Is the Shopify App Market Overcrowded in 2025?
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So you're thinking about building a Shopify app. Smart move, or is it? With over 14,000 apps already on the market and more flooding in every day, you're probably wondering if there's still room for you.
Let's cut through the noise and look at what's really happening in the Shopify App Market right now. We'll dig into actual data, not just opinions, to help you figure out if this is still a game worth playing.
And if you want an even deeper analysis of specific app categories and opportunities, check out our market clarity reports that get updated monthly with the latest market signals.
Yes, the Shopify App Market is overcrowded in obvious categories like email marketing and reviews, with the top 10 apps taking nearly 25% of all installs.
But real opportunities still exist in underserved areas like B2B tools, compliance automation, and the 12 new pain points emerging in 2025.
If you're building yet another pop-up tool, don't bother; if you're solving genuine new problems, there's still room to win.
What Do People Say About the Shopify App Market Online?
We constantly monitor what developers and entrepreneurs are saying across forums, Reddit, and Hacker News to gather real-world signals—it's something we do extensively for our market clarity reports. Here's what the community is actually saying about whether the Shopify app market is too crowded:
- It's oversaturated with 20+ competing apps per category (very common opinion)
This is the most common opinion out there. The Shopify app store has grown to over 10,000 apps with intense competition in every major category. Even teams with great developers and significant funding are struggling because there are often 20 apps doing the same thing, all with years of head start and hundreds of favorable reviews. Industry experts speculate we might not see another blockbuster success like Klaviyo given how saturated categories like email marketing and SMS have become.
Sources: Hacker News, Shop Theme Detector - Solo developers face near-impossible odds now (very common opinion)
Experienced developers believe "the days of a solo engineer being able to build a viable Shopify app business are nearly over." New approval processes can take weeks, and 80% of shops that install apps are gone or in limbo after just a couple months—many shops literally no longer exist. The combination of high merchant churn, complex approval requirements, and need for significant marketing budgets makes it extremely tough for individual developers without substantial resources.
Sources: Hacker News, Hacker News - There's room for better apps solving real problems (common opinion)
While the App Store is saturated with popular apps having dozens of copycats, developers emphasize there IS room for better apps. Thousands of merchants look for solutions daily, with only half leaving satisfied. Shopify's own guidance says successful apps target specific merchant pain points, and narrowing scope to find market gaps can reveal huge opportunities. Apps achieving Built for Shopify status see an average increase of 49% new installs in just 14 days.
Sources: Indie Hackers, Shopify - Consider other platforms with less competition (common opinion)
Developers suggest looking at other commerce platforms like Wix, Squarespace, and WooCommerce that are growing rapidly but don't yet have all the apps that Shopify has. The strategy involves taking successful Shopify apps and building them for other platforms where the app marketplaces have higher barriers to entry but less saturation.
Sources: Indie Hackers, Shopify Community - Focus on custom/private apps over marketplace (less common opinion)
Some developers recommend avoiding the public marketplace entirely and focusing on custom app development for specific clients. This bypasses competition and approval hurdles, though some argue it makes for "a worse and less secure experience for Shopify customers." Direct client work offers more guaranteed income but is less scalable than marketplace success.
Sources: Hacker News, Shero Commerce - New technologies create fresh opportunities (uncommon opinion)
Developers report that AI-powered recommendation engines, headless commerce, and new platform features like Shopify's Polaris design system are creating opportunities for innovative apps. The pandemic accelerated shifts that created new app categories like contactless deliveries and virtual try-on experiences. Early movers in emerging technologies can still find success despite overall market saturation.
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How Many Apps Are on the Shopify App Store Today?
Right now, at the end of 2025, there are 14,836 apps on the Shopify App Store. That's a massive jump from where we were just a few years ago. To put this in perspective, there were only about 4,200 apps back in May 2020 (we're looking at a 253% increase over five years).
The growth has been accelerating too. Just one year ago in September 2024, there were around 10,522 apps, which means we've added 4,314 apps in the past year alone (a 41% year-over-year increase). Two years ago in June 2023, the count was at 8,500+ apps, so we've seen about 74.5% growth in two years.
How Many New Shopify Apps Are Added Every Week?
