Storefront API restricitions for headless shops

[Leme]

Hello everyone,

We are planning to use Shopify as a headless system and I am not quite clear what restrictions the APIs have with the different plans. We want to use Nextjs or Gatsby.

Could someone please tell me if you can use all functions with all plans?

• What about Shopify Payment?
• Can I implement my own checkout UI or does only the checkout URL work?
• Can customers sign in via API?
• Do discounts work?
• Do the API requests work out of the box or is a special check/activation necessary?

Thank you very much.

[conversionist]

If you want to use a headless setup with Next.js check out this repo  from Vercel
It has almost everything you need to set up a headless store

You can do almost anything you want, but you can't customize your checkout, but if you have Shopify Plus then you can customize it

You can use the API to do pretty much anything except for the checkout

[Leme]

Hello Conversinist,

Thanks for your reply!

Do you know if it is possible to create a custom with nextjs, if I another payment gateway or is it not allowed?

[Rronz1]

This depends, what I do is have a headless storefront, then generate a Shopify Checkout when the customers want to use the checkout. (Not using Shopify checkout would defeat a big part of using Shopify IMO). If you use your Shopify checkout you can initiate from the cart (using Shopify SDK / API). API will work by using the storefront API which you can generate in your store. Shopify Payments, discounts should work by default on the checkout. For Checkout Customizations you would have to be on the Shopify Plus Plan. Signing in will also work but I am not too familiar with that part. 

Hope this helps.