Do Custom Apps violating offsite checkout rules risk getting banned?

Shopify App Store
1

Hi everyone,

I’m building an app for my external marketplace platform, not shopify side, where sellers list products and buyers can purchase via buy-now, auction, or livestream, checking out entirely on our own platform (we have our own cart, payment, and auction/auto-charge logic). Shopify integration is a nice-to-have feature for our sellers, not our core product — the app lets Shopify sellers import their products into our marketplace, and when an order happens on our end, it syncs back into Shopify as an order so the merchant can manage inventory, fulfillment, and reporting in one place alongside their other sales channels.

Our public app submission was rejected for violating App Store Requirement 1.1.2 (“Use Shopify checkout”) — since buyers complete purchases on our own checkout, not Shopify’s, and the resulting order is only synced into Shopify afterward via the Admin API.

Since the public app path didn’t work out for our architecture, what if we distribute our integration as a Custom App instead? Since it won’t go through the public App Store review process, does this setup still violate any core Shopify API policies, and is there any risk that the custom app could get blocked or banned later on?

2

I believe this also goes against Shopify’s Terms of Service.

3

Even for distribute as custom app and configured app as sale channel?

4

Custom apps are designed to be used for a single merchant - single use case. If it’s the same app for multiple merchants it needs to be a public app.

  1. not make Custom Applications available to or for use by more than one Merchant. For the avoidance of doubt, this means that Custom Applications may not be installed by more than one Merchant. For clarity, a Merchant may have more than one Merchant Store. In the event of any breach of this provision, and in addition to all other rights and remedies available to Shopify under these Terms and under applicable law, Shopify will have the right to: (a) take any action it deems necessary including but not limited to immediately terminating some or all Developer’s rights under these Terms, and (b) determine, in its sole discretion, that the Application is deemed to be a Public Application and subject to both these Terms and the Partner Program Agreement available at Shopify Partner Program - Partner Program Agreement - Shopify;
6

yes, my app will be installed and used by single merchant only. Is it okay?