There are many free apps on Shopify. Free apps appear in many fields, including marketing automation, customer engagement, and sales optimization. In this article, we will present a list of the best free apps for Shopify (the most useful ones) for new merchants.
In this article, you are furnished with:
- 15 best free apps on Shopify
- Who needs free apps on Shopify?
- Can you use Shopify apps for free?
Check it out now!
List of best free apps on Shopify
It’s challenging and frustrating to navigate through thousands of available free apps on Shopify to see which are the best free apps to use, that’s why we compiled this list for you. Let’s see the most popular apps that can add value to your stores!
1. BixGrow Affiliate Marketing – free app for affiliate marketing
BixGrow is a 2-in-1 affiliate marketing and referral marketing program that can help you increase sales for your Shopify store dramatically. By providing flexible affiliate links and coupons, it amplifies word-of-mouth marketing, expands your affiliate network, and enhances customer loyalty.
User feedback on BixGrow
- Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 1000+ reviews
Key features of BixGrow
- Easily create and manage affiliate programs to boost sales through word-of-mouth and influencer marketing.
- Display a personalized dashboard to track affiliate portal performance and commissions.
- Provide detailed reports and analytics to track the performance of affiliate programs.
- Integrate the affiliate program with Shopify and access directly from the Shopify toolbar.
- Simplify the payment process with automated commission payouts to affiliates.
Overall, BixGrow is an excellent choice for businesses looking to leverage affiliate marketing to boost sales and manage and optimize affiliate programs effectively. It offers a free plan with essential features such as affiliate marketing programs, customizable affiliate portals, and basic performance tracking. This plan is ideal for small businesses to start their journey without incurring additional costs.
See more: 07 best Shopify apps to build a robust referral program
2. Booster SEO and Image Optimizer – free app for store SEO
If you want to improve your SEO scores, Booster is what you need. It helps in optimizing images to boost your page load speed and drive more traffic. In addition, Booster is also in charge of checking and redirecting all your broken links to improve user experience and conversion rates.
User feedback on Booster
- Overall Rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 7000+ reviews
Key features of Booster SEO and Image Optimizer
- Optimize meta tags for ranking and converting customers.
- Improve page speed with bulk image compression.
- Find and fix SEO issues with the AutoPilot feature.
- Monitor and redirect broken links automatedly to avoid losing traffic and SEO score.
In short, Booster SEO and Image Optimizer is one of the best Shopify apps for retailers to improve their SEO scores and increase traffic quickly without any extra fee. However, the primary limitation of Booster is that it mainly focuses on image optimization and basic SEO tasks, which leads to a lack of advanced SEO strategies.
See more: 07 best SEO Apps to boost your Shopify store rankings [2024]
3. Tidio – free app for customer chatbot & live chat
Tidio is one of Shopify best free apps providing customer service for online store owners. By combining all messages of your customers in one place, this helpdesk app ensures that you won’t miss any potential customers. In addition, using a chatbot system that immediately answers the most common questions of customers, helps your customer support team work smoothly and efficiently.
User feedback on Tidio
- Overall Rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 1000+ reviews
Key features of Tidio
- Answer and talk to your visitors on live chat quickly to solve problems and sell proactively.
- Co-operate with Lyro AI bot to answer common customer questions.
- Integrate with Shopify and other platforms smoothly.
- Provide orders and cart information directly in the chat to save customers’ time and effort.
Generally, Tidio is suitable for starters to control and manage customer service to connect customers easily and convert more sales. Nevertheless, its Free plan might have limitations in terms of live chat operators, which can affect your customer support needs to grow your store.
4. Stock Sync – free app for Inventory Management
Stock Sync is a great tool to optimize your inventory across multiple sources. It helps store owners in updating product details like the levels of inventory, and their movement to your store automatically. By using this app, your import and export data process will be simpler because of its compatibility with diverse formats such as Google Sheets, CSV, XML, etc.
User feedback on Stock Sync
- Overall Rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 1000+ reviews
Key features of Stock Sync
- Minimize manual work by using automatic inventory updates.
- Prevent overselling by setting the quantity rules.
- Provide accurate inventory tracking by exporting stock data to suppliers.
- Allow dropshipping by sharing inventory feed with others.
Although Stock Sync receives a high-rate review on the Shopify app store, it can’t be denied that its free plan has limited functionality. These basic features provided might not support the larger companies’ needs, especially the automated supplier updates and real-time syncing. Thus, if your business requires advanced inventory processes, using Stock Sync might not be a wise choice.
