How to Audit a Shopify Store [40,928-Store Benchmark Study]

TL;DR: Most Shopify audits are useless because they tell you to "check your site speed" without telling you what good looks like. We analyzed 40,928 Shopify stores to create actual benchmarks. Use the T.A.P.S. framework (Tech Stack, Advertising, Performance, Scale Readiness) to audit any store in 15 minutes. Key finding: 51% of stores under 10k traffic have no email marketing app. That's the kind of gap that closes deals.

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You've seen a hundred Shopify audit checklists. They all say the same thing:

• "Check your page speed"
• "Review your meta descriptions"
• "Make sure you have good product images"

That's not an audit. That's a to-do list with no context.

Here's the problem: how do you know if a 3-second load time is good or bad? How do you know if having 2 apps installed is normal or concerning? How do you know if a store's tech stack is sophisticated or embarrassingly basic?

You don't. Unless you have benchmarks.

We analyzed 40,928 Shopify stores across 15 categories to answer these questions. This guide gives you real numbers to compare against, so when you audit a store (yours, a client's, or a competitor's), you know exactly where it stands.

Why Most Shopify Audits Fail

Generic audit checklists fail for three reasons:

The third point is crucial. Traditional audits find problems. Good audits find opportunities.

A store with no email marketing app isn't "broken." It's leaving money on the table. A store on a free theme isn't "failing." It's under-investing in brand experience. These aren't bugs to fix. They're gaps to fill.

The goal of an audit isn't to find everything wrong. It's to find the 2-3 changes that will move the needle most.

This mindset shift matters whether you're auditing your own store, evaluating a competitor, or pitching services to a prospect.

The T.A.P.S. Audit Framework

We've organized this audit into four pillars. Each pillar has specific benchmarks from the stores we analyzed.

T.A.P.S. = Tech Stack, Advertising & Analytics, Performance, Scale Readiness

Here's what this looks like in practice.

Real Example: A Fashion Store Audit

We recently audited a women's fashion store doing ~35k monthly visitors. Here's what we found:

The opportunity: This store is leaving an estimated $5,000-10,000/month on the table from missing email automation and reviews. Two changes (switching to Klaviyo and adding Judge.me) would likely pay for themselves within 60 days.

That's the power of benchmarks. You can instantly see where a store stands and prioritize the fixes that matter.

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Pillar 1: Tech Stack Audit

The apps and theme a store uses reveal everything about their priorities, budget, and sophistication. A store running Klaviyo, Triple Whale, and Rebuy is in a completely different league than one using only free apps.

Theme Analysis

What to check: Theme name, type (custom/paid/free), and customization level.

Benchmark data from our analysis:

Key insight: Stores under 10k traffic are 2.4x more likely to use free themes than established stores. At 20M+ traffic, zero stores in our dataset use free themes.

How to check: Use the free Store Inspector extension to instantly detect any store's theme. Or check StoreInspect for theme data across thousands of stores.

Audit flags:

• ⚠️ Using Dawn or other free themes at 10k+ traffic → under-investing in brand
• ⚠️ Using same theme as dozens of competitors → differentiation problem
• ⚠️ Heavy customization on free theme → should probably upgrade to paid

App Stack Analysis

What to check: Number of apps, categories covered, app quality.

Benchmark: Average app count by traffic tier:

Key insight: The 50k-200k tier has the highest average app count (3.1). Bigger doesn't mean more apps. It means the right apps. Enterprise stores often consolidate into fewer, more powerful tools. Our tech stack by growth stage study maps exactly which apps stores adopt at each traffic level.

So what apps are stores actually using? Here's what we found across our dataset:

Top apps by adoption:

When we zoom out to look at app categories, here's how adoption breaks down:

App category adoption:

Audit flags:

• ⚠️ 0-1 apps at 10k+ traffic → severely under-tooled
• ⚠️ No email marketing app → leaving money on the table (more on this below)
• ⚠️ Multiple apps in same category → potential conflicts and wasted spend
• ⚠️ Only free apps → not investing in growth

The Email Marketing Gap (Massive Opportunity)

This one's important, so don't skip it. Email marketing is the highest-ROI channel for ecommerce, averaging $36-42 for every $1 spent. Yet a shocking number of stores have no email app at all.

Email marketing adoption by traffic tier:

Key Finding: Over half of stores under 10k traffic have no email marketing. Even at 1M+ monthly visitors, 35% of stores have no email app. This surprises us every time we look at the data.

Klaviyo adoption specifically:

Klaviyo dominates the scaling tier (50k-200k). If a store at this level is using Mailchimp or nothing at all, that's a clear signal they're not optimizing their email sequences. For a store doing 50k monthly visitors with no email marketing, we estimate they're leaving $8,000-15,000/month on the table based on typical email revenue contribution (15-30% of total revenue).

If you're an agency: Filter for stores without email apps at 10k+ traffic. These are your warmest leads. They clearly need help and have budget (proven by their traffic).

