Goal: Prevent Shopify trial stores from installing a third‑party app and clarify if real orders are possible on trial stores.
Key finding: You cannot block installation at the “Add app” stage from the Shopify App Store. Shopify doesn’t expose a pre‑install signal to detect a trial store.
Practical workaround: After installation, query the Shop API and check the shop’s plan_name attribute. If it equals “trial,” disable or block app functionality and show a clear notification explaining the restriction. (plan_name indicates the store’s subscription status/plan.)
Unanswered: Whether real orders can be placed on a Shopify trial store was asked but not answered in the thread.
Artifacts: Screenshots illustrate the install flow but are not required to understand the solution.
Status: Partially resolved—post‑install detection and gating is feasible; pre‑install blocking and the real‑orders question remain open.
Hello there,
We are developing a Shopify app. However our app is not designed for Shopify shops like trial store. So we are trying to restrict the trial stores from installing our app.
How can we detect a Shop is trial or not as soon as they click on Add app from the Shopify app store
and before they click on Install app (as shown below) ?
One more question:
Can someone place a real order in a Shopify trial store?
Any help would be appreciated
Thanks
I don’t believe you can stop them installing the app but you can simply read the plan_name attribute from the Shop api after install and block all functionality if its set to ‘trial’.
You would need to display a notification explaining why
