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How to use Shopify Collabs
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Shopify's own creator marketplace, not a third-party app. Here is what it actually does, what it costs, and the two limits most guides skip past.
What Shopify Collabs is
Collabs is Shopify's native affiliate and creator marketplace, built into the platform rather than bolted on. It connects your store with content creators who promote your products for a commission, and it attributes every sale back to the creator who drove it automatically, through a unique tracking link rather than a code you have to reconcile by hand.
How you recruit creators
Three routes, and you can run all three at once. Send direct invites to creators you already know. Turn on an open-access programme with a stated commission rate, so any eligible creator can join instantly without you approving each one. Or set up an application page on your own store and let creators come to you. None of these require a creator to find you through Shopify's own discovery feed first.
What it costs
The app is free to install. You set the commission rate you pay creators, and Shopify takes a 2.9% processing fee on each commission payout. There is no separate subscription or listing fee on top of that.
The limit most guides leave out: signups are paused
As of this page's last check, Shopify has paused new creator signups to the Collabs marketplace itself. Existing creator accounts keep working, and you can still recruit through direct invites or your own application page, but you cannot rely on a brand-new creator discovering you cold through Shopify's own network the way you could when the programme first launched. Anyone promising Collabs will fill your affiliate roster passively right now is describing how it used to work.
The other limit: Discovery needs $10k in trailing sales
To appear in the Collabs Network Discovery feed, where creators browse for brands to work with, your store needs at least $10,000 in sales over the past 12 months. Below that threshold you are not excluded from Collabs, you just will not be surfaced passively, which makes the direct-invite and application-page routes the ones worth building first for a newer store.
Where creators can be based
Creator eligibility currently covers the US, Canada and the UK. If your buyers are elsewhere, Collabs will not connect you to local creators in that market yet, and a manual outreach programme is still the better route there.
Where we sit, honestly
We are Elms Agency, and running a creator or affiliate programme is not a service we sell, and we do not manage Collabs relationships for clients. What we do build is the Shopify foundations that make a creator programme worth running once you have one: accurate product data and fast pages for the traffic creators send, and the retention work in email marketing that keeps the customers they bring you buying again.
Common questions
- Is Shopify Collabs free?
- The app itself is free to install. Shopify takes a 2.9% processing fee on each commission payout you make to a creator, and you set the commission rate yourself, so the only cost beyond that fee is the commission you choose to pay.
- Can I still sign up new creators on Shopify Collabs?
- You can invite creators directly, run an open-access programme that offers an instant commission rate, or accept applications through a page on your own store. What is currently paused is new CREATOR signups to the Collabs marketplace itself, so a creator who does not already have a Collabs account cannot be found through Shopify’s own discovery feed, though direct invites and your own application page still work.
- How do I get my store to appear in Collabs Network Discovery?
- Shopify requires at least $10,000 in sales over the trailing 12 months before a store becomes visible to creators browsing the Discovery feed. Below that, you can still recruit through direct invites and your own store application page, you just will not be found passively.
- Which countries can creators join from?
- Per Shopify’s own documentation, creator eligibility is currently limited to the US, Canada and the UK. A brand targeting other markets cannot rely on Collabs to find local creators there yet.
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