eCommerce 101

20 Best free Shopify apps that can help you grow your online business

April 23, 2024 19 minutes

If you’re one of the over a million businesses using Shopify, you already know apps are an integral part of the Shopify platform.

With thousands of Shopify apps offering paid plans and free options for online stores, it can take time to figure out which of them are the best Shopify apps to use for your specific business needs.

This article will cover why using apps is important, what to consider before choosing one, and what the 20 best free Shopify apps can offer to help grow your online business.

Disclaimer

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20 Best free Shopify apps for your eCommerce store

Whether you’re running a Shopify t-shirt store or offering a more diverse product collection, you have access to over 8,000 apps to meet all your customization needs.

While the App Store is filled with paid options, some of the best Shopify apps are free.

Take a look at this quick breakdown of the best free apps for Shopify to enhance your online store:

1. Printify

Printify Catalog showing an extensive product range.

Let’s kick off the list of free Shopify apps with our Print-on-Demand services, an excellent way to print custom merch with automated order fulfillment

With over 1,000 products and an extensive network of Print Providers, Printify is a great app for businesses of all calibers, especially Shopify clothing stores. Artists and entrepreneurs can also profit by selling fan, pride, and Spotify merch.

The Printify app has a range of benefits to save you money and time:

  • Product Creator. Upload or create your own designs and generate high-quality product mockups with just a few clicks.
  • Sample orders. Ordering samples from your chosen Print Provider is a great way to check the print quality and finished product before adding it to your online store.
  • No minimum orders. Find what to sell on Shopify and create a product collection without having to store bulk orders yourself or handle inventory management.
  • Easy integrations. Effortlessly connect Printify to your store, customize products, and instantly publish them on your storefront.
  • Automated order fulfillment. Order fulfillment and shipping is automated, allowing you to focus on marketing your store.

2. Smile

Smile homepage promoting their tools for driving customer engagement.

This Shopify app allows you to create your own customer rewards and loyalty program that helps increase sales and repeat purchases and brings new customers to your store.

Gamify the shopping experience by allowing your loyal customers to earn rewards with each interaction in your store.

The Smile free plan has the following features:

  • Points program. Add a loyalty program that rewards customers with points for each purchase, which can be exchanged for discounts, gift cards, free shipping, or even gifts.
  • Referral program. Create unique links that customers can use to refer their friends and followers to your store in exchange for points, discounts, or free shipping.
  • Basic branding. Give your points a custom name and add your branding to other elements of your loyalty program.
  • Default reward emails. Automate reward emails that notify customers of successful referrals, point expiration, or gift rewards on their birthday.
  • Analytics overview. Track key metrics on sales influenced by Smile, as well as earned and redeemed points.

3. DSers

DSers homepage promoting their product mapping features.

DSers is one of the best free dropshipping apps for Shopify, designed to streamline and automate the entire process for online sellers.

With DSers, you can easily manage and fulfill orders, find new products and suppliers, and automate various tedious tasks.

Key features and benefits of the DSers free plan include:

  • A vast network of suppliers. Discover better and more affordable suppliers who offer identical products.
  • Large product quantity. Manage up to 3,000 products to scale your business and cater to diverse customer needs.
  • Efficient product management. Source, import, and customize products while automating stock and price updates.
  • Streamlined store management. Publish products and process orders in bulk with just one click.
  • Automated tracking information. Order tracking numbers will get sent from suppliers directly to your sales channel.

4. ReConvert

ReConvert unique selling points for their “Thank You” page optimization features.

This free app can boost sales by allowing you to upsell and cross-sell your products.

Customize thank-you and landing pages through a drag-and-drop website builder. Add countdown timers, reorder buttons, and surveys designed to generate sales.

The free ReConvert plan offers these key features:

  • Drag-and-drop page builder. With no code design elements, you can drive sales and build upsell and cross-sell pages to increase average order value.
  • Trigger-based thank you pages. Create personalized thank you pages to show appreciation to your customers.
  • Magic Designer. Add customized thank-you pages that reflect your brand’s aesthetic.
  • Advanced analytics. Monitor the performance of specific templates, including total store orders, average order value, thank you page impressions, and customer conversion rate.

