Offering discounts to Shopify employees

At Shopify, we encourage all of our employees to run their own stores so that they can better understand our products and the merchant experience. To help Shopify employees learn about your app, you can offer free or discounted plans (or tiers of service) to them.

Step 1: Identify stores run by Shopify employees

You can identify stores that are run by Shopify employees by their plan name: staff_business. To find a store's plan_name property, query the Shop resource:

GET /admin/api/2020-10/shop.json?fields=plan_name

The response contains the plan_name property:

{
 "plan_name": "staff_business"
}

Step 2: Create a custom charge

After you've determined that a store is run by a Shopify employee, you can create a custom ApplicationCharge, RecurringApplicationCharge, or UsageCharge for it.

To create a custom charge:

  • Modify the plan's name property to indicate a special Shopify plan.
  • Include the test property to offer the plan for free, or modify the price to reflect a discounted rate.

Examples

Create an ApplicationCharge with custom name and test properties:

POST /admin/api/2020-10/application_charges.json
{
 "application_charge": {
   "name": "Super Duper Plan (Free for Shopify staff)",
   "price": 100.0,
   "test": true,
   "return_url": "http:\/\/super-duper.shopifyapps.com"
 }
}

Create an ApplicationCharge with custom name and price properties:

POST /admin/api/2020-10/application_charges.json
{
 "application_charge": {
   "name": "Super Duper Plan (20% off - Shopify special)",
   "price": 80.0,
   "return_url": "http:\/\/super-duper.shopifyapps.com"
 }
}

Create a RecurringApplicationCharge with custom name, price, and terms properties:

POST /admin/api/2020-10/recurring_application_charges.json
{
 "recurring_application_charge": {
   "name": "Super Duper Plan (20% off - Shopify special)",
   "price": 8.0,
   "return_url": "http:\/\/super-duper.shopifyapps.com",
   "capped_amount": 100,
   "terms": "$0.80 for 1000 emails (20% off - Shopify special)"
 }
}

Create a UsageCharge with custom description and price properties:

POST /admin/api/2020-10/recurring_application_charges/#{id}/usage_charges.json
{
 "usage_charge": {
   "description": "Super Mega Plan 1000 emails (20% off - Shopify special)",
   "price": 0.80
 }
}

Step 3: Add your discount to our internal listing

After you've set up your free or discounted plan for Shopify employees, submit your app using this form. When your listing has been verified, it will be displayed to Shopify employees when they browse the Shopify App Store.

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