Use StoreInspect to filter stores by "not using Klaviyo" or "no email app" to build targeted prospecting lists.

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Pillar 2: Advertising & Analytics Audit

Now that we've covered apps and themes, let's look at tracking. Tracking pixels show how much a store invests in paid ads and whether they can measure what's working. Smart stores use several tracking tools to see how customers move through their site.

Pixel Adoption Benchmarks

Overall pixel adoption across our dataset:

Average pixel count by traffic tier:

Key Finding: Successful stores average 7 tracking pixels. Stores under 10k average only 4.6. That gap means missed data, broken retargeting ads, and no way to know which marketing actually works.

Meta Pixel by Traffic Tier

Meta (Facebook/Instagram) remains the dominant paid social channel for ecommerce.

Nearly half of small stores have no Meta Pixel. If they're running any paid social (or plan to), this is critical infrastructure they're missing.

TikTok Pixel (The Untapped Channel)

TikTok Pixel is growing fast for ecommerce, but adoption is still early.

Only 13.9% of stores have TikTok Pixel installed (compared to 61.4% with Meta). For brands targeting younger demographics, this represents significant missed opportunity.

Audit flags:

• ⚠️ No Meta Pixel → can't run or optimize paid social
• ⚠️ No Google Ads tag → missing conversion tracking for search
• ⚠️ No GTM → limited flexibility for tracking updates
• ⚠️ Running TikTok ads without pixel → wasting ad spend
• ⚠️ No session recording (Hotjar/Clarity) → flying blind on UX issues

The Attribution Gap

Only 3.7% of stores have dedicated analytics apps like Triple Whale, Northbeam, or Elevar. These tools help you figure out which ads actually lead to sales, not just clicks. They cost $100-500/month, so low adoption makes sense for smaller stores. But for stores spending $10k+/month on ads without these tools? They're basically guessing which campaigns work.

Without these tools, you can't answer basic questions: Which campaigns actually drive profit? What does it really cost to get a customer? Which ad channels deserve more budget?

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Pillar 3: Performance Audit

Speed directly impacts conversion. Google research shows that as page load time increases from 1s to 3s, bounce probability increases 32%. In our experience, this is the most overlooked factor in Shopify audits.

What to Measure

Google uses four main metrics to measure site speed. Here's what each one means and what numbers to aim for:

How to Test

1. Google PageSpeed Insights - pagespeed.web.dev - Free, authoritative
2. GTmetrix - gtmetrix.com - More detailed waterfall
3. Shopify Speed Report - In admin under Online Store → Themes

Common Shopify Performance Issues

Audit flags:

• ⚠️ LCP over 4 seconds → losing conversions
• ⚠️ Mobile score under 50 → poor mobile experience
• ⚠️ 10+ apps installed → likely performance drag
• ⚠️ Multiple chat widgets, popups, notification bars → script bloat

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Pillar 4: Scale Readiness Audit

This is the "future-proofing" pillar. We're checking if a store is ready to grow, or if their setup will hold them back when they try to scale.

Reviews App Adoption

Reviews are critical for conversion. Studies show they can increase conversions by up to 270%. They build trust, answer questions, and provide social proof.

Key Finding: Only at 50k+ traffic do more than half of stores have reviews. At under 10k traffic, 76% have no reviews app. That's a lot of missed conversions.

Top reviews apps:

• Judge.me - 14.9% adoption (best value)
• Yotpo Reviews - 6.7% (enterprise features)
• Loox - 5.8% (photo reviews)
• Stamped.io - 3.8%

Subscription App Adoption

Subscriptions create recurring revenue and increase LTV. But adoption is still low.

Only 2.9% of stores overall have subscription apps. For stores selling consumables (supplements, coffee, skincare, pet food), this is basically free recurring revenue they're ignoring. We honestly can't figure out why this number is so low.

Top subscription apps:

• Seal Subscriptions - 2.3%
• ReCharge - premium tier
• Skio - growing challenger

Loyalty Program Adoption

Top loyalty apps:

• Smile.io - 7.0% (market leader)
• Yotpo Loyalty - 2.8%

Shopify Plus Adoption

Note: Our dataset skews toward established stores. The takeaway: virtually all stores at 50k+ traffic are on Shopify Plus. If a high-traffic store isn't on Plus, they may be hitting platform limitations.

