It can be dizzying for Shopify merchants to scroll through the thousands of available apps, and sometimes, you just want a recommendation. That's why I turned to Shopify merchants to find out which apps they use.

Keep in mind that depending on what you're selling—and who you're selling it to—these apps might not be the right choices for you. These are the best tools according to the merchants I spoke to, but it's definitely worth browsing the directory and perusing other lists, too, to see what else is out there.

The best Shopify apps in 2024

• ShipStation for shipping

• Klaviyo for email marketing

• Loox for product reviews

• Matrixify for data management

• Conjured for subscriptions

• Smart SEO by Sherpas for SEO

• Buy with Prime for selling on Amazon

• Bulk Product Edit by Hextom for product detail editing

What is a Shopify app?

A Shopify app is an add-on that brings more functionality to Shopify. 

Sometimes, a Shopify app is found only on Shopify —it's built for Shopify (and sometimes by Shopify). For example, Linkpop is a free Shopify app that lets you sell on Shopify from a link in bio page. Linkpop doesn't exist outside of Shopify.

But in a lot of cases, Shopify apps are integrations with existing apps. For example, Mailchimp has a Shopify app, as does HubSpot. If you already use a specific app, check to see if it has a Shopify app—it probably does, and it means you can bring its functionality directly into Shopify.

The best Shopify apps at a glance

The best Shopify app for shipping

ShipStation

As you can imagine, there are countless shipping apps on Shopify. If you already use a shipping app for your business and you're just switching to Shopify, your existing solution almost certainly already has a Shopify app.

But if you're shopping around for a new shipping app—one that plays really well with Shopify—ShipStation is a great option.

Justin Yampolsky, managing director of Muzeum (part of Global Bullion Suppliers), told me his favorite thing about ShipStation is how easy it is to use—it saves his team about two hours a day. 

It's especially helpful if you have multiple stores. "It can integrate into one area where we can manage shipping details, and it easily syncs with different stores we have, along with eBay," Justin told me. He also noted how intuitive it is to manage returns and create pre-paid shipping labels. And that's just the tip of the shipping iceberg: ShipStation also lets you view stock levels, set inventory alerts, and allocate stock using real-time insight into the SKUs. 

ShipStation also integrates with Zapier, so you can connect it to all the other apps you use, too. Here are a few examples to get you started.

ShipStation pricing: From $9.99/month for up to 50 shipments

The best Shopify app for email marketing

Klaviyo

Email marketing is another big category on Shopify—search for it, and you'll get about 1,000 hits, hundreds of which will get the job done. If you're already using Mailchimp, Omnisend, Brevo, tinyEmail, ActiveCampaign, or really any other email marketing app, you should stick with it and connect it to Shopify. 

But if you're just starting out with email marketing and looking for a good option for Shopify, Klaviyo is a great pick. Its standalone app is already eCommerce-focused, so it brings a lot of great functionality to Shopify.

Klaviyo allows you to customize email marketing campaigns for customer segments, leveraging real-time and historical data. It can create coupon codes, offers solid built-in campaign templates (many of which are eCommerce-specific), and has great tracking reports.

Ben Camerota of MVP Visuals, which sells custom displays, event booths, and signs, told me that "Klaviyo has been our most important Shopify app since we began using their service five years ago." He continued: "Across three different eCommerce sites we operate, Klaviyo allows us to stay in touch with our clients via email and SMS in so many ways that are critical to our success: to send quotes, automate our art proof process, recover abandoned carts, and even request reviews."

He also told me that the app has a great support community, which allows them to request feedback and learn from other experienced Klaviyo subscribers.

Plus, Klaviyo integrates with Zapier, so it works well with all the apps you use—not just Shopify. Learn more about how to automate Klaviyo, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Klaviyo pricing:  Free for up to 250 contacts on email and 150 SMS/MMS credits; paid plans start at $15/month for SMS and $30/month for email.

The best Shopify app for product reviews

Loox

Social proof will always be integral to customer growth for eCommerce stores, and reviews are one of the best ways to offer that proof. 

Loox helps you incentivize customers to submit video and photo reviews. It then lets you customize where those reviews appear on your site, using widgets that layer seamlessly with your design template. Loox incentivizes reviews through email campaigns in order to offer customers discount codes and other extras.

Tom Golubovich uses Loox at the direct-to-film (DTF) printing service, Ninja Transfers. He told me: "Loox is a fantastic app for building brand trust and authority using neatly designed photos and reviews." He also went out of his way to tell me that it works really well with all of Shopify's other features, no matter what you're trying to build.

"Our store is heavily packed with product visuals, recommendations, and reviews across so many different pages," he said, "which is why we needed an app that seamlessly handles all of these additions and offers various widgets to optimize each and every page. We tested a few competitors, but we found Loox to fit our needs the best."

Loox pricing: From $9.99/month for 100 monthly review request emails (no video reviews); from $34.99/month to add video reviews and all integrations.

The best Shopify app for data management

Matrixify

Matrixify is a data management app for Shopify. It can import data from other eCommerce platforms, like WooCommerce, Big Commerce, and Lightspeed, as well as other databases like Excel and Google Sheets. This kind of bulk updating from other sources can save hours of manual work.

Mathias Mohlund, CEO and founder of Collectors Cage, which sells new and vintage bags and accessories, told me that Matrixify was a "game-changer" for his team: "This powerful tool allowed us to streamline our data management on Shopify in ways we never thought possible. With Matrixify, we could bulk import and export data, make inventory updates, and handle stuff like order processing and customer management incredibly efficiently. We've saved hours of manual work."

