@Alan_G The change to managed pricing is causing confusion for our customers. Having to whitelist every customer that wants to use the $0 test plan creates an unnecessary roadblock and lots of work for app devs. I hope you can bring back the old test charge system. Thanks!
@Alan_G Any update on this?
It’s been quite a while since this was reported, and I haven’t seen any updates.
This change has a significant negative impact on both app developers and merchants using development stores. One of the biggest benefits of development stores has always been the ability to fully test the onboarding and billing experience before going live. Without test charges, merchants can no longer experience the real upgrade flow or verify that plan-gated features work correctly.
The suggested workaround of creating and manually assigning $0 private plans also doesn’t scale. For apps with many development store installs, it creates unnecessary manual work, makes automated testing more difficult, and adds ongoing maintenance.
From the merchant’s perspective, this is also confusing. They expect to be able to upgrade and test the app during development, but instead they encounter billing flows that don’t work, making it look like the app is broken.
This was a workflow that previously “just worked,” and many apps rely on it for testing onboarding, upgrades, downgrades, and feature gating. It would be great to get an update on whether Shopify is considering restoring the previous behavior or introducing a better long-term solution.
If Shopify has no plans to restore this functionality, it would also be helpful to know that. At least then app developers can stop waiting and invest time in building alternative solutions instead of hoping this will be fixed.
Hey @Jonathan_Kruse and all.
Totally fair to ask for an update here. I still don’t have a product change or timeline I can share right now, but I also don’t want to leave this sitting unanswered since I realize it’s been a while without an update.
I’m going to check back internally for updated guidance on this.
For now, the documented workaround is still the $0 private test plan, but I understand that doesn’t fully cover plan upgrades/downgrades, feature-gating tests, or higher-volume dev-store installs. I’ll loop back if I get anything more concrete that I can share here.
@Alan_G Thanks for looking into this, I really appreciate it.
The biggest issue for us is that most merchants installing an app on a development store expect to be able to test the premium features before they go live. When they find they can’t upgrade or access those features, many assume the app is broken or doesn’t support development stores and simply uninstall it.
Only a small percentage reach out to support so we can manually assign them to a $0 private test plan. While that workaround technically works, it doesn’t scale. It creates extra manual work for developers, and most merchants never discover it—they just give up and move on.
Ultimately, it leads to a worse experience for both merchants and app developers.
Hey @Jonathan_Kruse and folks - thanks for the added context here.
I checked back internally, and while I still don’t have a timeline or specific product details I can share yet, I can confirm we are actively working on improvements to this flow based on the feedback here.
I’ll keep an eye on this and loop back once I have more concrete guidance I can share publicly.
Hey @Jonathan_Kruse -
Thanks for testing this and sharing the screenshots. This new setting was introduced as part of the July 9 App Pricing update, so it should work there.
If the app and development store belong to the same Partner organization, every available plan should be selectable at no charge. For stores owned by another Partner, plans marked “Free for partners and developers” should be selectable at no charge.
Since you’re still seeing “Unavailable on dev stores,” that doesn’t look like the expected behaviour. Could you share the app ID/app URL, development-store domain or ID, whether the app and store belong to the same Partner organization, and the affected plan names/handles?
If you’d prefer sharing that privately, just let me know and I can set up a DM.
I think its for a specific type of Development Store. Years ago Shopify allowed development stores to use a custom domain. We use these for our demo stores.
https://terms-and-conditions-checkbox.com/
https://www.variantoptionproductoption.com/
I tested on other development stores and it is working.