5. Seguno Email Marketing – free app for email marketing
Seguno is one of the best Shopify apps designed specifically for Shopify owners. This app integrates seamlessly with Shopify, allowing merchants to control and adjust marketing campaigns directly from their store’s admin panel. If you are looking to enhance personalized email campaigns to engage customers, Seguno really helps.
User feedback on Seguno Email Marketing
- Overall Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 1000+ reviews
Key features of Seguno Email Marketing
- Access your Shopify store segments, discounts, products, blogs, etc.
- Allow merchants to choose and design emails to match their brand’s styles with Canva embedded.
- Provide diverse email marketing campaign types such as Abandoned carts, Back-in-stock emails, Exit intent, Follow-up emails, Pop-ups, etc.
- Provide quick customer support from real email experts.
As email marketing is a powerful tool to engage customers and increase sales, the limit of 250 subscribers of the Seguno Free plan can impact the business’s growth. Thus, merchants may be forced to upgrade to a paid plan that is not suitable for start-ups and small businesses.
6. Spocket – free app for dropshipping
Spocket is a robust dropshipping app designed to simplify and enhance the dropshipping process for Shopify store owners. By using Spocket, you can easily discover appropriate products from suppliers in the US, Brazil, or Europe. Sprocket has an official partnership with AliExpress and Alibaba, one of the fast and reliable services in the e-commerce marketplace.
User feedback on Spocket
- Overall Rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 5000+ reviews
Key features of Spocket
- Provide the dropshipping service with a huge range of US and European products.
- Offer a diversity of products for Shopify owners: Arts and crafts, Baby products, Business and office, Clothing accessories, Pet products, etc.
- Offer wholesale and big discount prices with no minimum order.
- Automate your AliExpress dropshipping.
If you are testing a wide range of products to figure out which suits you the most, or planning to scale up your business, the Spocket Free plan can not cover your desire. Spocket’s free plan restricts users to a limited number of products (up to 25 unique products), which can constrain your business growth, and force you to transit to a paid plan early.
7. GemPages – free app for page building
Don’t have coding skills can build a page on Shopify? Absolutely yes. GemPages is on top of excellent free Shopify apps that allow users to create stunning interfaces, landing pages, etc. This app is particularly helpful for merchants looking to enhance their user experience and attract and increase sales to their online stores.
User feedback on GemPages
- Overall Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 4000+ reviews
GemPages key features
- Provide the drag-and-drop editor feature, and help Shopify owners easily customize their store’s layout.
- Offer users to access a wide range of pre-designed templates for various page types: product pages, landing pages, homepages, Blog Posts, FAQs, etc.
- Minimalized the page-building effort by turning images and URLs into layouts with an AI tool.
- Offer mobile-responsive designs to improve your store look on Shopify.
Actually, GemPages offers extensive features and options, ensuring flexibility in creating unique pages on Shopify. However, the sheer volume of customization can be overwhelming for beginners or those without design experience to create their designed page layouts efficiently. Besides, some users have reported glitches issues when applying the designs on their website.
8. Air – free app for product reviews
Air is one of the best free apps on Shopify stores that provides an automatic method to collect customer feedback with photos and reviews. It is an essential tool that you need to build trust and credibility with visitors and convert them to loyal customers. By using Air, it is easier for merchants to collect, display, and manage reviews and drive sales.
User feedback on Air
- Overall Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 4000+ reviews
Air key features
- Collect reviews directly from customers through automated email requests.
- Customize the review widgets to match your store’s branding (Improve, Edit, Preview, approve, Reject, etc.).
- Support review structure data for SEO.
- Provide quick responsiveness on any device.
- Integrate with Shopify and other marketing tools to leverage reviews in your campaigns.
While Air is totally an effective tool for collecting reviews to increase customers’ trust, its Free plan still lacks several advanced features. For instance, it doesn’t support video reviews, which can engage more potential buyers for your products. Additionally, customers also complain about the localized language ability. Specifically, if the reviews are in English and Russian customers visit the store, it can not translate the review into Russian.
9. Consentik – free app for cookies consent
Recently, privacy concerns and regulations such as GDPR and CCPA for online stores have increased, thus, the need to obtain and manage customer consent for data collection is essential. Consentik is one of the best free apps on Shopify designed to help store owners comply with global privacy regulations by managing cookies’ consent.
