The Shopify App Store is Shopify's marketplace for apps that add features to Shopify online stores. Shopify covers the basic functions of a store, and apps, many of them built by outside developers called partners, add the rest. Categories include sales channels, finding products, selling products, orders and shipping, store design, marketing and conversion, and store management.
A merchant browses or searches the store, compares ratings, reviews and pricing, and installs an app into one of its stores after logging in to a Shopify account. Each app goes through a 100-checkpoint review before it is listed, and apps that meet Shopify's highest standards for performance, design and integration carry a Built for Shopify badge. For a developer, the App Store is the required channel to distribute one app to many merchants: this public distribution needs registration and approval, and it lets the app charge merchants through Shopify's app billing system.
Merchants pay each app's own price, and many apps have a free plan. Developers pay a one-time registration fee; Shopify takes a revenue share only above a lifetime revenue threshold, plus a processing fee on app billing.