Over 50k Variants and Shopify Plus

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

A merchant managing 50,000+ product variants is hitting Shopify’s 1,000 variants-per-day upload limit and exploring alternatives to upgrading to Shopify Plus ($2,000/month minimum).

Potential Solutions Discussed:

  • Using CSV bulk uploads or apps like Excelify, Bulk Product Edit & Import
  • Requesting a variant limit exemption review for eligible businesses (book resellers, print shops, merchandise sellers)
  • Contacting authenticated support with specific language referencing community guidance

Key Clarifications:

  • The 1,000/day limit applies only to stores exceeding 50,000 total variants
  • This is separate from the 100-variant limit per individual product
  • Exemption reviews are still available but not guaranteed

Ongoing Concerns:

  • Multiple merchants (book resellers, print-on-demand shops, park merchandise sellers) report similar frustrations
  • One user criticizes Shopify’s “unlimited uploads” marketing as deceptive, claiming the API limitation isn’t clearly disclosed upfront
  • Uncertainty remains about whether price/quantity updates count toward the daily limit

The discussion remains active with merchants seeking exemptions through support channels, though success rates are unclear.

Summarized with AI on October 26. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
14

The thing to note here is that it’s basically a scam.

When we signed up for Shopify they stated unlimited uploads. If this only applied to uploads direct from the site, and not using an API, they should say so. An asterix with a note explaining this should be used. They know this, but they don’t want businesses to know it until they’re pot committed with months of learning and time spent building their site.

If they did tell us we probably would have looked at using Woocommerce, but again, that’s why they made the premeditated choice of not telling us.

It’s a duplicitous trap and it must be breaking Trading Standards rules.

We were forced to pay for Shopify+ for a year, which is an absolute rip off. If we didn’t pay for it, 50,000 variations wasn’t enough to have a viable site.

At the very least, they could offer a plan for listing more products that isn’t as extortionate as Shopify+.

Guess what? They still state unlimited uploads. So even after being told by so many companies, like us, about the deception, they still choose to deceive small businesses.

Shopify? I despise you and your disguising corporate ethos.