Over 1,000,000 businesses use Shopify to run their online stores.

It’s clear to see why, as Shopify makes it simple to launch an online store — helping to automate sales, shipping, and even marketing activities.

Like the WordPress Plugin Directory, the Shopify App Store is filled with amazing apps to extend your ecommerce store's functionality and grow your business.

It’s not always easy to filter through thousands of apps to choose which will be best for your business, though. Paralysis by analysis — we’ve all been there, right?

To help, we round up some of the top Shopify apps to help you increase your sales in this post.

Here’s the 2020 updated list of the must-have Shopify apps (and most of them are free):

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Let’s dive in.

Best Shopify Apps for Marketing and Promotion

Let’s start with the top Shopify apps to market your ecommerce store and promote your products. These apps help you grow an email list, send marketing emails to your audience, and turn them into repeat customers.

1. Sumo

We first built Sumo to build emails for AppSumo. As people were asking about our secrets more and more, we opened it up as an email capture tool for bloggers and online businesses.

With our Shopify app, Sumo becomes one of the top marketing and conversion tools for Shopify stores.

KEY FEATURES:

• Easy drag-and-drop email form editor that helps you create high-converting forms to collect your store visitors' email addresses.

• Integrates with Shopify to generate unique discount codes for every visitor who subscribes.

• Ecommerce Shortcuts that help you reduce cart abandonment, grow your email list, and increase the average order value.

PRICING:

Free plan available; Pro plan $39 per month (billed annually).

2. Omnisend

Omnisend started as an email marketing solution for Shopify stores. Over time, they added more channels to their app, including SMS, push notification, Facebook Messenger, and more.

With Omnisend, you set up marketing automation using their prebuilt workflow to communicate with customers across all channels.

KEY FEATURES:

• Multiple channel integration, such as emails, SMS, push notifications, and more, in one marketing automation workflow.

• Robust segmentations based on shopping and email behaviors to help you send highly targeted messages to your customers.

• Syncs with Google and Facebook ads to automatically retarget your customers.

PRICING:

Free plan available; paid plans from $13 to $80 per month (billed annually). Enterprise plan with custom pricing is available.

3. FAM

FAM is a Shopify app built by Sumo. We built FAM with one goal in mind: to replace an email marketing team for your Shopify business.

Using data pulled directly from your Shopify store and Instagram, FAM takes your product images, website fonts, brand colors, and logo, to auto-generate high-converting emails with a single click.

It’s a fairly new Shopify app, but we’ve tested the concept and generated over $1,000,000 in revenue for our beta users.

KEY FEATURES:

• Auto-generate email contents for your Shopify store with a single click.

• Schedule emails automatically to send them to the right people at the right time.

• Leverage data from millions of emails (we’ve sent for our beta users) to pick the most effective subject lines, images, and layouts unique for your store.

PRICING:

Free to install; 5% fee on revenue generated from emails sent by FAM.

4. Recart

Facebook Messenger is growing in an incredible pace:^[*]

• 1.3 billion users using Facebook Messenger every month.^[*]

• Customers and businesses exchange at least 8 billion messages a day.^[*]

• Businesses see engagement 10-80 times better than emails.^[*]

Want in on the action?

Recart is here to help. It’s a top Messenger marketing app on the Shopify App Store, installed by over 130,000 Shopify merchants.

KEY FEATURES:

• Sticky discount box, improved customer chat, and order page subscription to help build your Messenger list.

• Automated Messenger campaigns, including abandoned cart reminders, shipping notifications, product review requests, and more.

PRICING:

Pricing based on extra revenue generated by the app, starting from $29 per month. Scale Plan with higher-tier features from $499 per month.

5. Smile.io

Recommendations from friends is the #1 trusted source of advertising.

But you rarely get people shouting in the streets about your product or service without a little nudge. The best way to increase recommendations is to create a referral or loyalty program.

Smile.io enables you to do just that. In a couple of clicks, you could have your own referral program encouraging existing customers to refer their friends and promote your store for you.

Smile.io also allows you to create loyalty and VIP programs so that you can drive more revenue from your existing customers.

KEY FEATURES:

• Loyalty points program that nudges visitors and customers to take action, like creating a customer account, placing an order, or leaving reviews.

• Referral program that helps create social proof with word-of-mouth marketing.

• VIP program that strengthens your engagement with customers and grows revenue with upsells.

PRICING:

Start free; paid plans from $49 to $599 per month, an enterprise plan starting at $1,000 per month.

