When you run your brand on Shopify, you need help from the best Shopify apps to optimize your ecommerce brand. It’s important to know the best Shopify apps that will help you get there.
The problem? The Shopify app store contains over 7300 apps for building, managing, and growing a Shopify store. It’s nicely structured and categorized for merchants to find what they need. Each category has 10s or even 100s of apps. And most of the apps you’ll discover will have positive reviews on the app store.
So how can you know which is the best Shopify app in the particular category? For one, you can do research and experiment. Or, you can continue reading this article on the best Shopify apps.
We have done the hard work for you. And these are the 25 best Shopify apps you should install to grow your e-commerce business.
From email marketing to product reviews, adding the right app can help you increase your sales, improve customer experience and level up in 2023.
How the list works
In this list, we’ll cover each category: influencer and affiliate marketing, email marketing, customer support, SMS, email marketing, personalization and more. If you’re looking for a top tech stack–This list has you covered.
Something we’ve added: Who’s each app best for? There are often different kinds of ecommerce stores–from the Shopify free trial all the way to Shopify Plus brands. Some brands sell using print-on-demand or dropshipping services, while other small businesses cross-sell on multiple platforms like retail. The app your brand might need (or want) could be different depending on your needs.
For example, if you need custom integrations or features, it’s best to find apps that scale for all different brands. These (or rather ‘this’) Shopify apps help you create an affiliate program for your store and generate word of mouth, growth loops, & sales without ads. Some of the top businesses use referral programs, and affiliate programs… and so should you.
Let’s drive right in.
1. Social Snowball
Influencer and affiliate marketing
Social Snowball is the word-of-mouth marketing platform for ecommerce. 1,000+ top brands use the platform to power referral programs among their customers, and power the management of their influencer marketing programs.
According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the idea is for a small amount of upfront work to provide the foundation for a marketing program that runs on its own and continues to go on autopilot and…well, snowball and grow rapidly. Customers rave about the app itself, and the service that they get from the company. And this is still only the beginning for them.
Features
- Easy automation for referral marketing
- More incentives for customers like cash, store credit, discount codes and more
- Customizable programs where you can offer codes, links, and more
- Easy affiliate and influencer onboarding features
- Easy payouts to affiliates and influencers in two-clicks (no back-and-forth)
Who’s it best for?
Brands looking to fuel word-of-mouth among their existing and new customers, and those looking to create or manage their influencer marketing programs.
Price
Starting at $99/mo with 3% of affiliate revenue generated, or $499/mo with no commission added. The max you’ll ever pay is $499 per month.
2. Klaviyo
Email marketing automation
Klaviyo helps businesses own their marketing with email and SMS. Making it possible to store all of a business’ customer data in the same system that delivers experiences to customers, allows new experiments and businesses to get off the ground and existing companies to grow faster in ways they control.
Klaviyo allows you to run everything from abandoned cart flows, to extremely intricate email marketing campaigns using personalized data from their integrations.
Features
- Email marketing automation
- Built-in SMS marketing
- Lots of data and segmentation possibilities with integrations
- Ability to create, schedule, and run campaigns
Who is it best for?
Best for brands looking to do more than transactional emails, who are interested in creating email flows that include different pieces of data.
Price
Starting at $60/mo
3. Facebook & Instagram
Sales channel
The Facebook and Instagram app gives you all the tools you need to successfully sell and market across Facebook and Instagram. Ecommerce businesses can boost sales to scale and grow your business, and manage your Facebook and Instagram accounts and products from one place on Shopify.
Features
- Advertise with free and paid ads
- Sell from anywhere with Facebook Shops
- Sell products with Instagram Shopping functionality
- Simple setup and user-friendly
Who is it best for?
Brands with a presence on social media–This is a must. If you have an instagram feed, you should have this sales channel.
Price
Free to install the app.
4. Privy
Pop-ups and marketing automation
More than 700,000 online brands use Privy to grow their email & SMS lists, automate their email marketing, send money-making text messages, and improve their website conversion rates. No coding required, and create branded pop-ups in a drag-and-drop manor.
Features
- Email marketing
- SMS marketing
- Website conversion tools
- Pop-ups to grow your email list
- Integrations with
Who is it best for?
Brands getting started or looking to consolidate their email / SMS / pop-ups into one place.
Price
Privy offers a free plan, growth plan, plus you could also only choose to pay for a plan that only includes conversion tools for instance.
5. Rebuy
Personalization
The world’s top brands use Rebuy’s personalization platform to fuel data-driven shopping experiences, win more customers, keep more customers and accelerate growth. Create personalized shopping experiences for every customer using your store’s historical shopping data. Lift AOV with AI-powered upsells and cross-sells at key decision points—from the home page to the thank you page and beyond.
Features
- Product recommendations
- Personalization that uses each person’s history
- Reporting and analytics you can action
- Post-purchase tools
- Brands using Shopify Plus can use Shopify scripts to show dynamic upsells at checkout
Who is it best for?
Brands with an existing product who are looking to tailor the customer journey and personalize touch points. For brands with a focus on customer experience, this can take things to the next level. If you’re on Plus, using personalized upsells can help increase average order value drastically.
Price
Starts at $99/mo and works up to $999/mo. Limited by revenue generated by Rebuy and orders per month.
