Shopify Partner Program: The New Tiers, the Payouts and How Partners Get Noticed

Short answer: The Shopify partner program pays agencies, app developers and theme developers for bringing merchants to Shopify and building on it. It’s changing on January 1st, 2027. Service partner tiers become Registered, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond, measured on GMV and shops you launched. App developers keep 100% of their first $1 million in lifetime App Store revenue. Shopify’s tiers reward merchants you put on Shopify. So the vendors who get noticed produce partner-sourced pipeline with other Shopify partners.

What is the Shopify partner program?

The Shopify partner program is how Shopify works with the companies that build, sell and service its platform. It covers agencies that launch stores. It covers developers who build apps and themes. And it covers tech companies that plug into Shopify. Per Shopify’s program page, every partner starts on the Registered tier, and basic benefits start once you accept the partner agreement.

The scale is real. As of November 8th, 2026, shopify.com/partners says Shopify paid partners $1.3 billion in 2025. It also invites you to “join 100,000+ partners.” That’s a crowded field. So getting Shopify’s attention takes more than a listing.

Shopify says partners earn by “referring merchants, building and transferring/launching stores, or developing apps and themes.” So every path pays for one of two things. Either you bring Shopify a merchant, or you make the platform more valuable to merchants.

What types of Shopify partners are there?

Shopify groups the work into three paths on its partner page: build apps, build stores and build businesses. In practice, that breaks into these partner types as of November 8th, 2026:

Partner type	Who it fits	How they earn	How they’re ranked
Service partners	Agencies, consultancies, systems integrators	Store revenue share, Plus and POS Pro referral payouts	Tiers; new structure from January 1st, 2027
App developers	Companies selling apps in the Shopify App Store	Keep 100% of the first $1M lifetime, 85% after	Built for Shopify status
Theme developers	Designers selling themes in the Theme Store	Keep 85% of theme revenue	No published tiers
Certified Technology Partners	Apps built for Shopify Plus merchants	App Store revenue share	Published certification requirements

Older labels still show up in search results. “Plus” is a current service partner tier, but Shopify says the Select, Plus and Premier tiers retire on January 1st, 2027. So if a blog post calls an agency a “Shopify Plus Partner” next year, it’s working from the old structure.

How do you join the Shopify partner program?

Joining is simple. Here’s the path:

1. Create your account. Sign up from Shopify’s program page.
2. Accept the agreement. Basic benefits start once you accept the Shopify Partner Program Agreement.
3. Work from the Partner Dashboard. That’s where your tier and your merchants live.
4. Register for the App Store, if you sell apps. Shopify charges a one-time $19 fee per Partner account. You register in the Dev Dashboard under organization settings.

Every partner starts at Registered. After that, Shopify moves you up on commercial results.

How does Shopify partner revenue share work?

Shopify publishes its earning rules on its How Partners earn page and on shopify.dev. Here’s what those pages say as of November 8th, 2026.

Store builds and referrals

When an agency builds a client transfer store and the merchant activates a plan, the agency earns two things:

• 20% of the monthly subscription fee, for four years.
• 0.1% of monthly eligible GMV, also for four years.

Eligible GMV covers online consumer sales, up to $100 million a year, and Starter and Lite plans don’t qualify. Beyond that, Shopify pays 20% of POS Payments profit and 20% of B2B Payments profit, each for four years, when the conditions are met. It also pays a one-time $2,500 per qualifying Plus or Enterprise referral or upgrade. That merchant can’t have contacted Shopify Sales before your submission, has to do more than $5,000 in GMV on Shopify and has to pay its first Plus invoice. Finally, a qualifying POS Pro referral pays a one-time $500.

Apps and themes

App developers keep 100% of their first $1 million in lifetime gross App Store revenue. Above that, Shopify takes 15%. Notably, only revenue earned on or after January 1st, 2025 counts toward the threshold, and it doesn’t reset each year.

That standard rate has limits, though. You need under $20 million in App Store revenue in the prior calendar year. You also need company revenue under $100 million. Above either line, Shopify takes 15% of everything. Also, all app billing carries a 2.9% processing fee. Theme developers keep 85% of Theme Store revenue.

How do Shopify partner tiers work?

Shopify is replacing its service partner tiers. Per Shopify’s program page, the Select, Plus and Premier tiers retire on January 1st, 2027. That day, every partner moves to the tier its results earn under the new rules. Your tier can go up, down or stay the same. Since November 4th, 2026, partners can preview their 2027 tier in the Dev Dashboard.

