canonical tags, and mobile-responsive themes by default. Shopify becomes limiting when merchants rely on too many apps, use slow themes, create thin collection pages, or need deeper control over URL structure (including the forced /products/ and /collections/ path prefixes). Shopify rankings usually come down to app discipline and how much intent-matched copy lives on collection pages, not the platform underneath.

Out of the box, Shopify gets the foundation right. Hosting and HTTPS ship by default, sitemaps and canonical tags generate automatically, and the admin lets merchants edit title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, and URL handles without touching code. Mobile-responsive themes are the baseline, and for 80% of stores that covers what is needed.

The named limitations are worth understanding before committing to the platform. The /products/ and /collections/ URL path prefixes are forced and cannot be restructured. Advanced checkout customization sits behind Shopify Plus, while standard plans allow only limited styling and settings. Shopify allows editing robots.txt through robots.txt.liquid, but access remains more limited than fully self-hosted platforms.

For most stores, these are acceptable trade-offs. For brands with complex taxonomies, multi-brand structures, or custom URL requirements, they are constraints to plan around. Our analysis of Shopify’s SEO limitations covers the edge cases in detail.

Shopify SEO tips for new stores

For a new Shopify store, SEO priorities are narrower: connect GSC and GA4, write unique titles and meta descriptions for products and collections, add 100 to 200 words of useful copy to top collections, build internal links from blog to money pages, and avoid installing apps that duplicate native Shopify features. Content marketing and link building come after the core pages are strong, not before.

A few stage-specific guidelines that consistently hold up for new stores:

• Start with product and collection page optimization, not blog content. Money pages compound. Blog posts route traffic into them.
• Pick an SEO-friendly theme on Online Store 2.0, with Dawn as the reference benchmark for Core Web Vitals. Our roundup of choosing an SEO-friendly Shopify theme compares the most credible options.
• Avoid installing more than two or three apps in the first month. The temptation to bolt on review, popup, and upsell apps before the catalog is even fully populated is the single biggest source of avoidable speed regressions.
• Set up URL Redirects from day one for any product slug changes, not after a slug edit goes wrong.
• Wait until you have 50 or more products before investing in content marketing. Linking to a thin catalog from a blog post does not generate traffic, it generates bounces.

How to improve SEO on Shopify: action plan by store stage

If your Shopify store is new, start with setup, indexation, metadata, and collection structure. If your store already gets traffic but growth has plateaued, prioritize technical audits, page speed, internal linking, and content refreshes. If rankings have dropped, check recent theme changes, app installs, URL edits, and broken redirects first. These account for most sudden Shopify SEO drops.

Fix first if you are growing:

• Core setup: GSC, GA4, sitemap, HTTPS
• Title and meta on top 10 products and top 5 collections
• Internal links from blog to money pages
• Basic product schema

Fix first if you are diagnosing a drop:

• Recent theme or app changes from the last 30 days
• URL edits without 301 redirects
• Indexation drops in GSC Coverage report
• Core Web Vitals regression
• Broken redirect chains

In a recent Magento 2 to Shopify migration, scandiweb’s SEO program for Kouboo used full metadata mapping, redirect handling, and ongoing optimization to grow organic revenue 107% post-launch, with the post-migration traffic dip held to 8-9% and recovered inside the first month. Migrations are the highest-stakes version of this action plan, but the underlying logic is the same on a stable store: control what changed and protect the URLs that already rank.

Shopify SEO priorities by use case

Frequently asked questions

What is SEO in Shopify?

SEO in Shopify is the process of optimizing your store so search engines can crawl, understand, and rank your product, collection, and content pages. Shopify handles basics like sitemaps, HTTPS, and canonical tags, but rankings depend on how well you optimize content, internal links, site speed, and technical setup.

Do SEO apps work for Shopify?

Yes, SEO apps work for Shopify when they solve a specific technical task such as schema, redirects, image optimization, or bulk metadata edits. They do not replace SEO strategy, content quality, or site structure, and stacking too many of them often creates more problems than they fix.

How do I improve SEO on Shopify?

To improve SEO on Shopify, fix technical issues first (duplicate URLs, page speed), then optimize product and collection pages, strengthen internal linking, and publish content that supports buying decisions. Ongoing audits are needed to maintain rankings and prevent regressions as the store grows.

How do I fix common Shopify SEO issues?

Start by identifying the issue in tools like Google Search Console or a crawler, then fix the root cause before making structural changes. Most Shopify SEO issues come from duplicate URLs, slow pages, broken redirects, and thin collection content.

What is the best SEO app for Shopify?

There is no single best SEO app for Shopify. Different apps solve different problems, such as image compression, schema markup, redirects, or bulk metadata editing. Most stores only need one or two, and installing too many can slow the site and create conflicts.

Is Shopify good for SEO?

Yes, Shopify is good for SEO for most eCommerce stores. It handles hosting, HTTPS, sitemap generation, canonical tags, and mobile-responsive themes by default. It becomes limiting for merchants who need deep URL structure control, run into the forced /products/ path prefix, or require checkout customization outside of Shopify Plus.

Do I need Shopify SEO services?

You may need Shopify SEO services if your store has unresolved technical issues, traffic drops, slow performance, or limited internal resources. Agencies usually pay for themselves on audits, technical fixes, performance optimization, and migrations, where mistakes are expensive to fix later.

If your Shopify store is losing traffic or you are planning a migration where SEO cannot afford to slip, scandiweb takes responsibility across the full system: technical SEO, performance, content, and on-page execution under one team. Talk to scandiweb’s Shopify SEO team and we will walk through the audit findings against your catalog and current rankings, with a migration timeline if one is on the table.

The post Shopify SEO Checklist: How to Improve SEO on Shopify appeared first on scandiweb.