Shopify App Store Rev Share Coming Back

Community Feedback
1

Just received the email below. Kind of expected it might return, but seems like really bad timing given all of the effort involved recently to port from REST to GraphQL. Our dev team spends the majority of the time adjusting to API changes and isn’t able to focus on features and listening to customer feedback. Maybe a better time would be after this settled down and we felt like valued partners for a while…

Dear Shopify developers,

During the pandemic, we lowered our revshare to help small developers and introduced an exemption on the first $1M earned each year. Our ecosystem is stronger than ever—merchants have more than 16,000 apps to choose from, and we paid out more than $1B to developers last year.

The time has now come to sunset the annual exemption reset. **Developers will continue to enjoy a revshare exemption on the first $1 million USD of lifetime revenue, and a 15% share on amounts above that.**

**Key details:**

* Earnings before January 1, 2025 do not count toward the $1 million threshold.

* Earnings are aggregated at the partner level, including apps developed under associated developer accounts.

The additional revenue collected will fund tools, infrastructure, and innovation that benefit developers at every stage. Over the past two years alone, we’ve:

* Introduced platform-managed features, including Shopify-managed installation, webhooks, and pricing—all of which reduce complexity for app developers.

* Added admin extensions, Checkout UI extensions, and Shopify Functions, helping developers integrate into admin and offload logic and UI rendering to Shopify.

* Offered app metafields and metaobjects with Direct API access, enabling developers to use Shopify for app storage.

* Made it easier to grow your app business with a streamlined app review process, a full-funnel ads product, and much more surface area for discovery on the redesigned Shopify App Store.

Updates to Shopify’s Partner Program Agreement will go into effect June 16, 2025. Continued use of Shopify services on or after June 16, 2025 confirms that you’ve read, understood, and accepted these new terms.

We look forward to continuing to build the future of commerce with you.

**Shopify**
2

I mean the reduction was only due to the pandemic, so I don’t see any exemption/extension being made.

3

The reduction happened near the end of 2021 and was not in response to the pandemic.

Regardless, this is tough to take for a few reasons:

  1. As mentioned, they are already taxing us heavily with so many forced API changes. Most platforms go out of their way to maintain backwards compatibility and insulate their partners from such constant change. Shopify has done the opposite.
  2. A normal solution to this for app devs would be to raise prices to account for the lost revenue. But we can’t do that without getting every customer to approve the new charge.
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