Shopify updates theme development terms

By MixDex Article may include affiliate links

Shopify announced some new terms that will affect theme developers at its annual Unite developer conference June 29, 2021.

The most noteworthy change is that themes listed in the Shopify Theme Store “can only be made available to Shopify merchants through the Shopify Theme Store.”

It’s not immediately clear if this will affect themes that have been listed prior to the change, but could be a significant move for theme developers who also sell on their own website and avoiding the revenue share Shopify takes.

There are already many Shopify themes available on third party marketplaces that are not sold on the Shopify Theme Store.

Shopify maintains strict requirements for themes sold in the store and all code and functionality undergoes a significant review process before being published and developers are also expected to fix errors or bugs in the code and update themes to incorporate new functionality introduced in order to remain listed.

Shopify also said it is re-opening the theme store up for new submissions starting July 15, 2021.

According to the Shopify theme developer website, the 0% revenue share on the first $1 million in revenue on apps is also being extended to themes as well.

Shopify will also no longer offer a program where the company would provide technical support for theme developers in exchange for a higher revenue share.

For more on these and other changes, read the blog post announcing the change and the Unite announcement post.