How much do Shopify apps really cost? (2026 prices)

Most single purpose Shopify apps cost between $4.99 and $29.99 a month on their cheapest paid plan. Add the six conversion features most stores end up wanting (sticky add to cart, a countdown timer, quick view, recently viewed products, a wishlist and a cart drawer) and the cheapest paid plans total $88.94 a month, or $1,067.28 a year, at the prices listed on the Shopify App Store on 24 September 2026.

Leaning on every free tier those same apps offer still leaves $64.97 a month, about $780 a year, because two of the six have no free plan for a live store. Below are the named apps and prices, where the free tiers run out, and which of these features belong in your theme instead of on your bill.

How much does each Shopify conversion app cost?

One well reviewed app per feature, each with its prices published on its App Store listing. All prices are in US dollars, billed every 30 days, before tax.

These are examples, not recommendations, and every category has cheaper and dearer options. Zoorix Sticky Add To Cart Bar starts at $4.99 a month, for instance, and wishlist apps range from free basic lists to Swym's $99.99 Premium plan. The shape of the bill is what matters: six small subscriptions that each look harmless on their own.

Can I run these apps on their free plans?

Partly. The free tiers are real, but most are metered, and the meter is your traffic.

• 25 add to cart clicks a month is fewer than one a day. Any store making regular sales passes it in the first week.
• 1,000 timer views a month counts every page load that shows the timer. A store with 300 product page views a day uses that up in under four days.
• Recently viewed, wishlist and cart drawer have no free plan for a live store at all in the examples above, so those three are paid from day one.

The growing store row uses the same six apps: STKY's Shopify Grow plan ($11.99), Essential Countdown's Essential plan ($9.99), qikify Basic ($9.99), Ultimate Recently Viewed ($4.99), Swym Starter ($29.99) and Upcart's 201 to 500 order tier ($34.99). Paying yearly instead saves 17 to 30 percent on the apps that offer it, but it is still a bill that never ends.

Why is the real cost higher than the price tag?

• It never stops. App charges recur every 30 days for as long as the app is installed. $64.97 a month is $780 this year and $780 next year.
• It grows with you. Several apps price by your success rather than by the feature. Upcart moves from $29.99 to $34.99 at 201 orders a month and to $54.99 at 501. STKY prices its plans by which Shopify plan you are on.
• It adds weight to every page. Each storefront app typically loads its own script and styles. Six of them means six extra sets of files on your product pages, which is the page type where speed matters most.
• It can leave code behind. Apps built on Shopify's theme app extensions remove their blocks cleanly when you uninstall them. Older apps that edited your theme files directly can leave snippets in place after the subscription ends, or remove their snippet but leave the line that loads it, which prints "Could not find asset snippets" on your storefront.

Which Shopify apps are actually worth paying for?

The ones that do work Shopify and your theme cannot do: sending messages, collecting content, or running billing. A useful test is whether the feature needs a server of its own. If it only displays data Shopify already has, a theme can do it.

One caution on countdown timers: use one only for a deadline that is real. A timer that resets for every visitor is fake urgency, and in the US that is the kind of claim the FTC treats as deceptive pricing.

How do I cut my Shopify app bill?

1. List what you pay. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings, then Billing, and note every app subscription and its monthly amount.
2. Sort each one. Is it a service (it sends, collects or bills) or a display feature (it shows something on the page)? Only the second kind is a candidate for removal.
3. Check your theme first. Many themes already include some of these. Dawn, Shopify's free theme, has a cart drawer and a quick add button in its theme settings, so paying for a cart drawer on Dawn may be paying twice.
4. Duplicate your theme before changing anything, then uninstall one app at a time and check the live store after each. Your products, orders and customers are not affected; we explain why in will I lose my products if I change my Shopify theme.
5. Look for leftovers. If a removed app's widget still appears, it edited theme files directly. Remove the leftover snippet or block, or restore the duplicate you made.

Which of these come built into a Themr store?

All six in the first table. We checked seven complete stores built by our paid pipeline on 27 August 2026, and all seven include a sticky add to cart bar, a countdown timer section that counts down to an end date you set, quick view, recently viewed products, a wishlist page and a cart drawer. None of them needs an app or a monthly fee.

We sell these stores, so weigh that accordingly; the app prices above are the developers' own listed prices, not our estimates. An AI designed Themr store is $29 once, including three builds to choose from, which is less than one month of the six apps above. The free option is a single product landing page theme with no AI, which you can try from the free theme gallery. If you are weighing Shopify's own free themes instead, the best free Shopify themes and what they leave out covers that, and when Dawn is enough covers the default.

How we checked these prices

On 24 September 2026 we read the pricing section of each app's Shopify App Store listing: STKY Sticky Add To Cart Bar, Essential Countdown Timer Bar, qikify Quick View Popups, Ultimate Recently Viewed, Swym Wishlist Plus and Upcart, plus Zoorix Sticky Add To Cart Bar for the low end. Ratings and review counts are as displayed that day. Totals use the monthly price of each plan, in US dollars, before tax. App developers change prices, so check the listing before you budget. The built in feature check parsed the section and snippet files of seven generated themes from 27 August 2026 for the sticky bar, countdown timer, wishlist page, quick view, recently viewed and cart drawer files; each was present in all seven.