Look, I'm not going to sugarcoat this shit. Building Shopify apps is hard. Really fucking hard. But it's also one of the few ways left to build a real software business without raising millions in VC money.
Started building this inventory thing back in 2022. Took me forever because I kept adding features nobody wanted. Then Shopify's review process ate another few months - they're picky as hell about the dumbest stuff. First month I made like 120 bucks or something. Not great.
But that app now makes decent money. Second one was a total shitshow - wasted months on something nobody cared about. Current project is doing better, but it took forever to get there.
Why merchants actually buy apps: They're drowning in operational bullshit. I realized this after talking to 200+ store owners. They don't want "revolutionary solutions" - they want their daily headaches to disappear. My successful apps solve boring problems: duplicate order detection, automated refund processing, and inventory alerts that actually work.
What Actually Gets Downloaded
The app store is crowded as hell - something like 12,000 apps all fighting for attention. But merchants don't install random shit. They only care about stuff that solves actual problems.
Spent way too much time stalking my competition. Turns out merchants only install apps when their current setup is broken. My inventory thing started getting traction when Shopify's built-in inventory system started acting up - suddenly everyone needed a fix.
Categories that make money: Email marketing, reviews, inventory, shipping. Basic boring stuff. I wasted months building some social media scheduler thing that nobody wanted. Meanwhile the simple inventory alerts app actually gets used because it fixes something that's genuinely annoying.
The Technical Reality (That Documentation Won't Tell You)
Shopify's API documentation looks great until you actually try to use it. OAuth 2.0 setup? Should take 10 minutes. Took me 3 days because their sandbox environment behaves differently than production. GraphQL queries? Beautiful in theory, but you'll hit rate limits in ways that make no fucking sense.
Here's what actually breaks in production: Shopify webhooks are about as reliable as a chocolate teapot. They fail for no reason, retry at random intervals, and error messages tell you nothing useful. I spent 2 weeks debugging webhook failures only to discover Shopify's servers were randomly timing out on 200ms responses. Shopify webhooks are uniquely fucked - they fail in ways other platforms don't.
Had one app that kept crashing at weird hours for like a month - always between 2-4 AM PST, which I figured out later was when Shopify does their maintenance window. Took me forever to connect those dots because who the hell expects maintenance at random times without notifications? Error logs just showed ECONNREFUSED and nothing else useful.
Rate limiting bullshit: Their point system is designed to screw you over. Simple queries eat up way more points than documented. Found this out when processing like 30 products and suddenly everything stopped working with 429 Too Many Requests. Turns out a basic product query in API version 2024-01 burns through 45 points instead of the documented 5. Learned this the hard way when my inventory sync brought down a client's store for 2 hours.
The Money Talk (Real Numbers)
Skip the bullshit success stories. Apps that work make money, ones that don't get deleted.
Pricing took me forever to figure out. Started too cheap because I thought more people would sign up. Wrong. Cheap stuff looks like garbage to business owners. Had to raise prices to get taken seriously.
Most apps that actually work charge 50-100 bucks a month. Free plans just attract people who want everything for nothing and complain constantly.
Shopify's cut: They take nothing until you hit a million in revenue, then 15%. Honestly not terrible compared to other platforms.
The App Review Hell
App review process is brutal. They'll reject you for the stupidest reasons. Like buttons being slightly too close together. Or using the wrong shade of blue.
Built for Shopify is even worse - they reject most apps because they're looking for any excuse to say no. But if you somehow get approved, you get way more visibility.
Takes forever to get approved. Plan on months of back and forth with reviewers who seem to make up new rules as they go.
Why Most Apps Fail
Most apps fail because they suck. Either they solve problems that don't exist, or they're too complicated, or they break constantly.
Being first matters more than being best. The successful apps got in early when there was less competition.
Most developers never make any real money from this. A few do really well, most make nothing. It's winner-take-all.
Bottom line: Apps can work if you solve real problems and don't give up when Shopify's review process tries to break your spirit. But it's not easy money by any means.