7 Shopify App Ideas No One Has Built Yet in 2025

We research Shopify Apps every day, if you're building in this space, get our market clarity reports

We dug into what merchants are saying right now across Shopify Community, Reddit, Quora, Hacker News, and other places where real problems show up. The patterns are not noise. They point to clear gaps that developers can turn into products.

This is the same research workflow we use for our market clarity reports. Start with pain points, validate with fresh threads, and focus on issues that remain unsolved today instead of chasing old fixes.

Use the ideas below to spot demand, shape a practical v1, and build something merchants will adopt quickly.

1/ An App that stabilizes customer accounts (new vs. legacy) and login UX

What is the challenge Shopify store owners face?

Customers click “My account” and get bounced to login even when signed in, or account links 404. “New” Customer Accounts (magic-link, hosted pages) behave differently from legacy Liquid accounts: redirects like return_to change, customization options are limited, and email deliverability/magic-link quirks add confusion. Switching account types or customizing themes without aligning the account system often causes these hiccups.

Where can I see actual users talking about that?

• Example 1 on Shopify Community
• Example 2 on Shopify Community
• Example 3 on Shopify Community
• Example 4 on Shopify Changelog
• Example 5 on Shopify Community

Similar Apps (and why they are not enough)

Flits – Customer Accounts, Customer Accounts Concierge (Froonze), and Easy Accounts add rich account UIs, wishlists, and plugins. They improve the portal experience but can’t change Shopify’s hosted-login behavior for the “new” accounts system, nor can they fully control magic-link delivery or core redirect rules. If the account type and theme logic aren’t aligned, UX gaps remain.

How should you build it?

Build an alignment tool that detects which account system a store uses, audits theme links/redirects (/account, return_to, header icons), and simulates magic-link flows. Offer one-click fixes (link remaps, conditional snippets), a testing sandbox for both account types, and alerts when a theme or app update breaks routes. Include a deliverability checker for magic-link emails and a fallback login option to prevent dead ends.

2/ An App that makes gift cards predictable across currencies and refunds

What is the challenge Shopify store owners face?

Gift cards are issued/redeemed in the store’s base currency, not the shopper’s presentment currency. International buyers see confusing conversions and balances. Refund-to-gift-card isn’t always available (gateway/policy), and showing balances in two currencies or offering region-specific cards is tricky. Apps can polish UX, but multi-currency behavior is largely platform-level.

Where can I see actual users talking about that?

• Example 1 on Shopify Community
• Example 2 on Shopify Community
• Example 3 on Shopify Community
• Example 4 on Shopify Community

Similar Apps (and why they are not enough)

Rise.ai — Gift Cards & Store Credit, Gift Card Pro (Gist), and GiftKart (Skai Lama) add wallets, personalization, and bulk issuance. They can’t rewrite how Shopify issues/redeems gift cards against the base currency or guarantee multi-currency redemption behavior at checkout, so cross-currency confusion can persist.

How should you build it?

Create a “currency clarity” layer: detect shopper market/currency, preview the base-currency issuance and estimated presentment at checkout, and show transparent balance equivalents. Provide refund workflows that guide staff on when refund-to-gift-card is supported and automate customer messaging so expectations are set before purchase.

In our market clarity reports, you’ll always find a sharp analysis of your competitors.

3/ An App that makes returns and exchanges simple (online + POS)

What is the challenge Shopify store owners face?

Stores struggle to exchange without distorting sales totals, keep exchanges within one flow, and sync POS vs online rules. Self-serve portals help, but bundles, partial returns, and restock rules still cause friction—especially when you want an even exchange without a separate recharge.

Where can I see actual users talking about that?

• Example 1 on Shopify Community
• Example 2 on Shopify Community
• Example 3 on Shopify App Category
• Example 4 on HulkApps Comparison

Similar Apps (and why they are not enough)

Loop Returns, AfterShip Returns & Exchanges, and ReturnGO streamline portals, labels, and approvals. They don’t fully control accounting outcomes (how Shopify books revenue/tax on exchanges) or every POS edge case, and complex bundles/locations may still require manual handling.

How should you build it?

Offer a unified “exchange-first” flow that pairs the original order with a replacement order behind the scenes, preserves reporting, and enforces restock rules across locations. Add smart suggestions (same-price swaps, variant changes), POS parity, and clear customer timelines—minimizing recharges while keeping accounting clean.

4/ An App that keeps headless/Hydrogen storefront data fresh

What is the challenge Shopify store owners face?

Hydrogen/Oxygen cache aggressively (full-page and sub-requests) using stale-while-revalidate. That’s great for speed, but it can surface “stale data” or differences between local and Oxygen if cache policies, revalidation, or webhook invalidation aren’t tuned. Storefront API throttling rules also differ from Admin limits, which confuses teams.

Where can I see actual users talking about that?