5. EComposer

EComposer overview of some of their page layout styles.

This amazing free Shopify app offers an intuitive interface and efficient features to create an eCommerce store.

Its live drag-and-drop editor and convenient copy-and-paste functionality streamline page customization, eliminating the need for multiple third-party applications.

The free EComposer plan offers the following features:

  • Page Builder. Effortlessly create various custom pages, from an engaging homepage and checkout page to exciting product pages.
  • Real-time editor. Use the convenient drag-and-drop editor to build pages instantly with access to all EComposer features.
  • Endless design options. Unlock flexible, creative freedom over your website designs with more than 270 pre-made templates.
  • Top-notch speed and performance. EComposer is optimized with fast loading times, providing a breezy user experience.

6. Peek!

Peek promo for their customer segment analysis features.

This free app offers valuable insights into customer behavior and a variety of tools to monitor and analyze how shoppers engage with your store, allowing you to improve customer acquisition and retention.

The free Peek! plan offers the following features:

  • Full session recordings. Review every interaction and movement visitors make on your website to identify pain points, user preferences, and areas for improvement.
  • Visitor segmentation. Collect and review first-time and returning customer behavior based on various factors, like whether they viewed a product or placed an order.
  • Customer surveys. Create a variety of customized surveys to gather feedback and understand customer preferences.
  • Powerful metrics. Track and optimize your website’s performance based on user behavior to facilitate growth and increase customer conversions.

  • Mobile compatibility.
     Access and review replays from anywhere, ensuring convenient monitoring and analysis of customer behavior while on the go.

7. Jebbit

Jebbit promo for their feature of displaying and adding multiple products to the cart.

Jebbit allows you to create product recommendation quizzes that help your website visitors find the right products.

These custom-branded quizzes can be easily created in minutes without previous design or coding experience.

  • No-code custom quizzes. Use over 50 pre-built templates to launch engaging quizzes quickly and easily.
  • Real-time analytics. Receive immediate insights into customer interactions to improve performance, optimize engagement, and capture leads with lead gen forms.
  • Broad reach. Share your quizzes on your website, partner sites, mobile apps, social media, and even through QR codes on packaging.
  • Various integrations. Launch your quizzes on more than 35 apps and various popular Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to quickly achieve your business objectives.
  • AI Experience Generator. Create quizzes that connect with your audience using advanced artificial intelligence.

8. Thank You Email Auto Tool

Thank You Email Auto Tool promoting their emails for mobile and desktop.

This free email marketing app enables you to automatically send a thank you email to your customers after they perform a specific action on your Shopify store, providing an effective way to gain more loyal customers.

It offers four types of Shopify email marketing campaigns for new orders, fulfilled orders, new customers, and newsletter subscribers.

The free plan of the Thank You Email Auto Tool offers a range of benefits to boost your marketing efforts:

  • Email automation. Save time and effort by automating the process of sending out up to 100 emails to your customers every month.
  • Custom templates. Create visually appealing and personalized thank-you emails using a variety of pre-made templates.
  • Custom Sender. Use your own custom email address in the From field.
  • Unlimited campaigns. Create and launch unlimited email campaigns to target different audience segments, drive customer engagement, and recover lost sales.
  • Detailed reports. Review metrics on sent emails, opened emails, spam, and errors to gain valuable insights into the performance of your email campaigns.

9. Hextom: Countdown Timer Bar

Hextom Countdown Timer Bar promoting their features for adding urgency to sales.

This free countdown timer app enables you to create a sense of urgency and a fear of missing out in your customers by adding a timer bar to your website.

It’s designed to increase customer conversions and boost sales during popular events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Key features of the Hextom: Countdown Timer Bar free plan include:

  • No-code setup. Add a timer to your Shopify store pages easily without the need for any coding knowledge.
  • Full customization. Customize your timers’ rotation, animation, background images, and styles to best match your brand identity.
  • Emoji support. Add emojis to your timers to make sure your promotions catch the attention of your customers.
  • Targeting. Display countdown timers on one or all pages using advanced targeting options for specific customer segments, pages, products, and devices.
  • Scheduled timers. Set up one-time, auto-recurring, daily, or weekly timers before planned sales events.

