Shopify has achieved what every ecosystem dreams of: escape velocity. Their transformation from an e-commerce platform to a global commerce ecosystem offers valuable lessons for both platforms and partners. In this newsletter, we’re dive into Shopify's expansive partner program, the business model it offers for partners, and how they structure their benefits

Also, we’re creating a closed network of consultants, agencies, and builders to introduce to up and coming ecosystems (think Shopify when it was starting out). If you want to get involved, fill out this short form.

The Big Picture

Over the years, Shopify has evolved from a simple online store builder to a vast, thriving ecosystem that supports businesses of all sizes. With a Slack group for a partner community that is nearly five times the size of its own workforce (46k people as of a few weeks ago!), Shopify has created a self-sustaining universe of developers, agencies, and technology providers that move the business forward.

In 2023 Shopify started a significant partner program overhaul, signaling their next growth phase. This revamp focused on three key areas:

1. Exceptional Rewards: New incentives to accelerate partner growth, including marketing support, a revised commission structure, and promotions.

2. Skill Building: The introduction of Shopify's first-ever certification program for partners, featuring business and technical certifications to standardize quality across the ecosystem. They’ve had the academy since 2018, but this adds more formality to it. They also introduced more sales enablement resources, but when you look in the portal, it’s basically just competitive decks. It’s surprising they didn’t have this before, and it would be better if this was customized to the partner themselves.

3. Simplified, Engaging Partner Experience: Increased virtual and in-person events, continued community building through achievement celebrations, community awards, partner conferences, and a thriving Slack community.

   

   Sales enablement resources in the Shopify partner portal

Ecosystem by the Numbers

To grasp the scale of Shopify's partner ecosystem, consider these impressive statistics:

• Partner Slack community: 46,000+ members (4.6x Shopify's ~10,000ish employee count)

• App Store: 8,000+ apps [Source: Shopify App Store, 2024]

• Theme Store: 100+ premium themes [Source: Shopify Theme Store, 2024]

• Shopify partners generate over $12.5 billion in revenue each year [Source: Capital One Research]

Why it Works

Just because Shopify’s ecosystem grew like this doesn’t guarantee the same for others. Each product has it’s own characteristics that prime it for success or make it harder. Several factors have contributed to the success of Shopify's partner ecosystem.

• Complementary Product: Shopify's core product is instantly complementary due to its position in the tech stack, making it easy for partners to build upon and integrate with the platform.

• Multiple markets: The platform's flexibility allows it to span multiple markets and regions, multiplying opportunities for partners across various industries and geographies. This isn’t the same for more industry-vertical software.

• Developer-Friendliness: By prioritizing developer experience, Shopify has attracted a community of skilled developers who continuously enhance the platform with new apps, themes, and integrations.

• Early Investment: Shopify invested in its ecosystem from the early days, even when it was challenging to convince agencies to become partners. This long-term vision has paid off, with the partner community now driving significant demand for the platform.

However, it wasn't always easy. In the early days, Shopify faced challenges convincing agencies to become partners. People we’re skeptical — why would they change their entire business to this up and coming platform? The key inflection point came when the market started demanding Shopify specifically. As a result, the supply of partners drove merchant demand, which in turn attracted more partners, creating a virtuous cycle.

Ecosystem Overview

Shopify's partner program consists of two main tracks:

1. Service Partner Track: Designed for system integrators, consultancies, and agencies who help businesses build, migrate, and grow their online stores.

2. Technology Partner Track: Tailored for independent software vendors (ISVs), app developers, enterprise resource planning (ERP) providers, and global technology companies looking to integrate with and go-to-market with Shopify.

Service Partner Track

The Service Partner track is designed for system integrators, consultancies, and agencies who help businesses successfully build and migrate stores, identify new avenues of growth, and provide ongoing services. There are three main ways to be a service partner:

1. Consulting services

2. Build and migration

3. Recurring services

Becoming a Service Partner is an open application process that involves basic verification of services and business information. All it takes to register is signing up, and partners can start earning commissions immediately. Registered partners get access to the dashboard, where you can access resources and basically manage your store.

Revenue Streams & Ways to Earn

Service Partners can earn revenue through:

• Development store referrals (0-20% commission based on plan)

• Shopify Plus referrals (enhanced commission structure)

• Consulting services

• Build and migration services

• Recurring service contracts

Tier Structure

In 2025, Shopify launched a revamped partner program with quarterly evaluations of tier standings.

