Guides · Apps

Your Shopify apps are a margin line. Here is how to total them

Each app is a small monthly decision. Together they are a recurring cost that never shows on a product page and rarely gets compared with what the app earns. This guide shows where Shopify bills app charges, which ones can hide outside that bill, and a simple test for each app.

How Shopify bills apps

According to Shopify's Help Center:

Subscription (recurring) charges are included in your regular Shopify bill.
Usage charges vary with how much you use an app, and also appear on your regular Shopify bill.
One-time purchases are billed separately, on their own invoices.
Some apps bill externally, outside Shopify. These charges do not appear on your Shopify bill.
Shopify bills every 30 days, in advance. Each app has its own 30-day cycle, which can be offset from Shopify's. Usage charges are added to the next bill, so one app cycle's usage can be split across two invoices.

To see them, go to Settings > Billing. View current charges shows pending charges for your next invoice and Past bills shows charges already paid.

Build the list

Open Settings > Apps and write down every installed app.
In Billing, find the charge for each one, subscription and usage, for the last three months.
Add apps that bill externally. These will not appear in Shopify. Look in your bank or card statements and your email for invoices from the developer.
Add one-time purchases from your separate invoices, spread over a sensible period, or list them separately.
Total the recurring and usage charges per month and divide by that month's sales. This is your app cost as a share of sales.

If you cannot match an installed app to a charge, or a charge to an installed app, that is itself a finding.

The test for each app

For each app, write one line: what does it earn or save, and how do I know? Acceptable answers have evidence: orders attributed to it by a report you trust, hours saved that you can name, a cost it replaced. "It seemed useful" is not evidence. Where the answer is vague, mark the app as a candidate for removal and set a date to decide.

Be careful with attribution. Many apps report their own results in their own dashboards, using their own definitions. Treat those numbers as claims to check against your Shopify reports, not as facts.

Cancelling properly

Shopify's Help Center says uninstalling an app from Settings > Apps stops future billing cycles, but may not remove a charge already generated for the upcoming invoice. Cancelling within the app or on the developer's website does not uninstall it, so you must also uninstall it in Shopify. For external charges, cancel directly with the developer. To avoid a charge, uninstall before the app's next billing cycle starts.

Usage charges

Usage-based apps can move with your volume, so a quiet month and a busy month cost different amounts. Check the three-month history rather than one bill, and look at the per-order or per-unit cost where the app states one.

What this does not tell you

An app's cost as a share of sales says nothing about whether the app is worth it. A conversion app can pay for itself; a forgotten one cannot. This guide gives you the cost side with evidence, and a method for the benefit side.

If you would like help

Apps are the one leak the Margin-Leak Audit cannot read from your order exports alone. You can supply your Shopify billing and app costs as an optional input, and the report states clearly whether app costs were analysed or not supplied. The free Margin Leak Self-Check includes an app worksheet.

Sources

Shopify Help Center, App charges: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/your-account/manage-billing/your-invoice/apps
Shopify Help Center, Understanding your invoice: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/your-account/manage-billing/your-invoice/understanding-your-invoice

Help Center pages change. Check the current page before relying on a detail.