Up to 8 Public Plans: How App Developers Are Restructuring Pricing
A breakdown of what changed and why it matters.
The 20-Minute Shopify App Audit That Saved Me $600/Year
I audit my Shopify apps every quarter. I’ve been doing this for 3 years. Every single time — every time — I find at least one thing I’m paying for and don’t need.
Last quarter it was an Instagram feed app ($6/month) I installed for a campaign in 2024 and forgot about. Quarter before that, it was a duplicate popup app ($15/month) when Klaviyo already handled forms. The quarter before that, it was a “trust badge” app ($10/month) that literally did nothing — I A/B tested it for 60 days and conversion was flat.
The pattern is always the same: apps accumulate, billing continues, nobody audits. If you’ve never done an app audit, I promise you there’s money sitting in your Shopify bill right now that you don’t need to be spending.
Here’s the exact process I use. It takes 20 minutes.
Full disclosure: Seller Tales is published by JoyCraft — when we recommend our own tools below, we say so.
On this page
The Decision Matrix
For each app in your Shopify admin (Settings → Apps and sales channels), answer four questions:
| Question | Answer Options | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1. When did I last use this app’s features? | This weekThis monthThis quarterCan’t remember | 0135 |
| 2. Does this app directly generate revenue? | Yes — directly attributable to salesIndirectly (e.g. SEO, email capture)No — it’s cosmetic or “nice to have” | 025 |
| 3. Does a tool I already pay for do the same thing? | No overlapPartial overlapYes — another app or Shopify native | 035 |
| 4. If I removed it, what breaks? | Critical function breaks immediatelySome nice-to-have features disappearNothing — it’s invisible to customers | 035 |
Scoring:
- 0-4 points: Keep. This app earns its keep.
- 5-9 points: Review. Consider replacing, renegotiating, or consolidating.
- 10-20 points: Kill. Remove it before your next billing cycle. You won’t miss it.
💡 Pro tip: Do this audit on the 1st of the month. Most Shopify apps bill on your install anniversary date, but some bill on calendar months. First-of-month audits catch both.
My Actual Audit (July 2026)
I ran this on my own 12 apps last week. Here’s the raw output:
| App | Monthly | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Total | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Klaviyo | $45 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ✅ Keep |
| Judge.me | $15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ✅ Keep |
| Rebuy | $49 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ✅ Keep |
| ShipStation | $9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ✅ Keep |
| Gorgias | $10 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ✅ Keep |
| Littledata | $5 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | ✅ Keep |
| Plug in SEO | $20 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 9 | ⚠️ Review |
| MLV Auto Currency | $10 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 11 | ❌ Kill |
| Privy | $15 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 13 | ❌ Kill |
| Trust | $10 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 15 | ❌ Kill |
| Instafeed | $6 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 15 | ❌ Kill |
| Back in Stock | $9 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 10 | ⚠️ Review |
Results: 4 apps to kill immediately ($41/month), 2 to review and investigate alternatives ($29/month). If I replace the review items with Shopify-native features (Shopify Markets for currency, Klaviyo for back-in-stock emails), the total saved is $50/month = $600/year.
The Three Most Common “Kill” Categories
After auditing apps for myself and helping other merchants with theirs, I’ve noticed the waste falls into three buckets:
1. The “I Already Pay for This” Overlap
Your email platform (Klaviyo, Omnisend, Mailchimp) already does popups, forms, and back-in-stock notifications. Your theme already does trust badges and testimonial carousels. Shopify already does currency conversion (Markets) and basic SEO (meta titles, alt text, URL handles). Before paying for a separate app, check if something you already own covers it.
Real example: I was paying Privy $15/month for popup forms. Klaviyo — which I already pay $45/month for — includes popup forms. I was paying for forms twice. The Klaviyo forms are actually better because they sync directly with my email segments.
2. The “Installed for a Campaign, Forgot to Remove” Zombie
Holiday countdown timers. Black Friday urgency apps. Instagram feed widgets. Flash sale popups. You installed them for a specific campaign, the campaign ended, and the app is still there — still loading scripts on your store, still billing your card. These score 5 on Q1 (can’t remember last use) and 5 on Q4 (invisible to customers). Kill on sight.
Real example: Instafeed ($6/month) — installed for a social proof campaign in Q4 2024. Instagram feed hasn’t been updated since January. Zero measurable conversion impact. $72/year for a widget nobody looks at.
