How We Measure Our Shopify Statistics

Most "best Shopify theme" advice is opinion. Ours starts with evidence: we scan real, live Shopify storefronts and record the theme and apps each one runs, so the percentages you see reflect what merchants actually use in the wild, not guesses or vendor marketing. This page explains where that data comes from and how we turn it into the numbers on our blog and statistics pages, so you can make firm decisions based on real stores.

What's in the dataset

The percentages you see on our data blocks ("18% of stores use this app", "9% of stores run this theme") come from our own first-party scan dataset. We have scanned 3,500,000+ Shopify stores through our detector tool since 2017, and every adoption figure is reported as a share of stores, computed from that real data and refreshed daily.

How a store enters the dataset

A store enters our dataset the first time anyone submits its URL: a visitor using our public detector, our browser extension, or our own crawler. Each successful scan records the store's detected theme, the apps we can fingerprint from the storefront, and the timestamp. We do not scrape Shopify or crawl en masse; our dataset grows from organic submissions.

How we detect themes

Theme detection reads the store's public storefront and looks for the signals a Shopify theme leaves behind. We check several independent markers and only record a theme when they agree, which keeps false positives low. If none of them identify a theme, the store is recorded as "theme not detected" and left out of theme adoption stats.

How we detect apps

App detection works the same way. We scan the public storefront for the footprints Shopify apps leave behind, combine several independent signals, and cross-check them against a maintained library of patterns for the most popular apps. An app is only counted when we can positively fingerprint it, so a match means the app is genuinely present on that storefront.

How we compute adoption percentages

For any given app or theme, the percentage shown is the count of distinct domains where we detected it at least once, divided by the total distinct Shopify domains in our dataset:

• Numerator: distinct domains where we detected that app or theme at least once.
• Denominator: total distinct Shopify domains in our dataset.

For segment-filtered tables (for example, "themes used by dropshipping stores"), the denominator narrows to just the stores in that segment, so each percentage reflects that group rather than the whole dataset.

How we tag apps by use case

Each app in our database carries two kinds of labels: its function (what the app does, such as reviews, SEO, page builder, live chat, or email marketing) and one or more use cases (what kind of store uses it, such as dropshipping, print on demand, subscription, or wholesale). Use case labels are reviewed by our team based on each app's official Shopify App Store description. One app can carry multiple use case labels when it serves multiple audiences.

What we don't measure

Being clear about the limits is part of being trustworthy. Our data does not capture:

• Revenue, traffic, or order volume. We measure app and theme presence, not store size. A $10M store and a $10 store count equally if both are in our dataset.
• Geographic distribution. Our dataset isn't geo-stratified. Anglophone Shopify stores are likely overrepresented because most submissions come from English-speaking markets.
• Admin-only apps. Some apps work entirely through the Shopify Admin (product importers, backend inventory tools, internal automations) without adding anything to the public storefront. They may be widely installed but invisible to us. Where this matters, our editorial reviews still cover them by name.
• Time-of-use. If a store removed an app since our last scan, our data lags until the store is re-scanned. Re-scans happen organically when users re-submit a URL.

How freshness works

Data blocks recompute daily. The "Last updated" date on each block reflects the last successful refresh. The total store count grows as new domains are submitted to the detector.

Sources

App and theme catalogs are kept in sync with the public Shopify App Store and Shopify Theme Store. Vertical and category classifications use Shopify's open-source Standard Product Taxonomy as the canonical reference.

Data first, but not data only

This dataset takes the guesswork out of what merchants actually run, but it is only half of how we recommend. Our editors weigh quality, pricing, support, and fit for each list's specific audience, and the numbers inform those picks without dictating them. Read how the two work together in our review approach, or browse the live figures on our Shopify statistics hub.