• Example 1 on Shopify Dev Docs
• Example 2 on GitHub Discussions
• Example 3 on Shopify Community
• Example 4 on Shopify Changelog
• Example 5 on Shopify Community

Similar Apps (and why they are not enough)

Nacelle, Builder.io, and Shogun improve content workflows and data orchestration. They can’t change Hydrogen/Oxygen cache semantics or Shopify webhook/event latency. Without precise cache policies and invalidation, stale views still slip through.

How should you build it?

Ship a headless “freshness controller”: declarative cache policies per route/fragment, event-driven revalidation on product/price/availability changes, and a dashboard that compares live Oxygen responses vs local. Include safe fallbacks (client hydration on critical fragments) and alerts when SLAs for revalidation are missed.

Each of our market clarity reports includes a study of both positive and negative competitor reviews, helping uncover opportunities and gaps.

5/ An App that unlocks on-site search & filtering (beyond rigid logic and missing metafields)

What is the challenge Shopify store owners face?

Customers search for specifics (SKUs, attributes, metafields) and results ignore them. Collection filters often act with strict AND logic when you need OR, some metafield types aren’t indexed, and Search & Discovery has limits on source reuse—so merchants compromise UX and lose conversions.

Where can I see actual users talking about that?

• Example 1 on Shopify Community
• Example 2 on Shopify Community
• Example 3 on Shopify Community
• Example 4 on Stack Overflow
• Example 5 on Shopify Community

Similar Apps (and why they are not enough)

Boost Product Filter & Search, Algolia for Shopify, and Searchanise add fast relevance, synonyms, and faceting. But they sit on top of your data and URLs: native collection endpoints still enforce Shopify’s tag logic, and apps can’t index fields you don’t model/ expose. You still must design metafields carefully and accept platform filter semantics in some areas.

How should you build it?

Ship a hybrid search layer: (1) create a robust external index for speed/relevance, (2) auto-sync product data + selected metafields, and (3) render filters client-side with OR/AND modes—while falling back to native collections when needed. Include a “diagnose” view that shows why an item didn’t match (missing metafield, wrong type, excluded tag) and one-click fixes to map data into indexable fields.

Our market clarity reports contain between 100 and 300 insights about your market.

6/ An App that makes discount stacking predictable (codes + auto-discounts without surprises)

What is the challenge Shopify store owners face?

Marketers want a site-wide code + free shipping + product-level deal, but Shopify only allows certain combinations. Auto-discounts can block codes, and only one discount may apply to a line. Even with newer combining rules, strict classes and plan constraints mean many promo ideas aren’t expressible.

Where can I see actual users talking about that?

• Example 1 on Shopify Community
• Example 2 on Shopify Community
• Example 3 on Shopify Help Center
• Example 4 on WizzCommerce
• Example 5 on bogos.io

Similar Apps (and why they are not enough)

Stackable Discounts, Discount Kit / Checkout Discounts (Digismoothie), and Ultimate Special Offers improve UX and orchestrate promos, but they cannot override Shopify’s core combinability rules (e.g., one discount per line item) or platform conflicts between automatic discounts and codes.

How should you build it?

Provide a “promo planner” that models rules before launch: simulate a cart, show which discounts will combine, which will be blocked, and why. Offer Functions-based helpers where possible, and a fallback “credit/adjustment” pattern (e.g., shipping credit or cart-level rebate) to approximate marketer intent when strict stacking isn’t allowed—always with transparent math at checkout.

We have market clarity reports for more than 100 products — find yours now.

7/ An App that fills reporting/export gaps (COGS, discounts, metafields—without plan surprises)

What is the challenge Shopify store owners face?

Owners want routine, granular exports—profit/COGS on lower plans, sales by discount code, line-item properties, and metafields. Native reports are plan-gated and don’t surface every field; APIs require stitching orders, discounts, and metafields yourself, and not all shops have “custom reports.”

Where can I see actual users talking about that?

• Example 1 on Shopify Community
• Example 2 on Stack Overflow
• Example 3 on Shopify Community
• Example 4 on Mipler Reports
• Example 5 on Shopify Help Center
• Example 6 on Shopify Help Center
• Example 7 on Shopify Help Center

Similar Apps (and why they are not enough)

Better Reports, Report Pundit, and Mipler Reports unlock flexible dashboards and exports. But they’re ultimately bound by what Shopify records and exposes; if COGS, discount links, or metafields aren’t stored or joined, no app can conjure them. API latency and historical gaps also remain.

How should you build it?

Create a “report composer” that pulls Orders, Transactions, Discounts, and Metafields into a unified warehouse (or embedded DB), with ready-made schemas for “sales by discount,” “profit by product,” and “LTV by tag.” Include a setup wizard to map where COGS lives (variant metafields, cost field, external CSV) and schedule exports to Sheets/BI—so teams get reliable, repeatable numbers without upgrading plans.

In our market clarity reports, for each product and market, we detect signals from across the web and forums, identify pain points, and measure their frequency and intensity so you can be sure you’re building something your market truly needs.