Best Shopify apps to increase sales, with free plans

The Shopify App Store lists more than 16,000 apps, and you only need a handful of them to sell more. Start with one app for each job that moves revenue: email (Klaviyo, or the free Shopify Messaging), product reviews (Judge.me), upsells (Frequently Bought Together), loyalty (Smile) and shipping (Shippo). All five have free plans you can run until your order volume grows. Below you'll find what each one costs, what to install first, and how to add apps without slowing your store down.

In this article

• Best Shopify apps to increase sales at a glance
• Which Shopify apps should you install first?
• Email and SMS: Klaviyo or Shopify Messaging
• Product reviews: Judge.me
• Upsells and bundles: Frequently Bought Together and ReConvert
• Loyalty, referrals and creators: Smile and Shopify Collabs
• Sell on more channels
• Shipping that doesn't lose the sale: Shippo
• Search, chat and sign-up forms
• Do Shopify apps slow down your store?
• How to check an app before you install it
• Frequently asked questions

Best Shopify apps to increase sales at a glance

Every app below has a free plan or is free to install, so you can test it on real orders before you pay. Paid plans mostly start between $10 and $20 a month.

Prices, plan limits and ratings from each app's Shopify App Store listing on Oct. 7, 2026. Apps change their plans often, so check the listing before you install.

Most free plans cap orders, contacts or sends, which means each app costs more as you grow. Price your stack at the order volume you expect in six months.

Which Shopify apps should you install first?

Install apps in the order your store needs them. A store with 10 orders a month needs different help than one shipping 1,000.

1. Before your first sales: a reviews app and an email app. Reviews take time to collect. An email sign-up form starts building your list from the first visitor, and Shopify Messaging and Shopify Forms cover it for free.
2. Once orders arrive every day: a shipping app, which saves you from retyping addresses on a carrier website, plus an abandoned cart email flow in your email app.
3. When you have repeat buyers: upsells and a loyalty program. Both work on people who already trust you and pay off once you have customers coming back.
4. When you're ready to grow reach: marketplaces, social shops and creator programs. Each new channel adds orders to fulfill, which is why your shipping workflow should be in place first.

Most new stores can cover the first two stages with three or four apps. If you're past that and still adding apps, read the app speed check below first.

Email and SMS: Klaviyo or Shopify Messaging

In email marketing, the automated emails do most of the selling. In Klaviyo's 2026 benchmarks, flows (automated emails such as welcome and abandoned cart messages) generated nearly 41% of email revenue from 5.3% of sends.

Shopify Messaging, the app formerly called Shopify Email, is the easy start. It's built by Shopify, and your first 10,000 emails each month are free. Set up a welcome email and an abandoned checkout email, and you have the two flows that matter most.

Klaviyo is the step up once your list grows. It segments customers by what they bought and when, and runs email and SMS from one place. The free plan covers email for up to 250 contacts. Klaviyo's listing notes that some charges are billed by Klaviyo, separately from your Shopify invoice.

Product reviews: Judge.me

A Northwestern University study found that a product with five reviews was 270% more likely to be bought than one with none. That matters most when shoppers haven't heard of your brand.

Judge.me is the default pick: unlimited reviews, including photo and video reviews, on the free plan, with the highest rating in this guide. Turn on review request emails right away, since each order is a chance to collect one.

If your products sell on looks (apparel, jewelry, home decor), Loox puts customer photos front and center. Its free plan covers up to 500 orders, and paid plans start at $49.99 a month.

Upsells and bundles: Frequently Bought Together and ReConvert

Two kinds of apps sell one more item to someone who's already buying: bundles on the product page, and offers after checkout.

Frequently Bought Together shows matching products on the product and cart pages, with an optional bundle discount. The free plan lets you build three bundles by hand, which is enough to test your best pairings.

ReConvert works after the purchase. It turns the thank-you page into a one-click offer, so the customer can add an item without entering payment details again. Its free plan covers up to 50 orders.

Shopify also has a free Bundles app, but its rating sits at 2.9 out of 5, so test it on a few products before you build your catalog around it.

Loyalty, referrals and creators: Smile and Shopify Collabs

Smile handles points, rewards and referrals in one app and is free up to 200 orders a month. Customers earn points for buying, redeem them for discounts or free shipping, and can invite friends for a reward. If you only set up one part at first, make it referrals, since they bring in buyers you didn't have.

Shopify Collabs is Shopify's free app for working with creators and affiliates. You invite creators, set their commission and track the sales they bring in. It's free to install, with a 2.9% processing fee when commissions are paid out automatically.

Sell on more channels

Your customers aren't all on your website, and these free apps sync your Shopify catalog to where they are:

• Facebook & Instagram by Meta, formerly the Facebook channel, syncs products to shops and ads on both platforms.
• Google & YouTube lists your products on Google and runs Google ads from Shopify.
• TikTok connects your catalog to TikTok ads and TikTok Shop.
• Shopify Marketplace Connect lists your products on Amazon, Walmart, eBay and Target Plus, and syncs inventory and orders back to Shopify. Your first 50 synced orders each month are free, then it charges 1% per order, capped at $99 a month.

The social apps are free to install, and you pay each platform for the ads you run. Marketplace orders arrive in Shopify alongside your website orders, so every new channel adds packages to ship.