Scale Readiness Audit Flags

• ⚠️ No reviews app at 10k+ traffic → missing social proof
• ⚠️ Selling consumables with no subscription option → leaving recurring revenue on the table
• ⚠️ No loyalty program at 50k+ traffic → not investing in retention
• ⚠️ High traffic but not on Shopify Plus → may hit checkout and API limits
• ⚠️ No customer support app (Gorgias, Zendesk) at scale → support will become bottleneck

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The Complete Audit Checklist

Here's what "good" looks like at each traffic tier, based on the benchmarks above:

Stores Under 10k Monthly Visitors (Starter)

Top opportunities: Email marketing, basic tracking pixels, theme upgrade

Stores 10k-50k Monthly Visitors (Growing)

Top opportunities: Premium email platform, reviews, retargeting setup

Stores 50k-200k Monthly Visitors (Scaling)

Top opportunities: Attribution tools, subscription, loyalty program

Stores 200k+ Monthly Visitors (Established)

Top opportunities: Attribution, internationalization, headless consideration

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How to Use This Audit

For Your Own Store

1. Run through each pillar systematically
2. Compare your numbers to the benchmarks for your traffic tier
3. Identify the biggest gaps
4. Prioritize fixes by impact (email > reviews > loyalty for most stores)

For Competitor Analysis

1. Use Store Inspector extension to scan competitors
2. Build a comparison table across 5-10 competitors
3. Identify where you're behind AND where they're behind
4. Use gaps to inform your roadmap

See our guide on how to analyze Shopify competitors for detailed workflows.

For Agency Prospecting

This is where audits really shine. A data-backed audit is your best sales tool.

The pitch:

"I ran an audit on your store. You're doing 50k monthly visitors but you're missing email marketing. 34% of stores at your level have the same gap. Based on industry benchmarks, you're likely leaving $X/month on the table. Here's how we'd fix it."

That's 10x more compelling than "we do Shopify development."

How to find prospects:

1. Use StoreInspect to filter stores by traffic tier and missing apps
2. Build lists of stores without email, reviews, or proper tracking
3. Export with contacts and run personalized outreach

For more on this approach, see how to find Shopify clients for your agency.

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Tools for Running Audits

Free Tools

Paid Tools

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Common Audit Mistakes

1. Auditing Everything

A 50-point checklist is overwhelming and unhelpful. Focus on the 3-5 things that matter most for the store's current stage.

2. No Benchmarks

"Your site loads in 3.5 seconds" means nothing without context. Always compare to benchmarks for the store's traffic tier and category.

3. Problem Focus Instead of Opportunity Focus

Don't just list what's wrong. Identify what's missing and quantify the opportunity. "No email app" becomes "missing ~$15k/month in email revenue based on industry benchmarks."

4. Ignoring Context

A store selling $5k luxury furniture doesn't need the same tech stack as a store selling $20 t-shirts. Adjust expectations based on product type, AOV, and business model.

5. One-Time Audit

Stores evolve. Run audits quarterly or after major changes (new products, new channels, redesign). Set a calendar reminder. You'll be surprised how much changes in 90 days.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How long does a Shopify audit take?

With the T.A.P.S. framework: 15-30 minutes for a basic audit, 1-2 hours for a comprehensive deep-dive with recommendations.

What's the most important thing to check?

For most stores under 200k traffic: email marketing. The data is clear: 51% of small stores have no email app. This is typically the highest-ROI fix.

How often should I audit my store?

Quarterly for your own store. Monthly if you're actively growing or running significant ad spend. After any major platform change.

Can I automate audits?

Partially. Tools like Store Inspector automate tech stack detection. StoreInspect lets you filter thousands of stores by gaps. But interpretation and recommendations still require human judgment.

How do I audit a competitor without their Shopify admin access?

Everything in this guide can be done from the frontend. Tech stack (theme, apps, pixels) can be detected from the live site. Performance can be tested externally. The only things you can't see are internal metrics (conversion rate, revenue).

What if a store is missing everything?

Prioritize ruthlessly. For a store with no email, no reviews, and poor performance: fix email first (highest ROI), then reviews (trust), then performance. Don't try to fix everything at once.

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Summary

Most Shopify audit guides give you checklists without context. This guide gives you real benchmarks from over 40,000 stores.

The T.A.P.S. Framework:

1. Tech Stack - Theme, apps, integrations
2. Advertising & Analytics - Pixels, tracking, attribution
3. Performance - Speed, Core Web Vitals, mobile
4. Scale Readiness - Reviews, subscription, loyalty

Key benchmarks to remember:

• 51% of stores under 10k traffic have no email marketing app
• 76% of stores under 10k traffic have no reviews app
• Stores at 50k-200k traffic average 3.1 apps (the sweet spot)
• Only 13.9% of stores have TikTok Pixel installed
• Successful stores (1M+ traffic) average 7 tracking pixels

Use these benchmarks to audit any store: yours, a competitor's, or a prospect's. Compare against the right tier. Prioritize the gaps that matter most. For a data-backed timeline of when to add each tool, see our growth stage analysis.

Ready to audit at scale? Use StoreInspect to filter thousands of stores by tech stack gaps and find your next clients.

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Related Guides

• How to Analyze Shopify Competitors [5,000-Store Data Study]
• How to Qualify Shopify Leads Before Outreach [Agency Playbook]
• What Apps Do Top Shopify Stores Use? [500-Store Analysis]
• How to Find Shopify Clients for Your Agency [8,993-Store Study]
• Best Shopify Spy Tools in 2026 [Honest Guide]