The new tiers turn on two numbers, and you have to hit both:

Tier	Attributed GMV	Attributed shops	Measured over
Registered	No minimum	No minimum	Not applicable
Silver	$25K	1	1 year
Gold	$5M	5	4 years
Platinum	$50M	20	4 years
Diamond	$500M	25	4 years

Attributed shops are stores you launched or transferred to a merchant, on any Shopify plan. Attributed GMV is total sales from those shops across every channel, net of refunds. Shopify is blunt about one point: “Collaborator access or a referral submission on its own doesn’t count.” A referral without a launch still earns a referral payout, but no tier credit.

When tiers update and what each one unlocks

From January 1st, 2027, tiers update daily. When you qualify for a higher tier, you move up, and you keep it for at least six months. Here’s what Shopify lists for each tier:

• Silver: a tier badge, Partner Directory eligibility and advisory partner management.
• Gold: everything in Silver, plus the first level of co-marketing funds.
• Platinum: strategic partner management and a higher level of co-marketing funds.
• Diamond: embedded partner management and the highest level of co-marketing funds.

Co-marketing funds aren’t automatic. Shopify decides on campaign fit, viability and expected return. The directory matters most for agencies, because it’s where merchants go looking. Per Shopify’s directory eligibility page, Select partners and above are eligible today, and Silver becomes the bar from January 1st, 2027.

Until then, the current rules from Shopify’s Q4 2026 Tiering Guide still apply. That guide scores new referral and co-sell revenue, existing merchant revenue and net-new merchants across Select, Plus, Premier and Platinum.

What does it take to be a Certified Technology Partner?

The Certified Technology Partner Program is Shopify’s bar for apps that serve Plus merchants. Shopify publishes the criteria on its qualification page, and it says they can change. Key requirements include:

1. An App Store rating above 4.0 after at least five reviews.
2. A Plus merchant problem solved, on the latest two API versions in production.
3. Support around the clock, with a 30-minute first response on critical issues.
4. An annual independent penetration test of your app.
5. A 99.9% uptime target, with load tests refreshed each certification cycle.

So the technical bar is high. Still, none of it brings in a single merchant. And merchants are what Shopify’s service tiers count. Shopify says app and theme partners take part through the App Store, not the service tiers.

How does a Shopify app or agency get Shopify’s attention?

Look at what Shopify actually measures. The 2027 tiers count shops you launched and the GMV they produce. The current guide counts “co-sell with Shopify sales teams” as new revenue. In other words, Shopify rewards partners who grow Shopify’s merchant base.

Here’s my position. A marketplace listing alone doesn’t sell. It’s a win for awareness, and it makes you findable. But don’t expect it to produce on its own. So if you help bring Shopify new merchants, you’re in a conversation Shopify wants to have. If you only list and wait, you’re one of 100,000.

Don’t build distribution, find who already has it

Think about who already holds the merchant’s trust. For example, a Shopify agency partner has the brand relationship and is in the room for the replatform. Meanwhile, an app vendor has the product that makes the new store work. And neither one gets far calling cold.

As a pair, though, they have a reason to call the same accounts. That’s partner-sourced pipeline: deals that start because a partner opened the door. Here’s how partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline differ, if the terms are new.

When a team asks me how to break into the Shopify agency ecosystem, I ask three questions first:

1. Routing: do you go to Shopify directly, or through the agencies that already work with the brands?
2. Margin: is there enough margin to give the agency a real reason to bring you in?
3. Incumbent: is someone already defending this segment?

If the answers check out, the list is public. Shopify’s Partner Directory shows you the agencies. So start with the agencies that sit on your ideal customers, get them producing, then expand. Don’t boil the ocean.

Give Shopify agencies a reason to bring you in

An agency in the middle of a replatform has one goal: launch on time with a merchant who’s happy. If your app makes that launch go faster or sell more, package it that way. For example, offer a fixed-scope setup for a few of the agency’s upcoming launches, with a stated value and a clear owner for the cost. Partners rarely respect free, so price it, even if a partner ends up paying. Then ask the agency which upcoming launches fit.

But there’s a catch. If your own SDR team books the meeting, it isn’t partner-sourced. Run it with the partner, and it counts. Credit still follows Shopify’s rules, though. Under the 2027 tiers, a referral on its own earns no tier credit, so be clear about who launches the store. And track every touch.

