What is the maximum number of products on Shopify?

Are you interested in Shopify but have a lot of products or variations? Do you want to know the technical limits of Shopify? Do you want to know if the number of products that can be added to Shopify is really unlimited? So welcome to this new article where you will learn all about Shopify's limits on the number of products that you can put online. 

Shopify is a great e-commerce solution, It's certain. But like any technical solution, it is based on code, algorithms, servers and above all technical choices.

Indeed, it should not be forgotten that Shopify must run almost 2 million e-commerce stores around the world 24 hours a day.

What would you do if all your customers had several million products? This can quickly overload databases! Indeed, it must be seen that each product can have several variants, sometimes called variations, which must be updated with stocks, photos, etc. 

So let's answer the question:

Shopify has an unlimited number of products BUT.

You can add as many products as you want.

So to be clear, the number of products in your Shopify store does not influence billing. Whether you have one product or 100,000, Shopify won't charge you more at the end of the month and the actual number of products on your e-shop is unlimited.

That is to say that at no time will Shopify tell you "you have reached the maximum number of products, impossible to add more. 

So in a sense the number of products is unlimited.

But a "bucket" system regulates the flow.

If you don't know the bucket system, it's a analogy with a bucket of water. Imagine a bucket filled with water, but which would be pierced in places. The water will flow out little by little and there remains a stock of water in the bucket which will flow out regularly.

Well Shopify has implemented a somewhat similar system for product creation. Beyond 50,000 variations, Shopify will limit the number of new creations to 1,000 per day.

Ultimately, even if the number of products is not limited as such, in reality, loading a large file of products may take some time.

More than a year to load a product catalog 

So, for example, if you want to load a catalog of 600,000 products, like a catalog of books for example, you risk having it for more than a year and a half! 

Here is the calculation to do: 

(600,000 products - 50,000) 550,000 products "out of range" 

At the rate of 1,000 products per day, that makes 550,000 / 1,000 = 550 days or 1.5 years.

How to upload a huge product catalog to Shopify? 

So does that mean there is no solution? And yes, rest assured. These limits are there to ensure good quality Shopify sites and guarantee their speed.

Go through a certified Shopify agency

Passing through a agence Shopify partner comme Pikka - who has a rprivileged and direct relationship with Shopify - we can contact the good people so that your initial catalog is loaded without limitations. 

Do not hesitate to contact us to discuss this type of tailor-made integration 

Shopify Plus 

You don't want to work with our nice developers, our adorable project managers? It's a shame, but there is still a solution for you. 

Indeed, a Shopify Plus plan does not contain these limitations. But to get a Shopify plus plan, it is necessary to show your credentials and go through a dedicated form and describe your project.

So is the number of products on Shopify really unlimited?

In all honesty, it's hard to answer a resounding yes to this question. Below 50,000 variants (which can go quickly) you have no questions to ask yourself. 

But let's imagine that you have an average of 10 variants per product (i.e. "only" 2 product sizes times 5 colors, or the opposite) and your maximum number of products will increase to 10,000, which is immediately much less . 

So, It is difficult to talk about a truly unlimited number of products with Shopify. But at the same time, if you are patient, you can have several hundred thousand products on your store. It's up to you to see if this number can block you quickly or not in your project.

You have to keep in mind that managing thousands of products remains theprerogative of sites generally quite large in volume and therefore, this may explain the orientation towards Shopify Plus 

In any case and if you have any questions about a migration vers Shopify or simply on the benefits that Shopify or Shopify plus can bring you compared to your current e-commerce solution, contact our experts who will be able to help you build the future of your e-commerce.

Auteur

Benoit Gaillat

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