Announce the sale
Email marketing
- 570,647
- 5,516
- 412
Most installed
Gaining the most stores, net
BFCM 2026 · Shoplist report
The BFCM App Stack 2026: what Shopify stores run going into Black Friday.
A Black Friday sale runs on twelve kinds of app, from the email that announces it to the loyalty program that brings buyers back. Here is what stores run in each, and what they are adding right now, measured on live storefronts. Product review apps are drawing the most new stores.
Chart week of Oct 26, 202628-day windowEstimated
1,803,901
23,927
43.1%
This week’s 28-day window reaches back before Shoplist labeled every install, so its new-store counts are estimated from crawl history.
The stack
The twelve app categories a Black Friday sale runs on
In the order a sale runs, from announcing it to bringing buyers back: the apps most stores run in each category, and the ones gaining the most stores over the last 28 days.
Full chart
Announce the sale
SMS marketing
- 17,242
- 92
- 133
Most installed
Gaining the most stores, net
Capture the visitor
Pop-up
- 152,668
- 1,719
- 437
Most installed
Gaining the most stores, net
Create urgency
Countdown timer
- 31,133
- 337
- 193
Most installed
Gaining the most stores, net
No app here met the Gainers rule this week.
Raise order value
Product bundle
- 64,923
- 1,483
- 427
Raise order value
Upsell and cross-sell
- 152,639
- 2,281
- 908
Raise order value
Cart customization
- 25,888
- 532
- 450
Most installed
Gaining the most stores, net
Run the offer
Discount
- 77,661
- 2,124
- 1,142
Recover sold-out demand
Stock alert
- 61,706
- 863
- 282
Most installed
Gaining the most stores, net
Recover sold-out demand
Pre-order
- 51,389
- 933
- 127
Most installed
Gaining the most stores, net
Prove it works
Product review
- 500,919
- 6,597
- 547
Bring them back
Loyalty and reward
- 97,086
- 1,450
- 417
Across Shopify
Where the momentum is before the rush
The apps gaining the most stores anywhere on Shopify, and the ones big brands choose and are adding now.
Gaining the most stores
Full chartNet stores over 28 days: stores that added the app or came back to it, minus stores that removed it. Apps need 100 stores at the start of the window and a net gain of 25.
Big-brand picks
Full chartApps whose stores are at least twice as likely to be big brands ($5M+ revenue or 50k+ Instagram followers) as the average Shopify store, from 150 stores of known size.
Big brands adding now
Full chartBig-brand stores that added the app over 28 days, at least 10, with big brands making up at least as large a share of its adds as of its installed base.
The cross
Shopify picked 19 apps for BFCM. Did stores follow?
We measured every app in Shopify’s own BFCM guide the same way: who runs it, who is adding it, and where stores are choosing something else.
Methodology
How this report counts
Cite Shoplist, BFCM App Stack 2026, chart week of Oct 26, 2026.
Installed base
The stores running each app today, from Shoplist’s crawl of live Shopify storefronts. A category’s installs add up its apps, so a store running two apps in it counts twice.
New stores
Stores that started running an app in the 28 complete days before the chart week. A store Shoplist crawled for the first time, or an app it newly learned to detect, never counts, and days with a crawl-coverage drop or an open spike review are left out. Gainers is net: new stores and stores coming back, minus stores that left.
Categories
Each app sits in one Shopify App Store category, the one its listing belongs to. The twelve here are the categories a Black Friday sale leans on, grouped by the job they do.
Rankings
Every list is a weekly Shopify App Chart exactly as published on Monday. Gainers ranks net stores over 28 days and needs 100 stores and a net gain of 25. Shopify’s own apps are left out.
Every week