Apps are one of Shopify’s strengths. They are also the most common reason a store becomes slow and expensive. Each one seems cheap on its own; together they add up — in money and in speed.
The two costs of every app
- Money: monthly fees, often rising with order volume.
- Speed: many apps load JavaScript and styles on every page, whether or not that page uses them. On a phone, a dozen apps can add seconds to load time.
How to audit your app stack in an hour
- List every installed app with its monthly cost (Shopify admin → Settings → Apps).
- Note what each one does and whether you still use it.
- Find overlap: two review apps, two pop-up tools, three upsell apps.
- Test speed on a phone using Google PageSpeed Insights, and note which third-party scripts are loading.
- Check for leftovers: uninstalled apps sometimes leave code in your theme.
What to do with the results
- Remove apps you no longer use — and clean up their theme code.
- Consolidate overlapping apps into one.
- Replace simple apps with theme features: Online Store 2.0 sections and metafields can handle many badges, banners and content blocks without an app.
- Combine several small custom behaviours into one lightweight custom app when the monthly fees justify it.
- Load only where needed: some app scripts can be limited to the pages that use them.
A rule of thumb
Every app should earn its place twice — once on your profit-and-loss and once on your page speed. If you cannot say what an app made you last month, it is a candidate for removal.
Our free Shopify audit includes an app review: what each app costs, what it loads and what could go.