The pace of new apps entering the market is actually speeding up, not slowing down. Right now, we're seeing roughly 100-110 new Shopify apps per week. A live tracker shows 478 apps added in the last 30 days as of late 2025, which works out to about 112 apps per week.
This is nearly double the pace from last year. In 2024, about 3,000 new apps were added total, averaging around 58 per week. So if anything, 2025 is running even hotter than 2024; the year-over-year growth rate of 41% confirms this acceleration trend.
Is Shopify Still Growing in Terms of Usage and Traffic?
Yes, Shopify adoption and activity are definitely still growing. At the end of 2025, Shopify is used by 4.8% of all websites, which equals 6.8% CMS market share. W3Techs shows a visible upward historical trend on their tracking page.
More importantly, merchant activity is rising significantly. In Q2 2025, Shopify merchants processed $87.8B in GMV versus $67.2B in Q2 2024 (that's about 30.6% year-over-year growth). Revenue also grew 31% YoY, which are both strong signals that more sales volume is flowing through Shopify stores. The platform is very much alive and growing.
Will Shopify Get Integrated with ChatGPT? What Does This Mean for App Developers?
This integration is about 85% likely within the next 6-12 months, with partial integration already live. Shopping results are already appearing in ChatGPT, and OpenAI has been expanding a native shopping experience with product cards. More importantly, OpenAI is reportedly working on in-chat checkout and has demonstrated it to brands in partnership with Shopify, according to Reuters and Financial Times.
For app developers, this creates new opportunities if you align with the new surface area. Apps that help merchants get indexed and conversion-ready for ChatGPT (think rich product data, compliance, feeds, reviews, inventory freshness) will become valuable. You could also build GPT Actions connectors that expose safe endpoints for tasks like price updates, inventory checks, or post-purchase messaging.
We're tracking these market disruptions closely and integrating them into our weekly-updated market reports because we know this ChatGPT-Shopify integration could fundamentally shift the landscape. The risk is that if OpenAI and Shopify ship strong first-party flows, undifferentiated third-party apps could get squeezed out.
In our market clarity reports, you'll always find a sharp analysis of your competitors.
Do the Top Shopify Apps Take Most of the Market?
Yes, there's a clear "winner-takes-most" dynamic on the Shopify App Store. The top 10 apps account for about 23.7% of all detected installs. The top 3 apps alone take 11.3%, and the top 5 take 16%. To show how extreme this is, the #1 app (Judge.me) has around 484,549 installs, which is 221 times the average app's install count.
This concentration happens because of how Shopify's ranking system works. Apps with high install velocity and low churn get ranked higher, which gets them more installs, creating a self-reinforcing cycle. Plus, Shopify runs search and category ads inside the App Store, and incumbents with bigger budgets can dominate these placements. The "Built for Shopify" badge (currently held by about 948 apps) also provides a visible trust signal that lifts conversion rates.
Which Shopify App Categories Are Overcrowded?
Some categories are absolutely packed with competition, making it nearly impossible for new entrants to gain traction. Here's how saturated each major category is:
| Category | Overcrowding Score | Why This Score |
|---|---|---|
| Email Marketing | 95/100 | Klaviyo dominates with 13.9% of all Shopify stores using it, plus there are 20+ established competitors all with thousands of reviews. New entrants face an almost impossible battle against these giants with their massive feature sets and integrations. |
| Reviews & Ratings | 90/100 | Judge.me alone has 484,549 installs (17.9% of stores), and there are dozens of other review apps. The functionality is largely commoditized; everyone offers review collection, photos, and incentives. |
| Pop-ups & Email Capture | 85/100 | Hundreds of apps do essentially the same thing: show a pop-up, capture an email. The barrier to entry is low, so everyone and their cousin has built one. Hard to differentiate when the core function is so simple. |
| SEO Tools | 80/100 | Multiple established players offer comprehensive SEO suites. Most merchants don't understand SEO well enough to pick between apps, so they default to the most popular ones with the most reviews. |
| Loyalty & Rewards | 75/100 | Well-established apps like Smile.io have deep moats with network effects. Once a store has customers enrolled in a loyalty program, switching costs are extremely high. |
Which Shopify App Categories Are Still Underserved?
