I Was Paying for 3 Apps That Did the Same Thing

The Discovery

It started with a simple question from my bookkeeper: “Why is your Shopify bill $340/month?” I had no good answer. I knew I had “a few apps” but hadn’t actually looked at the total in months.

So I sat down and exported my Shopify subscription invoice. 14 apps. Fourteen. I could name maybe eight of them from memory. The other six? I had to Google what they did.

What I Found

Here’s what was hiding in plain sight on my monthly bill:

1. Email Marketing ×2: I was paying $29/month for Klaviyo and $19/month for a separate email popup tool — which Klaviyo already includes as a built-in feature. $19/month wasted, for six months. That’s $114.
2. Review Apps: Two different review apps. One I installed when I launched the store. The second I installed for a “photo reviews” campaign last Black Friday. I meant to uninstall the first one. Forgot. $15/month × 8 months = $120.
3. Abandoned Cart Recovery: My email app already had cart recovery emails built in. But I was also paying $9/month for a dedicated cart recovery app. Never used it. Installed it during a “conversion optimization” rabbit hole at 2 AM.

Total waste found: $43/month. Over a year, that’s $516 — enough to pay for a proper theme or a year of a genuinely useful app.

✅ Quick audit trick: Go to your Shopify admin → Settings → Billing. Look at every line item. If you can’t explain in one sentence what an app does for your store right now, flag it.

Why This Happens

It’s not laziness. It’s the way app subscriptions are designed: small monthly charges that don’t trigger alarm bells individually. A $9/mo app doesn’t feel like a decision worth revisiting. But three $9/mo apps you forgot about = $324/year.

Shopify doesn’t send you a “hey, you haven’t used this app in 90 days” notification. Most app developers certainly won’t remind you to cancel. The default is: keep billing, forever, unless the merchant notices.

The Categories Where Duplicates Hide

• Email + popups: Most email platforms now include popups/forms. If you have a separate popup app, check if your email tool already does it.
• Reviews + UGC: Photo reviews, text reviews, carousel widgets — these often ship as separate apps but overlap heavily.
• SEO + speed: Many speed optimization apps overlap with SEO apps (both touch page structure).
• Upsells + cross-sells: Cart drawer apps, post-purchase upsell apps, bundle apps — check if one covers the other’s features.

My Audit Routine Now

Once a quarter, I spend 15 minutes doing this:

1. Export the Shopify bill as CSV
2. For each app: when did I last use it? Does another app I’m paying for already do this?
3. Any app I haven’t touched in 60 days → uninstall immediately
4. Any category with 2+ apps → pick the best one, cut the rest

Last quarter’s audit saved me $67/month. This quarter: $0 — because I finally cleaned house.