6. ROI Hunter

A vast majority of your visitors won't buy on their first visit; that’s why retargeting ads are crucial to many Shopify stores.

The process of setting up a retargeting pixel and writing ads is soul-crushing, especially when you have multiple products.

ROI Hunter is the Shopify that can help you set up retargeting ads on Google and Facebook in a few clicks.

KEY FEATURES:

• Automatically retargets visitors through Google and Facebook Ads without the need to access your Google Ads account or Facebook Ads Manager.

• Create better-looking and better-performing ads for all your products using ad overlay with one click.

PRICING:

Free plan available; paid plans from $29 to $299 per month. Does not include cost of ads.

Best Shopify Apps to Increase Sales and Conversions

Now you have the top Shopify apps for marketing; here are the best Shopify apps to increase sales and conversions for your store.

7. Loox

According to a study published by the Spiegel Research Center, nearly 95% of customers read reviews before making a purchase online. 

With Loox, you can generate visually appealing product reviews from customers on autopilot and publish them to your store. Loox has over 7000 reviews on Shopify and has an excellent 4.9/5 rating.

Key Features

• Send automated product review requests to customers via email, push notifications or Facebook Messenger 

• Create beautiful galleries to showcase happy customers

• Offer discounts to encourage high response rate

• Easy migration from other review tools

• Shopify-exclusive app and optimized for the Shopify platform.

Pricing

Loox offers a 14-day free trial to all customers. Paid plans start at $9.99 per month for up to 100  monthly review requests and up to $99.99 per month for up to 2000 review requests.

8. Growave

Growave is the all-in-one marketing platform that helps Shopify brands reach their audience, engage users, and increase conversions with ease. You get all tools for reaching, engaging, and converting your customers for a great price.

Growave lets your brand go viral by encouraging users to share your brand on social media and email, build strong customer relationships using your loyalty program, comments, and reviews, and drive inspiration and increase conversion rates using customer reviews and user-generated content. Growave works with Shopify and Shopify Plus brands.

KEY FEATURES:

• Reviews, Loyalty and Rewards, and Wishlists that you’re looking for in different apps are in one app, under one dashboard, saving your company's money and time.

PRICING:

Free plan available. 30-day free trial. Starter plan starts at $29/month

9. Instagram Shop by SNPT

Here’s a fact: 90% of Instagram’s 1 billion users follow at least one business on the platform.^[*]

But unlike other social platforms, Instagram doesn’t allow you to add links to every post. So how can you take advantage of this audience?

SNPT enables you to make the most of your Instagram account by making your Instagram feed shoppable.

KEY FEATURES:

• Create a shoppable Instagram feed on your site by linking images and videos to your products on Shopify.

• Embed the shoppable Instagram feed and user-generated content in your store, blog, and website.

• Link multiple products together using Shop the Look Card to enhance shopping experience.

PRICING:

Free; In app Pro Feature options

10. Subscriptions by ReCharge

Want to run a subscription business on Shopify? Then you need ReCharge.

ReCharge integrates with Shopify to turn your one-time products into monthly subscriptions with custom order flow, checkout process, and customer accounts.

KEY FEATURES:

• Transform existing one-time products into subscriptions.

• Customer portal that allows your customers to manage their own subscriptions.

• Cross-sell and upsell add-on products (Pro plan only).

PRICING:

Free until $100,000 in processed revenue; then $39.99 per month with 1% + $0.05 per transaction. Pro plan at $300 per month with 1% + $0.19 per transaction.

11. Bold Upsell

Most of us don’t go to McDonald's for fries, but for burgers. But McDonald’s serves millions of pounds of fries every day. All because of a simple phrase: “Would you like some fries with that?”

And here’s an equally powerful phrase — “Would you like to supersize that?” — that increases McDonald’s bottom line by many folds.

That’s the power of cross-selling (“would you like some fries with that?”) and upselling (“Would you like to supersize that?”) .

While you’re not selling burgers and fries, what if you could do the same for your Shopify store?

Bold Upsell is here to help. This app lets you show a cross-sell or upsell pop-up to offer your customers when they shop. Your customer can then add the offer to their cart with a single click.

KEY FEATURES:

• Create and offer a cross-sell or an upsell on your product page or cart page.

• Display up to three upsells in a single funnel. Customize the funnel based on whether your customers accept or decline the previous upsell.

PRICING:

From $9.99 to $89.99 per month, depending on offer views.