6. Plobal Apps
Mobile apps
Plobal Apps turns your Shopify store into a custom mobile app. Increasing checkout conversion by 5x, repeat purchases by up to 30%, and giving you unlimited access to your customers with personalized push notifications.
Features
- Create a mobile app for your Shopify store
- Send and target web push notifications to desktop and mobile with high open-rates
- Integrations with other apps you use
- Uses Shopify’s checkout and processes orders through Shopify
Who is it best for?
Brands looking to expand their brand into the phones of their customers. This works best for brands with a set of loyal customers or brands who see repeat purchases among their customer base.
Price
Starts at $199/mo.
7. Knocommerce
Post-purchase surveys
KnoCommerce is a full-fledged survey tool for Ecommerce merchants to get zero-party data (data that comes directly from your customers) and turn it into more revenue. KnoCommerce helps Shopify merchants fill in the gaps of their missing customer data by asking important questions at the right moment. Unlike other attribution or checkout survey solutions, they give you templates for fast set up, and help you use and understand your data in real time.
As zero-party data has been trending amongst all of the advertising changes, Knocommerce can help you get ahead of it.
Features
- Deploy in minutes
- Gather insights you can take action on
- Pre-built templates
- Advanced reporting
- Create audiences
Who is it best for?
Brands who are looking to understand customers and make better informed decisions based on the questions you ask.
Price
You can try 1 survey with their free plan, or look to their paid plans for more.
8. Junip
Product reviews
Over 80% of reviews are submitted on mobile and Junip’s core focus is ensuring everything is optimized for the small screen. Collect more photo and video reviews using Junip. Send review requests straight from Junip, or from your Email & SMS tools of choice. Prompt from places your customers visit most – account page, packaging, tracking pages & more.
Features
- Collect more customer reviews and UGC
- Automatic install & easy set-up
- Integrations with marketing apps
Who is it best for?
Brands who have customers that browse or purchase on mobile, and re-engage over mobile. Junip is the most mobile-friendly reviews platform.
Price
Starts with a free plan.
9. Smartrr
Subscriptions
Smartrr helps DTC brands by creating a seamless checkout and customer portal experience for their subscribers. Smartrr also empowers teams to be agile and proactive through our real-time analytics and customer success tools.
Features
- Branded account portal
- Advanced subscription options
- Delight customers with perks, discounts, exclusive access and unique membership experiences
- Brands looking to increase their repeat purchase rate and customer retention
Who is it best for?
Brands with products suited for subscriptions or looking to explore adding subscriptions.
Price
Starting at $99/mo and 1% of subscriber GMV.
10. Gorgias
Customer support
With acquisition costs at an all-time high, the smart way to grow your revenue is to build a brand that keeps customers around longer. A strong customer experience is the heart of that retention effort, but it requires one flexible platform for your customer service. With Gorgias, you can step back for a big-picture view — or zoom in to see the customer journey leading up to each ticket (including past purchases and interactions). Once you evolve past “keeping up” with your backlog of tickets, you can start handling them strategically.
Features
- Instant answers for customers
- Conversations to lift revenue and help you upsell
- Gorgias macros to run more automations and deliver better experiences
- Strong integrations with other ecommerce apps
Who is it best for?
Brands just getting started to enterprise brands with large customer support teams.
Price
Starting at $10/mo with $0.40 per each additional ticket.
FAQ about Shopify Apps
What apps should I use on Shopify?
With thousands of apps on the app store, store owners can add any app to their online store, as long as it’s compatible with the ecommerce platform Shopify. The Shopify app store is an intuitive place to search for what you need, check out the listed apps, and install the app in one click.
Some additional apps you may have heard of are Omnisend, Referralcandy, Growave, Pushowl, Instafeed, Loox, Tidio chatbots, and more. One app you’ve heard of, but probably won’t find: Oberlo which was recently discontinued by Shopify.
What are the best Shopify apps to increase sales?
Some of the best apps for sales contain tools for site conversions, like widgets on landing pages, countdown timers on product pages, or social proof during the shopping cart and checkout process. While other apps might help business owners retargeting lost sales, reduce cart abandonment, or aid in cart recovery which leads to an increase in sales. Check out this collection on the Shopify app store
Expanding the sales channels you currently have using apps might help you increase sales–Like Facebook Messenger, Google Shopping, Aliexpress, or Amazon. These are more than just apps and require you to think about the current workflows you or your team have.
Which Shopify app is best for converting traffic?
Your store’s design, combination of apps like email pop-ups or offers, and studying your conversion rate over time will be the best strategy to convert site traffic. Not any one app will help you instantly convert traffic, although adding one app might work for your audience and cause an immediately positive impact. For example, Outway Socks adding an affiliate marketing plan with Social Snowball drove over 9% of their revenue.
What is the best Shopify app for SEO?
Search engine optimization can be tricky, but checking out this Shopify app store collection can help you out.
Are Shopify apps worth it?
Shopify apps are necessary if you want to expand your ecommerce brand. Shopify is the ecommerce platform to facilitate orders and payments, but your brand will need marketing, accounting, and various other services to grow.
Closing Thoughts
The above are some of the must-have Shopify apps if you are serious about e-commerce growth. We covered apps for all major marketing methods and more in this list. Let us know in the comments if you’d like us to analyze Shopify apps in other categories and update this list.
If you’d like to add a referral & affiliate program to your Shopify store:
Start your 30-day free trial with Social Snowball