Tiers are assessed across two components:

1. Commercial Impact: Revenue generated, number of merchant referrals, client retention rates, project complexity 1.

   

   Source: Shopify Service Partner Program Guidelines

2. Credential Attainment: Shopify verified skills via certifications launched in 2023 1.

   

   Source: Shopify Service Partner Program Guidelines

Basically, you move up in the world through more credentials and making more money for Shopify. Given that they have tens of thousands of partners, it’s critical to have this be as rules-based as possible.

Benefits

Service Partners receive benefits in three main categories:

1. Business development support: As you move up in tiers, you unlock closer support to their team, account mapping, development funds, access with their sales teams, and may be invited to their partner advisory council.

2. Training and education: All tiers get access to webinars, academy courses, skill badges, and newsletters and articles. This makes sense, why make it harder to get good at Shopify?

3. Marketing perks: In general, BD and marketing benefits are the most attractive for partners so these are the tiers that get the most stratified.

   

   Source: Shopify Service Partner Program Guidelines

Technology Partner Track

The Technology Partner track, introduced in 2023, is an invite-only program tailored for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), App Developers, ERP Providers, Global Technology Companies, and Theme Developers. This track is the new home for Plus Certified Application Partners (PCAP) as well. Tech partners can be anyone from theme builders to large companies like Oracle and Google Cloud.

By bringing in tech partners, Shopify basically decentralizes the development happening on their platform, allowing them to support a huge amount of use cases with development team that don’t hit their bottom line.

Revenue Streams & Ways to Earn

Technology Partners can monetize through:

• Apps (100% revenue share up to $1M, 85% thereafter)

• Themes (100% revenue share up to $1M, 85% thereafter)

• Integration services

• "Built for Shopify" program for high-quality apps

Notably, Shopify ended its 20% cut of app sales below $1M in 2021 to fuel ecosystem growth.

Tier Structure

Technology Partner tier status is by invitation only. It’s much more of a walled garden compared to the services track. My assumption is that these partnerships are more relationship based with other companies and therefore complex, and they may not have as many. If you just want to build apps, all you have to do is register. The tiers are based on:

1. Market Influence: Track record of complex deals, and supporting large customers. They look at things like market share, volume of installs, presence at trade shows, and more.

2. Commercial Impact: Contribution to Shopify's growth bringing in volume to the ecosystem by originating or co-selling deals.

3. Integration Credentials: Technical expertise. You need to be really good at Shopify.

There are four tiers:

1. Registered Partner

2. Shopify Plus Partner

3. Shopify Premier Partner

4. Shopify Platinum Partner

Benefits

Technology Partners receive benefits similar to Service Partners, including business development support, training and education, and marketing perks.

The biggest difference is around access to finds and partner marketing teams. Since it takes so much work to co-market, co-sell, etc the Shopify team needs to be strategic.

"Built for Shopify" Program

The "Built for Shopify" program is a way for high-quality apps to stand out. To qualify, apps must meet strict requirements and quality bars. Apps that earn the "Built for Shopify" badge enjoy benefits such as:

• Search result boost

• Quality badge

• Enhanced visibility

• Access to targeted search ads

• Standalone search filter inclusion

• Custom media kit

Key Insights & Takeaways

• Shopify's technical partner tiers are invite-only, possibly due to additional support requirements or ongoing program revamp.

• The massive ecosystem spans from enterprises to solopreneurs. As a result, it can feel sort of faceless. After poking around the dashboard, I still don’t know anyone at Shopify I could even reach out to.

• Given the highly competitive landscape, finding a niche is crucial to standing out for partners. For registered partners, the enablement is pretty lightweight.

• Shopify is a safe bet for your tech stack, considering its market presence and integration options. It also has a wide network of other tools that you could partner with. If you sell an entire stack of tools to a client, you can get multiple commissions.

• Early on, partner supply helped drive merchant demand to a tipping point; the flipped dynamic then fueled partner growth.

• Giving developers early access to build apps around new releases can prime and accelerate ecosystem growth.

Resources

To learn more about the Shopify Partner Program, check out these resources:

• Partner Program Guide

• Developer Resources

• Community Forums

• Certification Portal

Other Ecosystem News

Notion recently re-launched their marketplace, introducing tools for native checkout, payments, reviews, feedback, IP protection, refunds, analytics, and delivery — basically handling all the business side of the marketplace so creators can focus on building great templates.

We’re creating a closed network of consultants, agencies, and builders to introduce to up and coming ecosystems (think Shopify when it was starting out). If you want to get involved, fill out this short form.

Have a great rest of your week.

Hillary