12. PushOwl

How many times have you opened up Facebook, Twitter or Instagram after receiving a notification like:

• “Steve is now following you”

• “21 new likes”

• “You’ve been tagged in a photo”

These messages, known as push notifications, are incredibly engaging and do wonders for bringing users back to products.

PushOwl enables you to create your own timely push notifications for your Shopify store.

KEY FEATURES:

• Push notifications to bring your customers back to your store.

• Automations such as recovering abandoned carts, price drop alert, and back-in-stock updates.

PRICING:

Free plan available; paid plans start at $19 per month based on impressions.

13. SMSBump

Looking for more ways to reach your customers? SMSBump could be what you’re looking for.

SMSBump helps you reach our customers via text messages. Besides, you can build your SMS automation campaign to win back cart abandonment, offer upsells, and coordinate cash-on-delivery purchases.

KEY FEATURES:

• Create SMS or MMS flows and send messages based on your customer's timezone.

• Integrates with Shopify POS to collect subscribers in your physical store.

• Built to comply with TCPA and GDPR.

PRICING:

Start free with $0.0149 per SMS in the U.S.; paid plans with additional features start at $19 per month and $0.0149 per SMS in the U.S.

Best Shopify Apps for Sales Channels

Shopify lets you sell your products with an online storefront. But you can always use the apps below to extend your business to other sales channels like Google Shopping, Etsy, Messenger, and more.

14. Google Shopping

Google Shopping integrates with Google Merchant Center to get your shop and product info on Google properties like search, Google ads, and YouTube.

KEY FEATURES:

• Sync the products in your Shopify store with Google Merchant Center to create a Google Product Feed. When you update your product information in Shopify, the app automatically sends the feed to Google Merchant Center.

• Smart Shopping Campaign that lets you create Google ads easily by setting the daily budget.

PRICING:

Free; option for paid advertising.

15. Etsy Marketplace Integration

With over 47 million active buyers, bringing your Shopify products into Etsy could be a reasonable move.^[*]

But managing a Shopify store is enough work, and you don’t want to deal with another new ecommerce platform. What should you do?

Etsy Marketplace Integration is here to help. It’s a Shopify app that lets you easily list your products on Etsy, sell them, manage orders, and sync inventory.

KEY FEATURES:

• Import Shopify products to Etsy in an easier way and un-list the desired products from Etsy within the app.

• Seamlessly manage inventory between your Shopify store and Etsy.

• Efficiently handle inventory and set up a minimum value through the Threshold Inventory feature of the app.

PRICING:

Plans from $30 to $90 per month, billed annually.

16. Buy Button Channel

Buy Button channel allows you to create a purchase button for any product or collection. With these buy buttons, you add a cart to your website, or you can have your customers directly check out.

KEY FEATURES:

• Create a buy button and add it to any page on your site and sell your product directly.

• Create quick checkout links that send customers to your checkout page. You can use this checkout link on any email, direct message, or social media post.

PRICING:

Included with all Shopify plans.

Best Shopify Apps for SEO and Site Optimization

Getting ranked on search engines and having a good user experience are crucial to your business success. Here are the Shopify apps that help you do just that.

17. Plug in SEO

When someone searches “mens ted baker black vineey shoes” chances are they’re ready to purchase the exact product they searched for. No other form of marketing can match this.

So put simply: Better SEO rankings = more sales 💰

Want to OWN search results related to your store? Look no further than Plug in SEO.

More than 30,000 stores use Plug in SEO. It works just like your personal SEO assistant, continually checking your shop and alerting you when there are any issues found:

KEY FEATURES:

• Templating that lets you bulk edit SEO data like meta titles and meta descriptions.

• Up-to-date schema markup for rich snippets includes social profile links, product, variants, offers, models, sitename, search box, sitelinks, and more.

• Fix 404 broken links and set up 301 permanent redirects for SEO URLs.

PRICING:

Free plain available; paid plan $20 per month.

18. SEO Image Optimizer

We all know Google is the world’s biggest search engine. But what about the world’s second biggest search engine?

YouTube? Bing? Facebook?

Nope…

According to a study on Sparktoro, the second largest search engine in the U.S. is Google Images!^[*]

So if you’re not optimizing your Shopify store images for Google Images Search, then you’re missing out on a TON of opportunity to grow your store.

Thankfully, SEO Image Optimizer is here to help you…

SEO Image Optimizer takes just a couple of minutes to set up and will then automatically optimize the alt text for EVERY image on your site for Google.

