- Short answer
- Shopify puts the app-subscription billing agreement on a merchant's shop — no page we found says Shopify-billed ones continue at transfer.
- Not in the pages we read
- No page we found says existing Shopify-billed app subscriptions continue automatically after a transfer.
- Unpaid bills
- Haven't met your billing threshold at transfer? Any outstanding bills become the new owner's responsibility.
- Apps billed outside Shopify
- Shopify's transfer checklist tells you to update that billing to the new owner's details.
- The six-point checklist
- Its six points name contacts, notifications, domains, billing, payouts and the transfer itself; apps appear inside the billing point.
- A prepaid annual plan
- No page we found documents a prorated refund for a prepaid annual app plan when ownership changes.
- Uninstalling an app
- Stops future billing cycles, but a pending charge already generated still lands on your upcoming invoice.
- As of
- Shopify Help Center transfer, billing and refund pages plus the shopify.dev AppSubscription object, read September 6, 2026.
Is a Shopify app subscription tied to the store or to you?
Shopify's developer documentation defines the object that charges you.
A recurring billing agreement that associates an App with a merchant's shop.
The transfer page supplies the money half: "If you haven't met your billing threshold when you transfer ownership of a store to a new owner, then the new owner is responsible for paying any outstanding bills." Read together, those two sentences say the agreement sits on the shop and the unpaid balance travels with it.
No page we found — across Shopify's transfer, app-charges, managing-apps and billing-credits pages, read September 6, 2026 — states that app subscriptions billed through Shopify simply continue on the new owner.
What does the Shopify transfer page say about apps?
Once, and only about billing that Shopify does not handle. Point four of its six-point Checklist for preparing your store for a transfer says: "If you have any third-party apps that have your billing information outside of Shopify, then update your billing information to the new owner's billing information as well."
The checklist's other five points cover contacts, notifications, domains, payouts and the transfer itself, and the page's longer preparations section adds no app rule of its own. What stays with you rather than with the store has its own short list.
What should you settle before you press transfer?
Uninstalling does less than sellers expect. Shopify documents that it "stops future billing cycles, but it doesn't remove a pending charge that has already been generated for your upcoming invoice". Shopify also can't refund third-party app charges; you contact the developer. Closing the store instead is a different event with a different answer.
No page we found — on app charges and the subscription refund policy, read September 6, 2026 — documents a prorated refund for a prepaid annual app plan when ownership changes.
This article was written entirely by AI under human editorial direction. The editor sets the topic and structure, runs multi-stage validation on facts, links, and interactive elements, and verifies the output is useful from a business perspective. All claims are checked against official Shopify sources. Details may change — always confirm critical data at shopify.com.
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