To value a Shopify app, most buyers and advisors use a multiple of trailing-twelve-month (TTM) net profit, with the owner’s salary normalized. In 2026, advisors report a median of about 4.3x TTM profit, or 3x to 7x ARR for larger apps. Then adjust: churn, revenue concentration, founder dependency, Shopify platform risk, and the growth room the seller left behind.
I’m Boaz Lantsman, founder of Convert2x. We’ve grown 100+ Shopify apps since 2018, including apps their new owners had just bought. The multiples below come from brokers and advisors who publish them; the growth view is ours.
| App size | What the multiple applies to | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Under about $5M | TTM net profit, owner’s salary normalized (“The buyer buys the profit, not the revenue”) | Taylor Sicard |
| Under about $5M | Seller’s discretionary earnings (SDE) | FE International |
| Above about $5M | ARR or EBITDA | Taylor Sicard, FE International |
| Marketplace listings | A multiple of the 12-month average monthly net profit | Empire Flippers |
| Source | Multiple |
|---|---|
| Taylor Sicard, benchmarks reviewed June 2026 | Median about 4.3x TTM profit (spread 0.63x to 34x); 3x to 7x ARR, median about 4.5x; multiples compressed from late 2025 into 2026 |
| Empire Flippers | 23x to 39x monthly net profit (about 2x to 3.3x annual) |
| Flippa, all SaaS | Up to 6.13x profit in the top quartile; 3x to 10x ARR for private SaaS |
All third-party. Asking prices on marketplaces aren’t sale prices, so weigh single listings lightly.
| Raises it | Lowers it |
|---|---|
| Net revenue retention of 100% or more | One customer above about 20% of revenue, or the top five above about 40% |
| Monthly churn under 2-3% | Monthly churn above about 6% |
| Growth over the last 24 months | Declining revenue |
| No customer above 10-15% of MRR | Founder dependency |
| Written procedures and support already handed off | Outdated API versions |
| An app two or more years old, with reviews, rank and integrations | More than 10-20 hours a week to run it |
Sources: Taylor Sicard, Empire Flippers, FE International and Acquire.
The financials
The app
The growth engine (what the financials don’t show)
The handover
Shopify has no public guide. Shopify staff answer on the developer forum that Partner Support handles transfers and needs the IDs of both Partner accounts (community.shopify.dev). What moves and what doesn’t is in how to transfer Shopify app ownership.
Developers who want to sell typically lose interest in optimization. That gap is what makes an app worth buying: value is very likely to be unlocked by investing in the funnel, pricing and optimized acquisition. Before you sign, check how much room there is:
It takes everything optimized: the funnel, pricing, App Store SEO and AEO. And ads need expertise. And buying an app has real upsides: Shopify bills the merchant, there’s no inventory, tech maintenance is simple, and an app can grow very big in the App Store.
We read what you’re buying or just bought on a free call, then grow it with the Full Growth Project or the à la carte services the app needs. See bought a Shopify app.
Most Shopify apps under about $5M in value are priced as a multiple of trailing-twelve-month net profit, with the owner's salary normalized. Larger apps are priced on ARR or EBITDA. Then adjust for churn, revenue concentration, founder dependency, Shopify platform risk and the growth room the seller left.
Third-party advisors report a median of about 4.3x trailing-twelve-month profit, or 3x to 7x ARR, with multiples compressing from late 2025 into 2026 (Taylor Sicard). Empire Flippers quotes 23x to 39x monthly net profit, which is about 2x to 3.3x annual profit.
On profit for most apps: advisors value apps under about $5M on trailing-twelve-month net profit or seller's discretionary earnings, and switch to ARR or EBITDA above that.
Customer concentration (one customer above about 20% of revenue, or the top five above about 40%), founder dependency, high monthly churn, declining revenue, outdated APIs, and a lot of weekly hours to run it.
Shopify takes 0% on a developer's first $1M of lifetime App Store revenue, counted from January 1, 2025, and 15% above that, plus a 2.9% processing fee. An app near or past the $1M line will keep less of each dollar, so model the buyer's margin, not the seller's.
Read 24 months of MRR, churn and revenue retention by cohort, the top 20 customers as a share of MRR, the API versions, reviews and rating, where installs come from, keyword rankings, the review pace, founder-owned accounts and Shopify's consent to the transfer.
Read the growth engine, not just the financials: the listing and keyword rankings, whether Shopify Ads and Google Ads run and how, the funnel from App Store page to paying merchant, and pricing. Sellers typically stop optimizing before they sell, so these are where value can be unlocked.
Convert2x has grown 100+ Shopify apps, and only Shopify apps, since 2018.
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