I purchased a year of the Basic Account at a time when you could add 2 users as staff members. I have used this feature before but it has now disappeared. This feature was also a part of my 3-5 year plan for my store, with the intention of upgrading accounts after a couple years at the basic level, which initially had this feature. So it has affected my long and short term planning.
Unfortunately, it has also impacted my trust in Shopify to act transparently and with integrity, as if I need to learn and guard every feature while someone is out there looking for features to take away from entry level plans. I did notice they were making changes while troubleshooting a new bug, but assumed I wouldn’t be losing any features in this process and that any problems would get resolved in the end.
To be honest, this feels a lot more like gauging to now be required to purchase the more expensive plan that my store is not ready for to be able to use a feature that has been taken away from my account. I really wish they applied legacy status to all active accounts, not just accounts that currently had the two staff user positions filled, that would have done a lot practically and for trust.
I am looking to claim legacy account status like the others to get this feature back. It appears to me that Shopify closed their old email account for internal help and are favouring instead the Shopify Community Boards, so it looks like I have to inquire out here if anyone can help instead of resolving it internally.
If anyone knows knows how to get this feature back or how to reach out to Shopify directly so they can transfer legacy status to my account, I would really appreciate it.
As share the screenshot by @Dan-From-Ryviu it’s clearly that you cannot add the staff members now. Now the only option is you can add the members as a collaborator access.
No, that doesn’t help, but thank you for your effort.
Collaborator access isn’t the same as adding users, and the frustration here is specifically about a feature that was available on my plan and later removed.
It’s likely easier to overlook the impact from a higher-tier account, but I appreciate you trying to engage with the issue.
Again thanks everyone but I’m in the chat now and they’re actively confirming they took this feature away as well as another one I lost. You’re kind of missing the point.
Anyway.. if any Basic Account users are having this problem I’ll let you know how it goes and whether they restore the features that were taken away.
The two I’m aware of and am asking to have restored are being able to do custom edits on websites for different markets/countries and adding 2 staff users. I was able to do both before and now I am not. I am really upset by this. They called it a “feature upgrade” in the chat which of course really means they downgraded the Basic Account and removed features to try to get new store owners to go up a tier in pricing i.e. gauging. Older Basic Accounts might be okay, mine is not, they kinda pulled the rug out from under and hurt my trust. Good luck to anyone if this affects them too, the “positivity” around the gauging is getting a little silly but again thank you very much to those who responded for their efforts.
They said they will update me via email so I will update here what happens if they actually come through to restore the features they took away or give me some bologna excuse, I really expected more from Shopify to be honest and find it unfortunate my third post on here has to be about something like this.
In situations such as this, the best course of action is to file a support ticket through the Partner or Merchant support forms explaining your account history and use of the legacy feature. Please provide your store ID, evidence of the previous staff accounts, and how it affects your planning. Good documentation can improve odds of manual recovery.
Thank you, but not quite. I of course explained all that to a chat support advisor and requested the legacy features, they very firmly said no and tried to close out my request after a lengthy, heated discussion. Nor is it a fair mindset that users at any tier, high or low, should have to constantly guard and document every area of their admin in case Shopify tries to renege on them later, it’s all very unfortunate to be this way. Nonetheless, I was persistent and opened another chat where in theory, after a lot of time and honesty (about what they did), tech support said they got the approval to restore the two features that were moved to the higher price plan. So far only one feature is restored. I will report back here what happens in case anyone else is experiencing the same issue. But yes this has been insane to have to deal with something so time-consuming and infuriating when Shopify could have just acted more ethically in the first place or even the second when I asked for support the first time. It was quite ‘cringey’ to be frank when an advisor appeared to be using psychological mind tricks, like suggesting not to think small of yourself or your store but to go up a tier now, don’t worry about not being ready basically. I get what you’re saying, I remember when the world seemed to work open support ticket/reach out → get mistakes fixed or problem resolved, real support. In 2026 unfortunately it looks like you need to push harder than that, things have changed. So I’ll leave my experience here in case anyone else is having this issue, persistence is what got my complaint escalated and I had to start a second chat after the first advisor talked in circles around the issue and seemed to look for ways to dismiss my complaint that didn’t make sense, which I said no to and opened another chat after he cut me off.
Update: After getting through the initial chat that did not inspire confidence at all and felt kinda scammy to be honest… The tech and markets specialists afterward were very courteous and kept me updated throughout. They restored the 2 user feature quickly. Then they received approval to restore the markets selector though it still seemed a little iffy for a while, they got it up and running for me within a few weeks. I really appreciate their support although now I feel like I have to constantly guard any features I like so they don’t get taken away in the future by corporate moving features to higher priced tiers. But then they (or someone) also approved restoring it as a legacy feature so there’s that.
My advice for anyone going through something similar is persistence in the first chat until they send you to someone who actually cares about your problem lol, the first chat seems more like a gatekeeper than support to try to get rid of you. I see other companies set up this way as well where the first line of support is there to give you cookie cutter “sorry can’t help” responses just to see if you go away. I was really happy to see their commitment (eventually) to human support that actually supports and addresses problems, as this is a reason I went with Shopify.