User feedback on Consentik
- Overall Rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 300+ reviews
Consetik key features
- Provide a quick design feature for Shopify store owners to custom their cookie banners.
- Offer the consent banners in multiple languages to reach global audiences.
- Ensure your store complies with GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy regulations.
- Manage and track customer consents efficiently.
- Work with Consent Mode V2.
Overall, Consetik is a valuable tool for ensuring compliance with global privacy regulations. Still, there is a limitation that affects its usability, which is the advanced consent analytics over cookie preferences. Thus, businesses with more complex compliance needs or customization requirements may find it inappropriate and seek a new alternative for their stores.
10. Coupon X – free app for discount pop-up
Coupon is proven to increase sales and reduce cart abandonment, also engage customers to buy more on Shopify. Thus, Coupon X, a designated app, offers Shopify owners with intuitive coupon code pop-up builder, triggers, targeting, and integration features. It helps attract new visitors to purchase and reward repeat customers with interactive promo codes that build loyalty.
User feedback on Coupon X
- Overall Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 200+ reviews
Coupon X key features
- Offer discount code pop-ups, coupons, and promo codes to reduce cart abandonment.
- Target specific customer segments or behaviors with personalized discounts.
- Integrate with MailChimp and Klaviyo.
- Provide built-in analytics to track the performance of your discount pop-ups.
One of the primary drawbacks of Coupon X’s free plan is it restricts the number of pop-ups you can create (500 visitors/month). This limitation can be a challenge for bigger businesses or stores running multiple campaigns at a time. Thus, this free Shopify app is appropriate for small businesses and beginners with a tight budget for a marketing campaign.
11. Bundler ‑ free app for upselling
Bundler is one of the best free Shopify apps designed to help store owners increase the average order value by offering upsell options. When customers add items to their cart, this app will encourage them to buy more by showing the related products at a discounted price. This approach can help store owners boost sales effectively on Shopify.
User feedback on Bundler
- Overall Rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 1500+ reviews
Bundler key features
- Create and upsell bundles easily to offer discounts on grouped items.
- Customize the appearance of bundles on your product pages to match your store’s branding.
- Automatically apply discounts when customers add bundled items to their cart.
- Track the performance of your bundle to know which bundles can boost more sales.
In general, the Bundler app is an amazing app for Shopify store owners by providing a mix-and-match package and bundle saving pop-ups, which is unpopular on other Shopify apps. However, this app sometimes has errors with Shopify themes that need to contact the support team to fix it. If you hate contacting the helpdesk team, Bundler might be not your choice.
12. Section Store: Theme sections – free app for store design
To design your Shopify store, there are usually 15 sections and it will be challenging if you are not familiar with those. Section Store provides storage of customizable theme sections that merchants can easily add to their existing themes. Without coding knowledge, you can enhance your store’s visuals and functionality seamlessly.
User feedback on Section Store
- Overall Rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 600+ reviews
Section Store key features
- Provide a wide range of pre-designed sections of a Shopify store: banners, testimonials, product showcases, etc.
- Integrate with Shopify to add or remove sections easily.
- Improve page speed by replacing slow app load sections.
- Offer the mobile-friendly responsive to make sure your store looks great on mobile devices.
Despite being a free plan and a good idea to improve customers’ experience when buying at your store, Section Store still has some problems to face. A significant issue is that there are a ton of bugs when applying sections and themes to their Shopify stores. And the support team seems to be not active enough to solve customer problems.
13. Tracktor Order Tracking – free app for sales tracking
Tracktor Order Tracking is one of the best Shopify free apps that allows store owners to provide their customers with real-time order tracking. By integrating with major shipping carriers, Tracktor ensures that customers can easily track their orders directly from your store, enhancing the post-purchase experience and reducing customer inquiries about order status.
User feedback on Tracktor Order Tracking
- Overall Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 700+ reviews
Tracktor Order Tracking key features
- Provide customers with real-time tracking information for their orders.
- Integrate with major shipping carriers to offer comprehensive tracking options.
- Customize the tracking page to match your store’s branding.
- Send automated order status updates to keep customers informed.
- Access timely tracking insights with a 3D interactive map of all order locations.
Tracktor provides a robust solution for real-time order tracking and improves the post-purchase experience for customers.
Despite its effectiveness, the primary weakness of Tracktor’s free plan is the lack of advanced customization and branding options for the tracking page. While it offers essential tracking functionality, businesses looking for a more tailored and on-brand tracking experience may find the free plan insufficient and need to upgrade to access more sophisticated features.