Shipping that doesn't lose the sale: Shippo

In Baymard Institute's checkout research, 40% of US shoppers who abandoned a purchase they meant to make said extra costs such as shipping, taxes or fees were too high, and 20% said delivery was too slow.

Part of the fix lives in your Shopify shipping settings. Shopify's shipping strategy guide notes that free shipping can lift conversion and that a free-shipping minimum can raise order size. Flat rates show the cost upfront, while carrier-calculated rates can't be shown before checkout. Live rates from your own carrier accounts at checkout are available on the Advanced and Plus plans, and Grow stores can add them for a monthly fee or with annual billing. The guide to Shopify shipping rates walks through setting each option.

The other part is buying and printing labels once orders come in. Install Shippo for Shopify and link your store, and new orders import into Shippo automatically. From there you can:

• compare discounted rates from 40+ carriers, including USPS, UPS, and FedEx, for the exact package and address
• buy up to 100 labels at a time in a batch
• set automation rules that, once configured, pick the package or service by SKU, weight or destination
• send the tracking number back to Shopify and mark the order fulfilled (a setting you turn on), which can also trigger Shopify's shipping confirmation email
• create return labels for domestic orders and add shipping insurance when you buy the label

Your Shopify settings decide what the customer pays at checkout. Shippo is where you pay for the label, so the gap between the two is your shipping margin. You can compare rates for your own packages with a free Shippo account.

With Black Friday on Nov. 27, check this season's carrier changes too. USPS temporary holiday prices run from Oct. 4, 2026, to Jan. 17, 2027, and UPS, FedEx and DHL have their own peak charges, covered in the 2026 holiday surcharges guide.

Search, chat and sign-up forms

Shopify has free apps for two of these three jobs.

• Site search: shoppers who search usually know what they want. A search that can't match "blue mug" to a product called "cobalt cup" loses that sale. Shopify's free Search & Discovery app is rated 2.6 out of 5, and Searchanise, rated 4.7, is a popular alternative with advanced filters and AI personalization. Its free plan is limited to stores with fewer than 25 products.
• Chat: Shopify Inbox is free and lets shoppers ask questions before they buy. Shopify now describes it as an AI sales associate that knows your customers.
• Sign-up forms: Shopify Forms is free, adds pop-up and inline sign-up forms, and sends new subscribers straight to Shopify Messaging.

Do Shopify apps slow down your store?

Yes, they can. Shopify's store speed guide names apps as one of the main things that affect performance and recommends reviewing your installed apps and removing any that aren't essential for sales. Speed shows up in revenue: in a Deloitte study commissioned by Google, a 0.1-second faster mobile site lifted retail conversions by 8.4%.

Apps that show something on your storefront (review widgets, pop-ups, upsell blocks, chat) load code for every visitor. Apps that only work in your admin, like a shipping or accounting app, don't.

Some apps also add code to your theme that isn't removed automatically when you uninstall them, according to Shopify's uninstall guide. To remove it:

1. Before you uninstall, check the app's listing or ask the developer what it added to your theme.
2. Duplicate your theme, so you have a copy to go back to.
3. In the theme code editor, look for snippets and script references named after the app, and remove the reference along with the file.
4. Preview your home, product and cart pages to make sure nothing broke.

Run this audit in October and hold off on new installs until the holiday rush is over.

How to check an app before you install it

Check these five things on the app's listing and install screen before you commit.

1. Look for the Built for Shopify badge. To earn it, an app can't lower your storefront's Lighthouse performance score by more than 10 points and has to meet Shopify's design and integration standards. The badge is a useful speed filter. It doesn't tell you whether the app will grow your sales.
2. Read recent reviews, not just the average. Sort by newest and look for complaints about support, billing or broken features after an update.
3. Price it at your order volume. Check where the free plan stops, what the next tier costs, and whether there are usage-based charges.
4. Check how you'll be billed. Some apps bill through your Shopify invoice, while others note that charges are billed separately by the developer.
5. Review what data the app asks to access on the install screen. A reviews app needs your orders; it shouldn't need much more.

Frequently asked questions

How many apps should a Shopify store have?

There's no right number, but fewer is better as long as every job is covered. Most new stores can run on three to five apps: email, reviews, shipping, and an upsell or loyalty app once orders are steady. If two apps do overlapping jobs, keep the better one.

Does uninstalling a Shopify app stop the charges?

Uninstalling stops future recurring charges billed through Shopify, but you may still be billed for the current billing cycle. If you want a refund, ask the developer before you uninstall. Apps that bill you directly, outside your Shopify invoice, need to be canceled with the developer.

Are free Shopify apps enough to start?

For most new stores, yes. Shopify Messaging, Shopify Forms, Shopify Inbox and the free plans of Judge.me and Shippo cover email, sign-ups, chat, reviews and shipping while you find your first customers. You'll usually start paying when your order volume or contact list passes a free plan's limit.

What happened to Kit and the Amazon sales channel?

Both are gone. Shopify shut down Kit, its marketing assistant app, in 2021, and moved its marketing tools into the Shopify admin. The original Amazon sales channel was retired around the same time; Shopify Marketplace Connect now connects Shopify to Amazon, along with Walmart, eBay and Target Plus.

Pick one app per job and add the next one only when you need it. When orders start coming in faster than you can ship them, a free Shippo account connects to your Shopify store and imports your orders automatically.