21 Shopify App Business Ideas You Can Start Today [2023]
Interested in starting a shopify app business in 2023?
We put together 21 of the best shopify app businesses you can start in today.
For each business idea, we’ll show you real-world examples of other shopify app businesses to help you see what it really takes.
Here's the full list:
1. Start an on-demand printing apps business ($390K/year)
Examples of a successful on-demand printing apps business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a on-demand printing apps business:
- How To Start A Print On Demand Business For Free For Passive Income
- How To Start A Print On Demand Business On Shopify
For further info, check out these books and products:
- Publish Your Book On Amazon For Free: How To Self-Publish
- A Quick Guide To Book-On-Demand Printing: Learn How To
Learn more about starting an on-demand printing apps business ➜
Hi, I am Alex Dumitru and I am a co-founder at Designious. Designious is a graphic design library that provides extra tools like an online designer app and an API that helps both graphic designers and print-on-demand entrepreneurs. At the moment we make around $12-13k per month.
My background is in IT and business development, but I’ve worn many hats along the way, from sales to customer support.
2. Start a marketing automation apps business
Examples of a successful marketing automation apps business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a marketing automation apps business:
- Marketing Automation For Small Business - 4 Examples
- 5 Best Marketing Automation Platforms For Your Business
For further info, check out these books and products:
Learn more about starting a marketing automation apps business ➜
Hi, this is Sajin Rajan, co-founder of Epixel Solutions, LLC. With at most satisfaction, I’m happy to share my story with you. When I launched our flagship product, Epixel MLM Software in the global market back in 2015, our motto was to create a revolution.
After a year of Epixel’s establishment, we managed to make an annual income of $10,000. At present, we’re making a monthly revenue of about $70,000, this value remarks our growth. Our effort never went vein and we’re proud to excel in our business.
3. Create a wholesale hub with affordable pricing app
Examples of a successful wholesale hub with affordable pricing app:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a wholesale hub with affordable pricing app:
- Setting Up A Discount Group With Wholesale Pricing Discount (By Wholesale Helper) For Shopify
- How To Setup A Wholesale Offer On Your Shopify Store
Learn more about starting a wholesale hub with affordable pricing app ➜
Former Macy's employee Natalie Gomez started selling dresses on Poshmark and soon made $10,000 in one month.
- Natalie Gomez left her job at Macy’s as a merchandise planner and in a few months, started her side hustle as an online retailer on Poshmark.
- In Feb 2016, she started her journey. She would buy clothing items at cheap rates from local thrift stores and sell them for a higher price at her Poshmark store.
- Her business soon took flight and she achieved a sale of $10,000 in just one month.
- This gave her the boost and motivation to continue this as a full-time career.

Read the full story on cnbc.com →
4. Start a landing page builder apps business
Examples of a successful landing page builder apps business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a landing page builder apps business:
- Top 5 Free Landing Page Builders For Small Business [2021]
- Best Landing Page Builder & Service To Create One Page Websites
For further info, check out these books and products:
- Appreneurship: Build A Mobile App Business With No Technical Background: Rahul Varshneya
- Don't Suck At Mobile Marketing, Get This Book! Everything
Learn more about starting a landing page builder apps business ➜
Some feedback is given to the Unicorn Platform. There are x100 more testimonials lol, but I’m too lazy to sort it and make it public
5. Start an all-in-one social media sharing app business
Examples of a successful all-in-one social media sharing app business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a all-in-one social media sharing app business:
- How To Make A Facebook Business Page 2022
- Heropost All In One Social Media Management Tool - Review, Signup And Setup
For further info, check out these books and products:
- Social Media Marketing Guide For Beginner: The
- Social Media Marketing Guide For Beginner: The Biggest
Learn more about starting an all-in-one social media sharing app business ➜
Hi, I’m Laura Roeder, the CEO and founder of MeetEdgar, a social media automation tool.
Here’s a recent team photo at one of our biannual company retreats. This was taken in Phoenix, Arizona.
6. Start an image compression app business
Examples of a successful image compression app business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a image compression app business:
For further info, check out these books and products:
Learn more about starting an image compression app business ➜