10. Hextom: Free Shipping Bar

extom Free Shipping Bar promoting their progressive shipping messages.

This free Shopify app enables you to offer free shipping as a slide-out on your product pages.

Quick Tip

With 66% of consumers expecting free shipping for all online orders, it’s important to consider improving the purchasing process by offering free shipping on your Shopify store.

It also shows notifications as the cart value fills, congratulates customers for reaching free shipping goals, and tracks each shipping bar’s performance.

The Hextom: Free Shipping Bar app offers the following features:

  • Motivational messages. Show messages with increasing shipping goals to boost sales.
  • Full customization. Customize shipping bars with one-click activation without the need for coding.
  • Targeting. Customize where your shipping bar appears by using advanced targeting options for specific devices, customers, pages, and products.
  • Scheduled free shipping bars. Enable free shipping bars in advance of sales events in your store.
  • Currency detection. Automatically adjust the free shipping threshold based on your customer’s local currency.

Make it happen today!

11. EcomSend

EcomSend promo for their features to get more subscribers.

EcomSend is a tool for adding engaging pop-ups that drive conversions to your store.

With a wide variety of pop-up types and even more ways to use them, you can experiment with different marketing strategies to see what works best for your eCommerce business.

The EcomSend app offers these key features and benefits:

  • Expanded customer reach. Effortlessly grow your email and SMS marketing list by using opt-in pop-ups and email sign-up forms.
  • Customer engagement. Attract potential customers with exit intent or spin-the-wheel popup games, engaging them in interactive experiences.
  • Potential to increase sales. Boost conversions with fully customizable pop-ups to share discount codes or other rewards that encourage customers to place an order.
  • Pop-up customization. With an intuitive editor, you can tailor the design of your pop-ups to align with your brand, ensuring consistency across your store.
  • Marketing app integration. Streamline your pop-up promotional efforts through seamless integration with email marketing apps like Mailchimp, Klaviyo, SMSBump, and Privy.

Quick tip

Increase your reach and sales by learning about Shopify email marketing from our easy-to-follow guide.

12. AG SEO

Avada promoting their tools for boosting site speed and performance.

The free version of this Shopify app can carry out Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your eCommerce store.

This app constantly monitors your store and optimizes various site elements, including meta tags, alt text, sitemap, and duplicate content.

There is a range of benefits that sets AG SEO apart from other free Shopify apps:

  • Fully automated. Sit back and let the app optimize your Shopify SEO without spending time working on technical SEO yourself.
  • One-click install. Get the app up and running in minutes, ensuring your store ranks higher on Google Search and drives increased traffic from customers looking for products like yours.
  • Product SEO. Optimize the performance of up to 50 products every month.
  • Site speed-up. Improve user experience with instant improvements in website speed.
  • HTML sitemap. Generate an HTML sitemap to enhance website navigation and SEO indexing.

Quick tip

Increase profits by optimizing your store – follow our Shopify SEO guide to get started.

13. Trust Badges Bear

Trust Badges Bear promoting their intuitive design panel for seeing badge previews.

This is one of the top Shopify apps for increasing customer trust and conversion rates.

It enables you to add trust badges like secure payment icons to your website, ensuring you come across as a professional and trustworthy store owner.

The completely free Trust Badges Bear app offers the following benefits:

  • Customizable badge styles. Choose between original badge colors or custom colors to match your brand.
  • Quick load speed. Sized under 30kb, the badge code ensures fast performance on your website.
  • Easy placement. Add custom trust badges to any page on your Shopify store.
  • A growing range of badges. Choose from over 300 badges to enhance your store’s credibility.
  • Cross-platform compatibility. This app supports different badge sizing options, ensuring it works on both desktop and mobile devices.

14. Judge.me

udge promoting their tools for displaying reviews on websites.

This app is a good choice if you’re looking for the best free review app for Shopify that allows you to collect and display customer reviews on your store.

This product review app lets you quickly gather customer feedback, build trust and social proof, and increase sales performance.

