New perks and criteria for Built for Shopify

Since launching Built for Shopify over a year ago, it has been a game-changer for apps. In fact, apps with Built for Shopify status see accelerated growth, with an average increase of 49% new installs in just 14 days of achieving status.

Built for Shopify (BFS) is a program that champions apps built to Shopify’s highest standards for ease of use, design, and performance. This year, we’re doubling down on our investment in the program and raising the bar to ensure merchants get the best from the Shopify App Store.

New perks: ads targeting + more discovery potential

As we raise the bar, we’re committed to providing developers with new incentives that make your investment in the Built for Shopify program even more worthwhile. These include:

1. Merchant plan-based ads targeting

BFS apps have the exclusive ability to target App Store search ads to specific merchant plans. Want to target Plus merchants only? Now you can. Or maybe you want to target Shopify Retail merchants. You can do that too. This targeting allows you to hone in on the exact segment of merchants you want to get installs from. Check out our dev docs for more details.

2. Standalone search filter 

We’ve made it easier for merchants to find BFS apps. The search filter, which was previously hidden in the “Refine” group of search filters, now stands on its own. Merchants can now easily filter their queries to see only the highest quality apps for a given search—this means more visibility and greater potential for installs for your apps. 

New criteria: overall and category-specific updates

Merchants choose Built for Shopify apps for their superior quality and seamless integration into Shopify’s admin and across buyer surfaces.

To keep up with ongoing admin and platform improvements, we plan to raise the bar for Built for Shopify at a regular cadence. Keeping up with the latest standards will help your app maintain its competitive edge in a given category.

We’ve updated our criteria to ensure all apps meet the highest standards of integration and performance across Shopify. Some of these criteria are general and apply to all apps, while others are specific to a category.

General criteria (applies to all BFS apps)

• Seamless sign up. As a part of our well integrated definition (formerly “embedded properly”) we are now requiring that merchants should be able to get started quickly with any app that’s installed without needing to login or sign up. Learn more about seamless signup and what it means for your apps to be well integrated. 

• First Input Delay (FID) is being replaced with Iteration to Next Paint (INP)
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is returning as a core web vital to measure an app’s performance when loading in the Shopify admin
• Performance dashboards for your app are available in the partners dashboard under Apps > Insights > Admin Performance

• App design guidelines (ADG) updates: We’ve made several small but important updates to the App Design Guidelines. We’ve also added a new section to the App Design Guidelines to address the unique user experience needs of subscription apps. See here for more details. 

Category-specific criteria

To maintain quality and performance standards, we’re expanding BFS criteria across more categories of apps. This ensures Built for Shopify apps integrate correctly and deeply with Shopify, providing merchants with solutions that feel like seamless extensions of the admin.

App developers are responsible for determining which category (or categories) your apps belong to and must adhere to the specific requirements for that category. Shopify will validate that the relevant criteria are met.

Here are the categories that have new criteria to follow:

• Product reviews: Any app that enables merchants to collect product reviews 
• Bundles: Any app that groups products together to be sold as a single unit
• Subscriptions: Any app that enables customers to purchase products on a recurring basis
• Discounts: Apps that enable merchants to define and configure price reductions
• Fulfillment: Any app that uses its own location to prepare and ship orders on behalf of merchants
• Invoice and packing slip printing: Any app that generates invoices or packing slips for orders
• Returns: Any app that facilitates the process of managing and processing product returns, exchanges, and refunds for customers
• Carrier services (updated criteria): Any app that connects to a carrier service (also known as a carrier calculated service or shipping service) to provide real-time shipping rates 

For more specifics, check out our dev docs. 

Important note: Built for Shopify apps are required to meet these criteria starting January 2025 or will risk losing their status.

Program update: annual renewal reviews

Starting in January 2025, we’ll begin renewal reviews for current Built for Shopify apps. Apps will be reviewed annually to ensure they’re still meeting BFS standards. Failure to meet these standards will put apps into a 60 day grace period where they are required to address any issues before losing Built for Shopify status. For more details on the renewal reviews process, please visit our dev docs.

Conclusion

We will continue to evolve the Built for Shopify program to help apps build truly exceptional experiences for merchants and in return, stand out in the Shopify App Store. We look forward to your app updates!