7. Start an upsell and cross sell apps business
Examples of a successful upsell and cross sell apps business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a upsell and cross sell apps business:
- Best Shopify Upsell App? Reconvert Post-Purchase Upsell
- Free Sales Training Video: Upselling And Cross Selling
For further info, check out these books and products:
Learn more about starting an upsell and cross sell apps business ➜
My name is Artyom Rabzonov and I am the CEO and founder of Exto.io. Before organizing this business, I co-owned Aheadworks, one of the most famous extensions development companies for Magento.
Our goal is to help online merchants around the globe sell more, grow faster, and engage customers with effective sales strategies.
8. Start a product page view count app business
Examples of a successful product page view count app business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a product page view count app business:
- Apps To Download Now For Your Business
- Create One Product Page For All Products In Pagefly #1 Shopify Page Builder
For further info, check out these books and products:
Learn more about starting a product page view count app business ➜

9. Start a shopping cart apps business
Examples of a successful shopping cart apps business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a shopping cart apps business:
For further info, check out these books and products:
- How To Start & Manage A Kiosks And Cart Business: A Practical Way To Start Your Own Business: Jerre G. Lewis
- How To Start A Hot Dog Cart Business: Your Step-By-Step Guide To Starting A Hot Dog Cart Business
Learn more about starting a shopping cart apps business ➜

10. Start a market research app business
Examples of a successful market research app business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a market research app business:
- How To Do Market Research! (5 Fast & Easy Strategies)
- Exactly How I Do Market Research For New Products
For further info, check out these books and products:
- Starting A Business All-In-One For Dummies
- How to Start a Business: Startup Essentials-The Simple, Step-by-Step Guide to Successfully Start Your Own Business (Online Business, Small Business, Work ... (Business Startup for Newbies Book 2)
Learn more about starting a market research app business ➜
Jeremy King is the CEO and founded Attest in 2015. This consumer market research company is based in London and New York. It’s a fast-scaling SaaS technology business platform that offers top-level accuracy & speed.
Their tool allows organizations to use ongoing insights to get a market edge in audience knowledge. Attest makes it simple for everyone to do consistent research, achieve clear insight, and regularly identify possibilities with user data by merging exceptional speed and data quality with on-demand research expertise.
Jeremy holds his MBA from Harvard Business School. He trained as a scientist based on genetics, ecology, and animal behavior. He also takes part in improving state primary schools with his charity work. Before Attest, as a consultant, he had 9 years of experience leading global teams across industries at McKinsey & Company.
After leaving McKinsey, Jeremy created a SaaS application facilitating market research for B2C businesses.
He observed that rather than relying on facts from market research, these businesses frequently made guesses about what customers desired. This made him think he could devise a solution to help them reach logical conclusions.
His spouse gave him six months to work on the idea and get the business working. From the onset, he knew he had to validate the idea fast and build a working product.
He interviewed retail store managers on the data they wished they had about the target customers that would help them achieve more sales.
He then interviewed 200+ people and presented the data to retail store managers. His solution intrigued many potential customers, who called investors to invest money in his company.
The founder pitched Series B and C investors, and although they did not invest, he walked away with their feedback. Besides, the series B and C investors would recommend him to seed and pre-seed investors.
He would then ask his potential customers to contact the seed stage and pre-seed stage investors, asking them to invest in Attest.
Attest Ended up raising 650,000 Pounds in 4 months and hit $1M ARR in just 7.5 Months.
Since its inception, several investors have offered more than $100 million of investment capital, including NEA.
Attest currently has over 125 million customers across 58 countries worldwide using this platform to do market research. The company has crossed over $10M ARR
Some of their popular clients include Brew Dr. Kombucha, Unilever, Klarna, and Santander, among many more.
Their tool specializes in:
- Brand Intelligence
- Market Intelligence
- Innovation
- Data Analytics
- Consumer Insights