While many categories are saturated, there are still pockets of opportunity where merchant needs aren't being fully met. This is a surface-level overview; we analyze these opportunities much more deeply with full data backing in our market clarity reports.
| Category | What's Still Missing |
|---|---|
| B2B-Specific Tools | Shopify Plus has B2B features, but most apps are still B2C-focused. There's room for apps handling complex B2B workflows like quote management, net payment terms, volume pricing tiers, and multi-buyer accounts per company. |
| AI-Powered Merchandising | Beyond basic recommendations, merchants need AI that understands seasonal trends, automatically adjusts product placement, and creates dynamic bundles based on real-time inventory and margin data. |
| Compliance Automation | With new regulations constantly emerging (GDPR, state privacy laws, tax changes), merchants need apps that automatically adapt their stores to stay compliant without manual updates. |
| Multi-Store Management | Many merchants run multiple Shopify stores but lack good tools to manage inventory, pricing, and content across all of them from a single dashboard. |
| Advanced Returns Logic | Current return apps are basic. There's opportunity for apps that handle complex scenarios like partial returns, exchanges with price differences, return fraud detection, and automated refund/store credit decisions. |
What Are the New Shopify Merchant Needs in 2025?
The e-commerce landscape keeps shifting, creating new pain points that existing apps haven't solved yet. Here are the most pressing needs merchants face right now:
- EU consent & tagging compliance without losing conversions
Google's Consent Mode v2 made consent capture mandatory for ad measurement in the EEA/UK. Merchants need apps that auto-detect geo, show compliant banners, pass signals to Google/GA4/Ads, and backfill modeled conversions while preserving ROAS.
- Email deliverability passes Gmail/Yahoo 2024 rules
Bulk senders must now authenticate (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and support one-click unsubscribe or face rejections. Apps that audit DNS, generate records, monitor spam-rate thresholds, and alert when compliance drifts will see high demand.
- Defend SEO from Google AI Overviews cannibalization
AI Overviews reduced organic clicks for commerce queries. SEO apps need to restructure content for AI-friendly summaries, inject rich structured data, and track "zero-click risk" keywords while measuring traffic shifts.
- Plug-and-play TikTok Shop operations
TikTok Shop's rapid expansion created ops chaos. Apps that unify catalog sync, order management, creator attribution, FBT eligibility checks, and live shopping tools will find eager merchants.
- Migrate from checkout.liquid to Checkout Extensibility
Shopify is sunsetting checkout.liquid with hard deadlines. Migration apps that inventory custom scripts, map them to UI Extensions, test one-page checkout performance, and ship ready extensions are urgently needed.
- Protect margins from 2024-2025 carrier rate changes
USPS/FedEx/UPS adjustments keep squeezing margins. Apps that simulate landed costs pre-checkout, auto-update rates by zone, audit label choices, and suggest packaging tweaks to hit lower tiers will save merchants money.
- Review authenticity & incentives compliance
The FTC's October 2024 rule bans fake/suppressed reviews. Apps that verify review provenance, disclose incentives, detect AI-generated text, and surface public reporting logs help merchants stay compliant while keeping social proof.
- Honor Global Privacy Control & US opt-outs
More US states enforce universal opt-out signals like Colorado's GPC recognition. Apps must detect GPC signals, adjust tracking/ads cookies automatically, expose "Do Not Sell" links, and log DSAR evidence.
- First-party measurement via server-side GA4/Conversions API
With signal loss and consent changes, merchants need privacy-aware tracking. Apps deploying managed server-side GA4, unifying Shopify/Meta CAPI/Google Ads via deduped events while respecting consent will be essential.
- Auto-generate social/ads creatives for Meta formats
Meta's Advantage+ updates favor frequent creative refreshes. Apps turning product assets into videos, hero images, and Reels-optimized content with fatigue alerts and ROAS testing will help merchants compete.
- Compliant labeling of AI-generated product media
TikTok/Meta expanded AI-media labeling requirements. Apps that scan product media, add C2PA/Content Credentials for AI-touched content, insert platform-specific disclosure tags, and maintain audit trails are needed.
- Cross-border duty-inclusive pricing & HS-code hygiene
Poor HS codes cause surprise fees and returns for international orders. Apps validating codes, simulating landed costs per market, previewing duty-inclusive pricing, and flagging missing data will reduce customer complaints.
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