KEY FEATURES:

• Automatically optimize the alt text for images on your Shopify store.

• Automatically check new images weekly.

PRICING:

Free plan available; paid plan $24.99 per month.

19. Shogun Landing Page Builder

Want to customize your store design to match your brand but no custom themes can do that?

Use Shogun Landing Page Builder to design custom product pages, blog posts, and sales funnels. It’s a drag-and-drop page builder with 24+ design elements, and comes with tools for A/B testing and measuring performance.

KEY FEATURES:

• Drag-and-drop page builder with a robust element library.

• More than 30 mobile-optimized page templates that incorporate the latest design best practices to help you quickly launch your store.

• Built-in A/B testing, analytics tools, and customizable, on-page SEO elements.

• Product page editor that lets you take complete control of your product page design.

PRICING:

Free trial; paid plans from $39 to $149 per month.

20. Free Persistent Cart App

Your customers use multiple devices. Sometimes, they may add a product to the cart on their mobile device and leave before completing the order.

When they log in to another device (for example, their desktop), they expect the product they’ve added to their cart to be remembered.

That’s where Free Persistent Cart App does its magic. This Shopify app makes it easy for customers to complete their orders across devices and decrease your store's abandoned carts.

KEY FEATURES:

• Keep products your customers have added into their carts across multiple devices.

PRICING:

Free

21. Rewind

Mistakes happen all the time. You could inadvertently delete an entire product collection from your Shopify store or make innocuous changes to your theme that breaks the site.

You could also face downtime because a buggy app crashed your store or because malicious hackers or a disgruntled former employee deleted your store. 

Rewind is an app that automatically backs up your store at the click of a button. So when something does go wrong, all you have to do is rewind an individual item from the backup, or restore your complete store. 

Key Features

• Performs comprehensive backups automatically every day.

• Saves 365 days of version history.

• Allows for unlimited restores.

Pricing

Basic plan starts at $3/month for stores up to 20 orders a month.

Best Shopify Apps to Find Products and Manage Inventory

Looking for products to sell online? Finding better ways to manage your inventory and shipment? These Shopify apps have you covered.

22. Printful

Want to create a custom-themed t-shirt ecommerce store? Or start selling merchandise and swag of your existing brand?

Printful is here to help. It provides print-on-demand dropshipping and warehousing services.

When a customer purchases a product on your Shopify store, the Printful Shopify app automatically sends the order to Printful, where they fulfill and ship it to your customer under your brand.

KEY FEATURES:

• Catalog includes products ranging from t-shirts, leggings, swimwear, and jewelry to posters, hats, and beanbags.

• Create your product showcase images using Printful’s free mockup generator.

• Store your entire inventory at Printful’s warehouses and let them help you with all your fulfillment needs.

PRICING:

Free app; you pay for the product and fulfillment costs when your customers make a purchase.

23. Oberlo

Want a quick way to find a product, list it on your Shopify store, and start selling it to your customers?

In just a few clicks, Oberlo allows you to import dropshipped products and ship them to your customers. By automating this process, Oberlo frees up your time to spend on growing your business, rather than sourcing and shipping products.

KEY FEATURES:

• Edit your products before you list them: change titles, descriptions, images, and pricing.

• Set up multiple users to log in and manage Oberlo.

• Track store earnings, sales, and costs in a simple-to-use dashboard.

PRICING:

Free plan available; paid plans from $29.90 to $79.90 per month.

24. AfterShip

If you’re serious about improving your customer experience, Aftership is the Shopify app you need.

With Aftership, you can create a custom branded order tracking page and send automatic notifications to update your customer about their orders until they receive it.

KEY FEATURES:

• Build your own branded order tracking page with your logo and customizable color scheme. You can also include a product marketing banner and Instagram image feeds to engage and upsell your customers.

• Show the delivery status to your customers with all the details they need, such as the whereabouts of their order, tracking number, name and contact number of the courier, and more.

• Update your customers in a timely manner using automated email or text notifications well before they ask.

PRICING:

Free plan available; paid plans from $9 to $999 per month. SMS charges additional.

25. Pre-Order Manager

Your customers land on your Shopify store, browse through your product catalog, and are ready to buy.

Unfortunately, your product is out of stock. And they leave and never come back again. But wait… what if you can still sell your products even when they are out of stock?

Yes, you can by using the Pre-Order Manager Shopify app. It turns the “Add to cart” button of out-of-stock products into a “Pre-order” button. This way, your customers can still order while you’re refilling your inventory.