Mathias particularly appreciates Matrixify's robust error-checking mechanism, which helped his team minimize "mistakes in data entries, ensuring accuracy and consistency across our online and offline channels." He continued: "We also liked the ability to customize data fields and create tailored reports, which has given us deeper insights into our sales trends and customer preferences to help us make more informed business decisions."

Matrixify: Free for 10 products, collections, customers, discounts, orders, payouts, pages, blog posts, and redirects; from $20/month for massively increased quantities of each.

Best Shopify app for subscriptions

Conjured

The surge of subscription-layered eCommerce stores has led to launch after launch of membership apps. Conjured is a great example: designed to add a membership program to your existing store, it lets you customize tiers and set up perks for your customers to access content, classes, and downloadable media.

Bryce Thomas of Obsessed Garage, a store specializing in garage and home products, told me that Conjured is what allowed them to monetize their digital platform and offer exclusive benefits to members of their Inside The Hex program. "This space is designed for those passionate about Obsessed Garage, providing behind-the-scenes insights into building the business, discovering new products, and more," he told me. "Being integrated with Shopify makes managing memberships a breeze because they're managed directly on the Shopify backend versus something like PayPal or Stripe."

Using Conjured, Obsessed Garage can have customers buy a membership subscription as if it were a product on their store, and it doesn't require any third-party gateways or payment processors. According to Bryce, "this increases conversions because of the ease of commitment and also allows memberships to be purchased at the same time as regular products."

Conjured price: From $19/month for unlimited members and membership revenue; from $69/month for lower transaction fees.

Best Shopify app for SEO

Smart SEO by Sherpas

Before people buy from you, they need to find you. That's why SEO remains one of the most important things for merchants as they build out their stores. If you already use an SEO tool, check to see if it has a Shopify app, but if you're looking for an SEO app built for Shopify, Smart SEO is a great place to start.

Raivis Kaspars of ETNA Design, which sells outdoor furniture and furnishings, uses Smart SEO to optimize their store. They use Smart SEO to quickly edit tags for multiple products, collections, and pages at once and to take advantage of customizable templates. "It identifies areas for improvement and allows us to easily fix them to improve the store's search engine rankings," he told me. "We've observed a consistent increase in customer visits since the app's implementation."

Smart SEO integrates with Google Search Console, uses AI to generate meta tags, helps you optimize everything from images to page speed, and can find broken links that could hurt your rankings.

Smart SEO price: Free for basic optimization; from $9.99/month for more features.

Best Shopify app for selling on Amazon

Buy with Prime

This one's pretty self-explanatory: this app (built by Amazon) lets you easily add a Buy with Prime button on any product page. That can add some trustworthiness to your site, while also making it easier for folks to buy.

It smoothly integrates your product catalog, variations, tax, and promotions into Amazon, and the return process through Amazon's fulfillment network removes a lot of headaches.

Jeffrey Frese of Eat My Face, which sells tallow-based moisturizers and sunblock, said, "Adding Buy with Prime to our Shopify store has been crucial for us as a new brand. It's like an instant trust badge. Adding the button to our site has doubled our conversion rate, too."

He continued: "Beyond just sales, it's about establishing direct customer relationships. With Buy with Prime, we control these relationships, not Amazon. This is key for managing our brand and customer data. Plus, customers love and trust Prime, especially for its free two-day shipping, which boosts our credibility in the market."

Buy with Prime price: Pay-as-you-go pricing (see here for details).

The best Shopify app for product detail editing

Bulk Product Edit by Hextom

Hextom's Bulk Product Edit app does exactly what its name implies: helps you quickly edit details for products in bulk—instead of one-by-one. It works with price details, but it also can change titles, descriptions, and SEO fields, along with any additional fields you add. For stores with a huge inventory, this is a game changer.

Jana Reid, founder and CEO of kids clothing and toy store Modern Rascals, recommended the app to me. "It solves a large number of operational pain points," she told me, "considering we have a large store with around 6,500 SKUs." Jana mentioned that they use it to activate discounts for hundreds of items at once and edit metadata like the materials, care instructions, or safety rating for a toy. And because you can automate it, you don't have to be in front of your computer to do it for seasonal things, like Black Friday. "Hextom makes it happen easily," Jana said.

Hextom Bulk Product Edit price: Free for unlimited bulk edit CSV import tasks, with 10 products per task and a 30-day backup; paid plans start at $9.99/month for more products and longer backups.

Which Shopify apps should you use?

You have literally thousands of Shopify apps to choose from—sometimes even within one category. What works for one store might not hit the mark for you. If you're not sure where to start, think about your customer experience. Figure out what matters most to your customers, and then work backward from there to decide which apps you need.

Any of the apps on this list will save you time—and in some cases, increase sales—but there's an entire universe of other Shopify apps out there, too, so continue to explore as your store grows. 

Automate Shopify

By connecting Shopify to Zapier, you can focus more on the work that matters. Automatically add Shopify customers to Salesforce, post new store items to Pinterest, or save new orders to a Google Sheet. Learn more about how to automate Shopify, or get started with one of these pre-built workflows.

Related reading:

• How to sell on Shopify: a 5-step guide

• How to set up a Shopify Stripe integration in 4 steps

• How to automatically add Shopify customers to Salesforce