Permit installation of your app outside of Shopify App store

Topic summary

A developer has integrated their web platform with multiple e-commerce solutions including Shopify and wants merchants to grant data access via a simple button click.

Core Issue:

  • To enable installation across multiple merchants, the app must be public
  • Public Shopify apps require listing on the Shopify App Store and review approval before installation
  • The developer encounters a message stating “This app must be reviewed by Shopify before it can be installed” when attempting to install on stores they don’t own

Developer’s Concern:
They don’t want to list their app publicly on the Shopify App Store but still need multi-merchant installation capability.

Current Status:
The discussion remains unresolved. One commenter suggests this may be impossible under current Shopify requirements, though they express hope to be proven wrong. No workaround or solution has been identified yet.

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

I have a web application where I have integrated with different e-commerce solutions (Shopify, Klarna, Adyen, Woocommerce etc). I want my clients (who are merchants) to be able to go into my platform and grant me access to their data by clicking a button.

Now to do this with a Shopify app it has to be a public app (since I don’t want to do this for just a single merchant). But for them to actually be able to install it it has to be listed as a public app that can be installed on the Shopify app store. But I don’t want that, how do I get around this issue? or have I missed a point here?

The image below illustrates when I try to install the app on a store that I don’t own or is production store. It’s in Swedish but basically says:

This app must be reviewed by Shopify before it can be installed. Contact the app developer for more information.

1 Like

Any luck with this yet? As far as I know it’s impossible, but I hope I’m wrong.