KEY FEATURES:

• Automatically replace the “Add to cart” button everywhere in the store for products that are out of stock without the need to customize your theme.

• Manage pre-sale and set the same option to sell coming-soon products.

• Automatically apply pre-order discounts to selected products or the entire store.

PRICING:

Free plan available; paid plans from $24.95 to $33.95 per month.

Best Shopify Apps for Customer Service

Good customer service means better customer retention and more sales. Here are the best Shopify apps you can use to provide the best customer support, increase engagement, and convert more sales in the process.

26. Yotpo

Collecting and displaying product review is no longer an option, but a requirement. There’s no secret social proof is crucial to any products or services you’re selling.

Yotpo is a leading ecommerce solution, which helps many brands like Rebecca Minkoff, MVMT, and Steve Madden to collect reviews, ratings, and user-generated content.

KEY FEATURES:

• Collect reviews and ratings using Yotpo’s review email or on-site review widget.

• Import existing reviews and display them on your homepage, product page, at checkout, and your social media channels.

• Collect user-generated content and use them across multiple touchpoints for social proof.

PRICING:

Free plan available. For premium plans, contact sales for a demo and quote.

27. HelpCenter

Feeling exhausted from answering the same questions from customers 24/7?

HelpCenter lets you build an FAQ page that helps answer customer’s inquiries quicker and improve the productivity of your support team.

KEY FEATURES:

• Create a multilayer, easy-to-navigate FAQ page that looks good on all devices.

• Let customers submit questions using the search bar. If they can't find the answers on the FAQ page, show them a contact form to contact support.

PRICING:

Free plan available; paid plan $4 per month (billed annually).

28. Tidio Live Chat

You’re looking for a live chat app to engage with your customers in real time. But what if you can get more than just a live chat app?

Tidio combines live chat, chatbots, and marketing automation into one single app for your Shopify store.

By adding Tidio chat to your store, you let your customers contact you in real time. And when you’re not online, bots will automatically reply to popular inquiries you set up upfront.

KEY FEATURES:

• Engage with your customers in real time by adding a live chat button everywhere in your store.

• Set up chatbots that will recover cart abandonment, check product availability, inform about delivery status, and give the estimated delivery time.

PRICING:

Free plan available; paid plans from $10 per month.

29. WhatsApp Chat + Abandoned Cart

With 1.6 billion monthly active users and higher user penetration compared to its competitor among many countries and regions, WhatsApp marketing could be the next big thing.^[*]

If you want to get ahead of your competitors, you should get onboard before everyone else. And WhatsApp Chat Button is here to help.

The Shopify app adds a WhatsApp chat and share button to your store and lets you send abandoned cart recovery, order confirmation, order tracking, delivery updates, and other WhatsApp notifications.

KEY FEATURES:

• Add a WhatsApp chat and share button to your Shopify store with no code added to your store theme.

• Send automated or manual abandoned cart recovery messages. You can preconfigure your messages with discount codes to help you recover sales.

• Send automated or manual order confirmation, fulfilment, and notifications via WhatsApp.

PRICING:

Free plan available; paid plan $30 per month.

30. Wishlist Plus

Wishlist Plus allows visitors to create simple, smart wish lists on your store. Even better, visitors don’t need to be signed in to your store to create a wishlist.

KEY FEATURES:

• Let your customers bookmark their favorite product and come back when they’re ready to make a purchase.

• Integrates with third-party tools to re-engage with your customers via personalized emails and social media ads based on their wishlist activities.

PRICING:

Start free; paid plans from $14.99 to $99.99 per month.

10 Essential Shopify Apps for New Merchants

Now we’ve covered a massive list of Shopify apps. But what if you just got started with your Shopify store and want to know exactly which apps you should be using?

It’s difficult to know and decide, especially when you’re new to Shopify.

Here I made a list of the 10 essential Shopify apps to make the process easier for you:

• Sumo for email capture and basic email marketing.

• Smile.io to create a referral and loyalty program for your store.

• Plug In SEO to optimize your store for search traffic.

• Oberlo or Printful. If you need help with finding products or your store, pick any of these that work best for you.

• Aftership to create a branded order tracking page.

• Yotpo to collect reviews and ratings for your products and store.

• Tidio or WhatsApp Chat for live chat support and marketing, depending on your market and location.

• Wishlist Plus to let your customer bookmark your products.