14. Shopify Email – free email service for Shopify store
Shopify Email is designed to help merchants create email campaigns to connect with customers. By providing automation templates, audience segmentation, and detailed performance analytics, this app can effectively attract potential customers and enhance your campaigns effortlessly.
User feedback on Shopify Email
- Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 1000+ reviews
Shopify Email key features
- Integrate to send emails from Shopify admin without any third-party services.
- Provide a variety of professional templates to match your brand’s aesthetics.
- Track results like click-through rates, products added to the cart, and purchases.
- Use automation templates generated by AI to optimize the sending email process.
While Shopify Email is ideal in the best free apps for the Shopify list, it also has limitations. Firstly, some customers claimed that the deliverability didn’t work well and lacked an established sender reputation. In addition, the customer service team might be too busy to help merchants fix this issue.
15. Shopify Marketplace Connect – free solution for go-to-market products
Shopify Marketplace Connect is one of the best free apps for Shopify due to its ability to sell products in multiple channels. This tool helps you to list and manage merchants’ products across platforms such as Amazon, eBay, Esty, and Walmart. By leveraging this tool, you absolutely can reach a broader audience and increase sales effectively.
User feedback on Shopify Marketplace Connect
- Overall Rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars
- Total Reviews: 1000+ reviews
Shopify Marketplace Connect key features
- Integrate across online marketplaces to list and manage products such as Amazon, eBay, and Walmart from a single interface.
- Maintain accurate inventory levels across all connected marketplaces, reducing the overselling risk.
- Provide comprehensive reports and analytics to improve marketing campaigns.
- Implement automated pricing rules to compete on various marketplaces without manual adjustments.
Generally, Shopify Marketplace Connect is a powerful tool for expanding sales channels, however, it has challenges. Significantly, the free plan often limits the number of marketplaces you can connect to, reducing the potential reach and sales opportunities. Moreover, it also restricts the volume of product listings your merchants can display.
Who needs free apps on Shopify?
Free apps on Shopify are essential for a wide range of users, but there are specific Shopify store owners are highly suggested to use these:
- New and small business owners: According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, 30% of new businesses fail during the first two years, and 50% during the first five years. Reducing overhead costs with free Shopify apps can improve their chances of survival and growth.
- Entrepreneurs testing ideas: A CB Insights survey found that 42% of startups fail because there’s no market need for their products. Free Shopify apps allow entrepreneurs to test multiple ideas without the burden of extra costs.
- Freelancers: A study by FreshBooks indicates that 66% of freelancers say they worry about cash flow and managing their finances. Free apps provide essential functionalities, helping them run their businesses more efficiently and affordably.
- Casual sellers: According to a report by eMarketer, nearly 40% of e-commerce sales come from smaller sellers who are often hobbyists or casual sellers. Free apps enable them to manage their online presence effectively without incurring significant costs.
Can you use Shopify apps for free?
To be clear, Shopify itself charges a subscription fee for using its platform. Specifically, after an initial 03 months free trial, you have to pay $29-$299/month for Shopify to maintain and operate your store, even if you are using free apps on it.
While Shopify charges you monthly, you can build a zero-cost store with many free applications on the Shopify app store. These apps provide users with many utilities to help build and grow their stores without any expenses. However, some of them may be using a freemium model, which allows you to use plans with limited functionalities.
Explore top apps articles
- 07 Shopify Store Credit Apps [2024]
- 05 Best Loyalty & Rewards Apps for Shopify
- 10+ Essential Shopify Apps For Your Clothing Store [2024]
Wrap it up: what to expect from free apps on Shopify?
In summary, you can literally run a store without paying any substantial expense for add-in apps. And there are the best free apps on Shopify in any aspect of store operation. Your store can improve its functionality, enhance customer experience, and drive more sales. There are various aspects to consider for your business needs, including optimizing SEO, managing customer interactions, or enhancing user interface and experience.
While building a zero-cost subject is feasible, you really need to pay a decent amount to really make the most from those apps. Most of the medium size stores focus only on certain store aspects & pay much for certain apps supporting such aspects while using other free apps. It turns out to require a bit of flexibility to choose your apps.
Understanding the features and weaknesses of each app can help you make informed decisions about which tools will best support your business goals. Exploring our suggested apps and leveraging their features to create a more attractive Shopify store.