11. Start a marketplace integration apps business
Examples of a successful marketplace integration apps business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a marketplace integration apps business:
- Brian Rothenberg - How To Build & Scale A Marketplace From $0 To Billions
- Startup Idea: Marketplace App Business Ideas Breakdown
For further info, check out these books and products:
- Api Marketplace Engineering: Design, Build, And Run A
- How To Start A Business Website: Start Up Or Expand Into
Learn more about starting a marketplace integration apps business ➜
Hi, my name is Greg Writer. I'm the CEO and founder of Launch Cart - a new, faster, better, higher converting e-Commerce platform to compete in the e-Commerce space. This allows entrepreneurs, small business owners, and brands worldwide to build and sell online in their e-Commerce stores.
What's unique about us is that we also have a "Source and Sell Marketplace" that allows entrepreneurs to source products to sell on a drop-ship, affiliate marketing basis, what we call On-Demand, as well as offer a distribution channel for people who have products they want other people to sell.
12. Start a forum app business
Examples of a successful forum app business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a forum app business:
- How To Start An Online Business With Forums In 2021 [Free Course]
- Let's Code A Forum App In 5 Minutes - Html, Css, Javascript Tutorial
For further info, check out these books and products:
- Crushing Youtube: How To Start A Youtube Channel, Launch Your Youtube Business And Make Money: Joseph Hogue
- Starting A Business All-In-One For Dummies
Learn more about starting a forum app business ➜
Tripadvisor was founded by co-founders Stephen Kaufer, Langley Steinert, Nick Shanny, and Thomas Palka in February 2000. When they first launched Tripadvisor, they emphasized official words from newspapers, guidebooks, or magazines.
Tripadvisor, now the world’s leading travel advice network, assists hundreds of millions of people in becoming better travelers, from planning to booking to traveling.
Travelers use Tripadvisor to get bargains on lodgings, book activities, reserve tables at wonderful restaurants, and discover excellent locations nearby.
Kaufer co-founded TripAdvisor in 2000 to assist tourists worldwide in planning and having the perfect trip. The business idea came about when Steve was preparing for a vacation, and he searched the internet for a vacation idea, and his experience wasn’t pleasing.
At that moment, he decided to work on a travel search engine that would find those backwater pages, insights, and opinions of what other travelers found.
Their original search engine would search what was already out on the web, find biased information, pull it back into a central database, and then license it as a B2B model to other travel providers.
Their first client came a year after its founding when Lycos, the number 3 web search engine in 2001, allowed TripAdvisor to power the travel sections on Lycos and provide all the travel-related content.
Before co-founding TripAdvisor, Kaufer was an independent software vendor and CenterLine Software’s co-founder and vice president of engineering, where he directed the creation of many award-winning programming environments.
The platform has over 1 billion reviews and recommendations from almost 8 million companies. This travel guide firm works across 43 markets and offers services in over 22 languages, making trip planning simple regardless of the sort of journey.
The global revenue of Tripdavisor, Inc. increased by approximately 49 percent in 2021 over the previous fiscal year after dropping sharply in 2020 due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Overall, the company’s revenue worldwide amounted to 902 million U.S. dollars in 2021, rising from 604 million U.S. dollars in 2020.

13. Start a guest author apps business
Examples of a successful guest author apps business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a guest author apps business:
For further info, check out these books and products:
- Starting An Ebay Business For Dummies
- How To Start A Home-Based Mobile App Developer Business (Home-Based Business Series): Chad Brooks
Learn more about starting a guest author apps business ➜
Hello! My name is Gaurav and I am the founder of Vizitor. We have launched a smart visitor management solution that secures the check-in and check-out process at your workplace. We started working on Vizitor 1 year ago because I felt from my experience the manual entries I do everytime I visit an office is really a hectic process. I wanted to make the entire process of check-in and check-out digital.
We are currently growing at 40% month on month on our MMR and have expanded a lot after the launch of our Free Plan for small organizations.
14. Start a cash on delivery with OTP app business
Examples of a successful cash on delivery with OTP app business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a cash on delivery with OTP app business:
- How To Start A Local Delivery Business 2020
- Cash On Delivery Process In Detail ??? 🚚 Advantages/ Disadvantages 😒
For further info, check out these books and products:
- Functional Web Development With Elixir, Otp, And Phoenix
- The New Chiropractic Cash Practice Survival Guide: How To
Learn more about starting a cash on delivery with OTP app business ➜