Start with the accounts, not the pitch

A lot of partner meetings burn the first ten minutes clicking through overlap data live. Instead, set an agenda of named accounts before the call, and sort each one three ways:

• Ask: accounts where you want the partner’s intro.
• Give: accounts where you can hand the partner something.
• Mutual: accounts where you both have a reason to go in together.

Give first. One-off asks with no plan behind them don’t help anyone. If you use Crossbeam, that sorting is where account mapping turns into pipeline. Either way, the list comes first. We cover payments the same way in our breakdown of the Square partner program.

What does a partner GTM motion in the Shopify ecosystem look like?

A partner go-to-market (GTM) motion is one campaign, run with one partner, into accounts you both care about. Here’s how we run one in the Shopify ecosystem:

1. Pick the partner. Pair an app vendor with an agency partner, a technology partner with an integrator, and the list goes on.
2. Agree on the accounts. Overlap your lists and choose merchants, or merchants to be, where both of you belong in the room.
3. Write one joint story. Answer one question: why these two firms, for this merchant, right now?
4. Run the outreach. Calls come first, made by a human SDR in the partner’s name. Email, LinkedIn and, where it makes sense, a field marketing event round it out.
5. Hand off the meetings. Booked meetings go to whoever owns the deal, with the partner’s context attached.
6. Track every result. Count meetings, new merchants and installs, so you have proof for Shopify’s partner team.

This is what Forecastable does. We’re a B2B partnerships agency that gets paid to produce partner-sourced pipeline, and we measure it in SQOs, pipeline and revenue. Our campaign operations team and human SDRs run GTM motions with and as your partners. Eva, our AI partner ops agent, records the activity, and you get full MCP access to every piece of it. No seats, no PRM required.

One-off motions are quoted individually. Roughly $15K tends to be the average for a one-off motion with one partner, with a part-time SDR making a limited number of calls. That’s a way to prove the model before you scale it. For planning, one SDR makes about 1,000 cold calls a month. A program running three to five motions either prioritizes which motions get SDR calling or adds a second SDR. Our Produce My Pipeline program is the version that runs every quarter.

Partners often fund these motions, too. Big partners rarely pay for your tools, but they will fund a program that produces pipeline. Shopify’s 2027 tiers add co-marketing funds from Gold up. Any GTM motion could cost you $0 if partners pay for it. Before you fund one alone, read how market development funds work.

Frequently asked questions

Does it cost anything to join the Shopify partner program?

Shopify’s partner pages don’t list a joining fee. App developers pay a one-time $19 fee per Partner account to register for the App Store, and app billing carries a 2.9% processing fee.

How much do Shopify partners make?

It depends on the path. Agencies earn 20% of a transferred store’s subscription fee and 0.1% of eligible GMV for four years. Qualifying Plus or Enterprise referrals pay a one-time $2,500. App developers keep 100% of their first $1 million in lifetime App Store revenue.

What happens to the Shopify Plus partner tier?

It retires on January 1st, 2027, along with Select and Premier. From that date, service partner tiers are Registered, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond, based on attributed GMV and shops.

How do I get listed in the Shopify Partner Directory?

Today, Select partners and above are eligible. From January 1st, 2027, the bar is Silver, which takes $25K in attributed GMV and one attributed shop in a year.

Do app developers earn tiers like agencies do?

No. Shopify says tiers apply to service and agency partners. App and theme partners take part through the Shopify App Store, and Plus-focused apps can meet the Certified Technology Partner requirements.

Does Shopify offer market development funds?

Yes, at higher tiers. Under the 2027 structure, co-marketing funds start at Gold and grow at Platinum and Diamond. Shopify approves them case by case.

What’s the bottom line on the Shopify partner program?

The Shopify partner program rewards one thing above the rest: merchants on Shopify. Certifications and quality badges keep you eligible. But launched shops and their GMV decide how far you climb in 2027. So don’t wait for Shopify to send you deals. Instead, go build pipeline with the partners who sell to the same merchants. That’s what gets a platform’s attention. If your agency also builds on WordPress, see the WP Engine agency partner tiers. Find the rest in our directory of partner programs.

Forecastable is an independent third-party professional services company and B2B partnerships agency. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by Shopify. Program details are drawn from Shopify’s public pages and are current as of November 8th, 2026.

Are you a Shopify agency or app vendor that wants more launches from partners? Find out which GTM motion to run first. Book a Program-Fit Analysis