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.
5

Thank you for the link! I definitely think your business is eligible to be reviewed. Please note, that I cannot make any guarantees that your variant limit will be increased. This is handled by an escalated team. But, I do believe that this warrants a review!

Please contact our authenticated support (email or live chat) through the account owner account and share this message to get the support request moving:

Hi! We are an official reseller of various well known book publishers and we are running into issues with variant upload limits. I understand that in certain unique cases that businesses can be reviewed to have their variant upload limit increased. I talked with Shay from the community forums (https://bit.ly/3FUN7Cg)) and she recommended that I reach out to request a review. Could I please have this request escalated to the appropriate team.

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