3. The “Does Nothing But I’m Afraid to Remove” Security Blanket
Trust badges. “Secure checkout” icons. “We accept Visa/Mastercard” payment icons. These apps make you feel safe but don’t make customers convert more. Multiple A/B tests (including my own on the Trust app) show zero measurable lift. Your theme already shows payment icons in the footer. Customers already see the lock icon in their browser. You don’t need a separate app for this.
Real example: Trust ($10/month) — installed because “it can’t hurt.” Ran a 60-day A/B test on 4,200 visitors. Conversion with trust badges: 2.84%. Without: 2.81%. The difference is noise. $120/year for noise.
⚠️ Before you delete: Some apps leave residual code in your theme even after uninstalling. Check Online Store → Themes → Edit code → theme.liquid for leftover script tags after removing an app. If you find orphaned code, remove it manually or ask the app developer for uninstall instructions.
The “Keep” List (What Actually Earns Its Place)
Not all apps are waste. Here’s my tier list of app categories ranked by actual value:
| Tier | Category | Examples | Why They Stay |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | Email marketing | Klaviyo, Omnisend | Directly attributable revenue. Every $1 spent on email returns $36 on average (Litmus 2025 benchmark). Non-negotiable. |
| S | Reviews / UGC | Judge.me, Yotpo, Loox | Social proof is the second biggest conversion lever after price. Reviews also feed your Google Shopping listings. |
| A | Upsell / Cross-sell | Rebuy, CartHook, Zipify | Post-purchase offers directly increase AOV. Even a 5% lift on a $50 AOV = $2.50/order. At 300 orders/month, that’s $750 in additional revenue. |
| A | Shipping | ShipStation, Shippo | Discounted labels + automation. ShipStation alone saves me $1.50-3.00 per label vs. retail rates. At 300 orders/month, that’s $450-900 in savings. |
| B | Help desk | Gorgias, Zendesk, Tidio | Keeps customer support out of your personal inbox. Good for sanity. Automates repetitive responses. |
| B | Analytics | Littledata, Triple Whale | Accurate attribution pays for itself in ad spend optimization. But only at $10K+/month revenue where ad spend is significant. |
| C | SEO | Plug in SEO, Yoast | Nice to have but Shopify’s native SEO is improving. At $20/month, it needs to find actual ranking improvements to justify itself. I’m testing removal this quarter. |
The “Don’t Install” Red Flag List
Some app categories are almost never worth it. If you’re considering installing one of these, ask yourself hard questions first:
- Countdown timers / urgency apps — They work for exactly one campaign, then become background noise. Half of them inject scripts that slow your store down. Use your email platform’s countdown feature instead.
- Social proof popups (“Sarah from Ohio just bought this!”) — Fake-looking even when they’re real. Annoying on mobile. No measurable conversion lift in any A/B test I’ve seen.
- Spin-to-win wheels — Capture emails at the cost of looking like a discount brand. If you’re selling premium products, this devalues your brand. Stick to a clean email capture form.
- “All-in-one” marketing suites with 40 features — You’ll use 3. You’ll pay for 40. And the app will inject scripts on every page for features you never turned on.
- Currency converters on stores with one target market — If 85%+ of your customers are in one country, the converter adds complexity for zero benefit.
The Quarterly Audit Calendar
Set a recurring calendar event. I do first Monday of every quarter — takes the thinking out of it. Here’s the rhythm:
| Quarter | Audit Date | Special Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 | January 1st week | Check for BFCM campaign apps you forgot to remove. Holiday urgency timers, gift wrap apps, seasonal themes. |
| Q2 | April 1st week | Review apps installed in Q1 “new year optimization” enthusiasm that didn’t stick. Spring cleaning. |
| Q3 | July 1st week | Check billing changes. Many apps adjust pricing mid-year. Also: Shopify Editions in July often makes apps redundant with native features. |
| Q4 | October 1st week | Pre-BFCM cleanup. Remove unused apps before peak season. Every unnecessary script is a millisecond your customers spend waiting during your biggest sales week. |
Total time investment: 80 minutes per year (20 min × 4 quarters). If you find $50/month in waste, that’s $600/year — an effective hourly rate of $450/hour. Show me a better ROI on 80 minutes of work.
The Bottom Line
App creep is real. Every app you install makes a promise. Few keep it. The ones that don’t just silently bill your card every month while adding JavaScript to your storefront. The only person who will catch this is you — not Shopify, not the app developer, not your bookkeeper.
Take 20 minutes. Run the matrix. Kill the zombies. Your margins will thank you.
Seller Tales is a publication by JoyCraft. When we link to our own tools, we say so, and some of those links carry tracking parameters.