How apps get featured by Shopify
More and more merchants join Shopify every day. They use apps to grow their business and to sell their products in new and different ways.
Merchants need to know that your app is right for their business. They want apps that are easy to use, safe for their business and customers, and that won’t slow down their site.
To help you develop apps that build trust with merchants, we’re sharing the criteria we use to identify the apps that we feature.
Criteria for featured apps
Anchor link to section titled "Criteria for featured apps"For an app to be eligible to be featured by Shopify, it has to have all of the following qualities:
Proven usefulness: High-quality apps have a history of helping merchants. Some factors we consider are total installs over the lifetime of the app, the recency of those installs, uninstall rate, and recent average rating from merchant reviews. Learn about tracking your app usage metrics.
Easy to use: A merchant’s time is valuable, and high-quality apps make life a little easier for them. Apps should be intuitive, seamless, and well-integrated. To rate ease of use, we evaluate how well the app works with the Shopify admin, particularly with the use of App Bridge 2.0 and session tokens.
High performance: Apps should perform quickly and at scale for merchants and their customers. We evaluate app performance on storefronts based on Lighthouse scores.
Quality merchandising: App listings should have a clear brand identity that spells out exactly how the app will help the merchant. Taglines, images or video, key benefits, demos, websites, and FAQs all improve the quality of an app's merchandising. Learn how to write a great app store listing.
Good Partner standing: Apps must continue to meet the requirements for public apps and uphold the Shopify API License and Terms of Use. There should be no outstanding infractions against the Partner Program Agreement.
Where merchants can discover featured apps
Anchor link to section titled "Where merchants can discover featured apps"We’re always working on new ways for merchants to discover apps that will help their business succeed. Here are a few of the ways we’ll be providing recommendations:
Picked for you modal: Designed to help merchants discover recommended apps in a way that feels simple, safe, and personalized. This new admin surface includes only apps that are high-quality, and recommendations are tailored to the needs of each unique merchant.
In the Spotlight: Shopify selects and features high-quality apps for the In the Spotlight section on the Shopify App Store homepage. In addition to the general promotion criteria, we consider the following factors for inclusion:
- New apps: Partners that create new and impactful apps can lack the ability to gain installations. In the Spotlight shows new apps to merchants in a high-traffic section in the homepage, which can help apps succeed faster.
- Internationalization: Shopify helps merchants on a global scale, and apps that help merchants across the globe get special consideration for In the Spotlight. Apps can do this by translating both their listing and user interface for various international markets. If you have a translated listing, then you're required to offer support in that language.
Search result rankings (coming soon): We'll use quality signals to drive our search algorithm. Partners who follow the criteria for featured apps will have a greater chance of showing up in a higher-ranked position.
App listing pages (coming soon): We'll also verify certain attributes on app listings and across the Shopify App Store to make it easier for merchants to spot high-quality apps.
Continuous improvements to featured app criteria
Anchor link to section titled "Continuous improvements to featured app criteria"In the future, we might add new criteria for becoming a featured app. For example, as merchants become more global and mobile-focused, we’ll feature apps that meet the localization or mobile needs of those merchants.