15. Start a double discount app business
Examples of a successful double discount app business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a double discount app business:
For further info, check out these books and products:
- Double Double: How To Double Your Revenue And Profit In 3
- How To Get Your Book Into Schools And Double Your Income With Volume Sales: David H. Hendrickson
Learn more about starting a double discount app business ➜
16. Start a social media live chat app business
Examples of a successful social media live chat app business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a social media live chat app business:
- Earn Weekly Income Chatting With Strangers
- How To Communicate On Live Chat To Boost Your Business (7 Best Practices)
For further info, check out these books and products:
- The Art Of Social Media: Power Tips For Power Users
- How To Start An Online Business: Create A Business Around Your Lifestyle: Emilie Pelletier
Learn more about starting a social media live chat app business ➜
Hello, my name is Dmitry Alentyev and I am the founder and CEO of Scrile, a software development company that focuses on B2B IT products for business. At Scrile we help our clients to create new IT startups 10 times faster than people usually can do traditionally.
Our market is quite narrow but we are accelerating and expanding into new markets and niches where our products can be used. The total earnings were quite stable annually, and in 2021 we did $1.5M in sales, while the margin is quite good, on average 40-50%.
17. Start a visual countdown timer app business
Examples of a successful visual countdown timer app business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a visual countdown timer app business:
- How To Create A Countdown Timer (Step By Step Canva Tutorial - So Easy!)
- Zoom Meeting Countdown Timers!
Learn more about starting a visual countdown timer app business ➜
Hi there, my name is Liz and I’m the co-founder of Stagetimer together with my husband Lukas Hermann. Stagetimer is an online countdown timer you can share with other people via a link or QR code. That means you can create multiple timers to keep a meeting or presentation on time and share it with anyone around the world.
18. Build a warehouse management app
Examples of a successful warehouse management app :
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a warehouse management app :
- Warehouse Management System Phone App For Business Central --Warehouse Insights App
- Warehouse Management Mobile App In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management
For further info, check out these books and products:
- Warehouse Management: The Definitive Guide To Improving Efficiency And
- Warehouse Management: A Complete Guide To Improving Efficiency And
Learn more about starting a warehouse management app ➜
19. Start a refer a friend app business
Examples of a successful refer a friend app business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a refer a friend app business:
- Earn Passive Income From Referrals
- 9 Surprisingly Easy Referral Marketing Strategies For Your Business
For further info, check out these books and products:
- Windows 11: 2021 Complete New Os User Guide. 33 Best Tips
- The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself
Learn more about starting a refer a friend app business ➜
Hi, my name is Kevin Yun. I’m one of the co-founders of GrowSurf, a referral software for tech startups.
We are currently around $25k MRR. All of our metrics are openly available here.
20. Create an automatic one-click order fulfillment app
Examples of a successful automatic one-click order fulfillment app:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a automatic one-click order fulfillment app:
- Shopify Order Fulfillment Tips (Automated, Manually, Outsourced)
- Best Shopify Fulfilment Method For Dropshipping – 100% Automatic Fulfilment
Learn more about starting an automatic one-click order fulfillment app ➜
Hi! My name is Jan Bednar and I’m the CEO and founder of ShipMonk, a technology-driven fulfillment center based in South Florida.
Last year, we were named America’s Fastest Growing Fulfillment Center and scored a spot at #29 on Inc. 5000’s list of fastest growing companies. We made the list again this year at #154. With projected revenue of $60M for 2019, we absolutely can’t wait to see what else is in store for us!
21. Start a product sharing app business
Examples of a successful product sharing app business:
Here are some great videos on how to get started with a product sharing app business:
For further info, check out these books and products:
- The Airbnb Playbook: Your Complete Guide to Start and Manage a Profitable Airbnb Business (The Sharing Economy): James Steward
- Starting A Business All-In-One For Dummies
Learn more about starting a product sharing app business ➜
Greetings! I am Asad Ali founder and CEO of Agiled, an all-in-one business management software where you can manage everything related to your business like Clients, Finances, Projects, Appointments, Support, Proposals, Contracts, and much more in one place.
Our software is making $10k/month and serving 5000+ companies. We launched in early 2020 and we are so proud to have come this far within two years.
Hey! 👋 I'm Pat Walls, the founder of Starter Story.
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