I Was Paying for 3 Apps That Did the Same Thing
For six months, I paid for two email marketing apps and a popup builder that one of them already included. Here's the audit process that caught it — and might catch yours too.
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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:
- Export the Shopify bill as CSV
- For each app: when did I last use it? Does another app I'm paying for already do this?
- Any app I haven't touched in 60 days → uninstall immediately
- 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.
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