Key features of the Judge.me free plan include:

  • Unlimited review requests. Schedule emails after order fulfillment or delivery to ask for reviews with photos and videos.
  • Options for displaying reviews. Showcase star ratings, product reviews, trust badges, or a reviews carousel.
  • Easy review sharing. Share reviews on Google Shopping or social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
  • Various tools for collecting feedback. Engage your reviewers through features like customer satisfaction surveys, coupons, or email marketing integrations.
  • Feedback synchronization. The app transfers reviews to and from the Shopify app through Shopify metaobjects.

15. Yotpo

Yotpo promo for their content generation tools.

Yotpo lets you collect and showcase user-generated content like ratings and reviews to ensure customer retention.

Easily collect reviews for your eCommerce store through various avenues like email and SMS requests, promotions, social media, and referrals.

The Yotpo free plan offers the following features:

  • Automated review requests. Send post-purchase review requests to your customers after they’ve placed an order in your store.
  • Review request reminders. Ensure you collect more reviews by sending reminders to leave a review via email and SMS.
  • Template library. Use pre-designed templates to create effective review request emails and texts.
  • Review widget. Add a fully customizable widget to any page and section of your store.
  • Star rating. Increase your click-through rates by adding star ratings to your homepage, category page, and product pages.

16. Promo.com

Promo showing their features for boosting a business with videos.

Promo.com allows you to automatically generate promotional videos for your store to publish on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. 

The app creates videos optimized for your marketing goals by pulling existing images and video content from your store. You can customize the video further with a range of audio and visual features.

Features of using Promo.com include:

  • Full customization. Personalize your videos by adding media, text, color schemes, and music to suit your brand’s unique style and message.
  • Fast video making. Easily create compelling videos to showcase your products in just a few minutes.
  • Multiple templates. Access a variety of templates to help you reach specific business goals.
  • Image resizer. Easily resize and optimize images for your videos, ensuring they meet the specific requirements of different social media platforms and web channels, enhancing the visibility and appeal of your content.
  • Driving traffic. Use engaging branded videos of your products to attract customers to your eCommerce store from Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

17. Sherpas

Smart SEO listing their features and selling points.

Sherpas automates the challenge of optimizing your store’s SEO to-do list. The overall aim is to increase the quality of organic traffic your store receives.

This Shopify app automatically fixes broken links, manages your sitemap to keep it SEO-friendly, and optimizes store images with alt tags.

Some of the features include:

  • AI-generated meta tags. Add compelling product meta tags with the power of ChatGPT-4 Turbo.
  • Improved UX and SEO ranking. This app will help optimize your store images and page speed.
  • Enhanced Google Search visibility. Add JSON-LD structured data to improve your ranking in Google Search.
  • Automatic link fix. Quickly detect and fix broken onsite, visited, or external links.
  • Detailed backlinks report. Gain valuable insights to refine and enhance your link-building strategy.

18. Google & YouTube

Google & YouTube app promoting their features for Shopify.

This free Shopify app seamlessly integrates your Shopify store with Google and YouTube, unlocking fresh opportunities for marketing and customer engagement.

It offers a range of features and benefits that can help drive traffic to your store, enhance brand visibility, and increase sales.

  • Merchant Center. Link your store to showcase your products across Google.
  • YouTube integration. Enable viewers to shop directly from your YouTube videos.
  • Shopify to Google sync. Use Google to display your Shopify store promotions, shipping information, and policies.
  • Google AI. Create images with the Product Studio and boost sales with a Performance Max ad campaign.
  • Google Analytics. Gain valuable insights into your store’s performance and monitor customer behavior and conversion metrics.

19. Instafeed

Instafeed app promoting their customizable grid layout.

The free Instafeed app seamlessly integrates your Instagram feed into your online store.

With Instafeed, you can display your Instagram posts on your website, creating a visually appealing and dynamic experience for your customers.

Key features of Instafeed include:

  • Custom display. Showcase your Instagram photos, reels, and videos in a grid or slider layout.
  • Easy optimization. Curate your Instagram feed according to your preferences, or let the system intelligently arrange your content for maximum impact by choosing between manual or automatic layout optimization.
  • Mobile customization. Ensure your Instagram feed maintains its visual appeal and functionality across different screen sizes by adjusting the number of rows and columns.
  • Shoppable posts. Effortlessly add store links to your Instagram content, enabling a smooth shopping experience for your audience.
  • Hashtag filters. Organize posts by hashtags for easy navigation and improved user engagement.

