As a store owner, if you’re paying $500+/month in app fees, consider having a developer custom-build features into your theme directly. With section blocks in modern Shopify themes, most features are less than 50 lines of code and are easily maintainable from the Shopify customizer. Just like apps, custom blocks can be toggled on/off or rolled back instantly.

For example, I used fewer than 40 lines of code to add this upsell feature to a Shopify store I’m working on. Saved $19.99/month($240/year) in app fees while offering better performance than any 3rd-party upsell app. Sure, you can still use apps where they make sense, but most of them are just a few lines of JS code that can be added as a theme block. Since they are built directly into your theme, you get better performance with zero recurring fees.