4 must-have Shopify apps when starting your store

Starting a Shopify store is exciting but can also be overwhelming. Here are four Shopify apps we love and think are essential for any Shopify store.

Note: Features and pricing checked in September 2026. Current plans, pricing and features may have changed.

1. Judge.me: Let your customers do the talking

Your friends think your products are brilliant. Lovely. Let’s make room for feedback from actual customers too. With product reviews being an essential element to a successful online store, it makes sense to use an app to help you manage the process and engage with customers. The de facto product review app right now is Judge.me

Judge.me’s free plan includes unlimited review requests, photo and video reviews, a review widget, and star ratings. Its paid Awesome plan costs US$15/month. Our recommendation is to start with the free plan and upgrade as you grow

Add the review widget to your product pages and check your request schedule before orders arrive. On the free plan, you can set a delay after fulfilment; allow enough time for shipping and for customers to actually try the product. Asking someone to review a jumper while it’s still travelling isn’t ideal. It’s also a good idea to ask for honest feedback so you can improve your business. Focusing exclusively glowing reviews can mask quality and fulfilment problems that need to be fixed for your store to have happy customers who come back to your store.

2. CopyMeld: Keep your product descriptions on-brand

We’ll admit it, we might be a tad biased on this one 🙂 But with that said, having high quality and relevant product descriptions is essential for an online store, but that can be difficult when setting up dozens, if not hundreds of new products from scratch. This is where CopyMeld comes to the rescue: it generates and improves product descriptions using AI. What makes CopyMeld different from other AI apps is that the descriptions match your store’s brand voice, and are written with your target customers in mind.

The app helps you to write your brand voice and customer personas—profiles of the people you’re trying to reach. The result it that descriptions use your voice and talk to your customer, rather than simply producing generic text. Describing a backpack to a daily commuter should be a different conversation from describing it to a weekend adventurer.

The free plan should be enough to get your first batch of products ready, and you can upgrade to paid plans as your product catalog grows

3. Shopify Forms: Turn 'Just Browsing' into 'Keep Me Posted'

Give interested visitors a way to hear from you again—even when they’re not ready to buy.

Shopify Forms is free and lets you create pop-up or embedded signup forms, customise their appearance, offer signup discounts, and track performance. It also works with Shopify Messaging, our next pick. Think of Forms as collecting useful contact lists to engage with your customers at a later date.

4. Shopify Inbox: Answer the Question Before It Becomes a Goodbye

“Will this fit?” “Can I wash it?” “What’s your returns policy?”

Give shoppers somewhere to ask. Shopify Inbox another free app from Shopify that adds customer chat to your store. You can respond from desktop or mobile and share product links, images, and discount codes. It also offers an optional AI agent that can answer questions using your catalogue, policies, and store content.

To begin with, set realistic availability hours and prepare quick replies for shipping, returns, and common product questions. We recommend handling early conversations yourself to learn what your shoppers find confusing. Use those questions to improve your product pages and only later try enabling automated replies when the volume of questions becomes too much to process.