20. TikTok

TikTok app in Shopify App Store showcasing its features.

Reach billions of active consumers on TikTok. Simplify your marketing efforts by integrating with TikTok to maximize your brand’s reach and sales potential.

TikTok provides the following features:

  • Capitalizing on trends. For example, use the trending hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt to increase your store visibility and sales.
  • Simplified marketing. Set up TikTok ad campaigns, synchronize your product catalog, and sell through in-feed videos or live broadcasts on TikTok Shop.
  • Instant ad creation. Quickly generate TikTok ads by uploading product images or videos.
  • Budget control. Set your campaign budget and get billed directly on your TikTok Ads Manager account.
  • TikTok Pixel. Install the Pixel tracking code on your website with one click to measure website events, enhance ad campaign performance, optimize your marketing efforts, and discover new customers.

Make it happen today!

Why is it necessary to install apps on your shopify online store?

Shopify apps are powerful tools that can significantly enhance the functionality and performance of eCommerce stores. Over 85% of merchants use apps to run their eCommerce businesses.

Here are some of the key benefits the best free apps for Shopify offer:

  • Store data for actionable insights.
  • Full Shopify admin access and capabilities.
  • Purchase data for enhanced sales analytics and conversion optimization.
  • Detailed analytics for targeted marketing campaigns.
  • Ways to improve mobile user experience and conversions.
  • Social media integrations for content sharing and customer engagement.
  • Diverse marketing campaign solutions, including customer segmentation, to drive customer conversions and feedback.

Quick tip:

Check out the best Shopify store examples and see how they use apps to supercharge their profits.

What should you consider before installing a Shopify app?

A woman researching the best Shopify apps for her Shopify store.

There are some possible downsides to running too many apps at the same time. Here’s what you should consider:

Slower site speed

Using a wide range of apps can slow down your site speed as they are all simultaneously loaded on your store, potentially resulting in a poor customer experience.

With 70% of consumers stating that page speed impacts willingness to buy from an online retailer, try using a free website speed test like Pingdom to see whether you need to cut some apps.

Apps not working together

Not all Shopify apps are compatible, which means that some of the best Shopify apps might not work well with each other, and you can end up losing the benefits of both.

It’s important to check whether other users have already noticed compatibility issues before running several apps on your store at the same time.

Site clutter

Installing a range of apps that offer pop-ups and chat support can negatively impact the user experience by taking focus away from your products.

Avoid app overlap and verify that none of them fulfill the same purpose. Any value gained from an app will be offset if it annoys or distracts your customers.

Outdated apps

Apps can become outdated if their software isn’t updated or when the problem they were created to solve is no longer an issue.

Before installing a new app, check all apps through your Shopify admin dashboard to make sure they’re up to date and don’t send out useless push notifications.

Quick tip

Plenty of Shopify alternatives offer great apps to improve the seller and customer experience – check out our BigCommerce vs Shopify comparison.

FAQ

Absolutely! All the apps mentioned in this article are free on the Shopify App Store, though some also offer paid plans for advanced features. 

Easily install any app you see in the Shopify App Store to enhance different aspects of your online store, from marketing and sales to inventory management and customer support.

Alternatively, you can also develop a custom app tailored to your specific needs.

You can increase your sales without spending any money by optimizing the content on your website, building trust and social proof by sharing customer reviews, and engaging with your target audience through social media and online forums.

Many store owners also use some of the best free apps for Shopify to simplify these tasks.

Quick Tip: Learn how to drive organic traffic to your Shopify store, which leads to customer conversions.

Shopify offers a 3-day free trial for new store owners to test the platform and features. After the trial period, you’ll need to choose a paid plan to continue using Shopify’s services.

Conclusion

All of the free Shopify apps we’ve looked at offer distinct features that cover different aspects of running an online business.

From marketing free gifts to fueling customer engagement and managing order fulfillment, experiment with different apps to find the perfect combination for your unique needs and store objectives.

Make it happen today!

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