Shopify App Review Timeline: What to Expect After You Submit

Last updated October 23, 2026 · By Chad Norris

Disclosure: the author builds and sells the Orbitloft family of Shopify apps and has been through this process repeatedly; the first-hand notes below come from our own submission records. We have no affiliation with Shopify beyond being a partner developer. See the disclosure page.

The short answer: the review is not a single wait. Before you can submit, automated checks must pass. After you submit, Shopify’s review team responds by email with approval or issues, and Shopify publishes no timeframe, so plan for weeks and design your work so a rejection costs days, not months. The best use of the waiting period is to have everything locked, deployed and monitored, because you cannot edit the listing while it is in review.

The phases, in order

Before you submit

Shopify’s submission guide lists the prerequisites. Confirm the contact email in your listing and add noreply@shopify.com to your allowed senders so you receive review emails. Complete the configuration: app URLs, compliance webhooks, app icon (1200 x 1200 pixels, JPEG or PNG), API contact details and an emergency developer contact. Create at least one listing in a primary language. Do not use “Shopify” or “Example” in app URLs or the API contact email, including misspellings or abbreviations. Then run the automated checks and make sure they pass; if one fails, fix the issue and rerun.

Two details that catch teams out:

• You cannot apply for protected customer data access while the app is under review, per that guide. If your app reads orders or customer fields, handle the request before you submit. Our walkthrough is in protected customer data approval.
• Apps using APIs that will be deprecated within 90 days cannot be submitted, per Shopify’s app review overview.

The pass-app-review guide adds the testing basics: install on a development store, check that your App URL and allowed redirect URLs send merchants to the OAuth grant screen, test every plan you offer (with the Billing API test flag on for manual pricing, then off), and expect the review team to verify all requirements even if an AI self-review passes.

In our own pipeline, two gates routinely cost days:

• The embedded-app check needs activity. In our experience it needs roughly two hours of observed session activity after a reinstall before Submit unblocks, so we reinstall early and click through the embedded screens. More in the embedded app check explained.
• Automated checks expire. We found checks run more than about 30 days earlier had lapsed across our apps, and rerunning them needed a live app URL. If your backend is asleep or suspended, wake it before you try to submit.

How long the wait is

Here is what we can and cannot say.

• Shopify’s documentation gives no timeframe. The submission page says Shopify will email the submission contact during review; the other pages we read describe a response of approved or rejected without a duration.
• Community reports vary widely. Developer forum threads show estimates from several business days (older posts) to about 30 days (a reply attributed to Shopify staff) and anecdotes of several weeks per round, with long gaps between exchanges. Those are forum posts, not official commitments, and they are dated differently.
• Our own record is partial. Two of our apps (ConvertLens and QuoteWeaver) were still in Submitted on September 15, 2026 and were approved on September 25 and 26. Our notes do not record their exact submission dates, so we will not turn that into a number. On September 25 verdicts also landed on seven apps that had been in review: three approved, four returned with issues. Across a portfolio, expect results to arrive in clusters.

Plan as if the first answer takes weeks and each iteration takes days, and treat anything faster as a bonus.

What the statuses mean

Labels in the dashboard can change, so treat our rows marked “our records” as observations, not definitions. One lesson from that column: on September 25, feedback for two apps that went to Paused arrived by email only, not in the Dashboard panel. Check the email address on the submission form, not only the dashboard.

What happens after a rejection or pause

1. Read every message. Check the submission email inbox. We have missed feedback that was not in the Dashboard.
2. Map the reason to a known cause. Most of our rejections traced to a handful of scaffold problems. The common ones were mock or dummy data visible to the reviewer (a 2.1.1 problem), an error when choosing a subscription plan on a managed-pricing app (1.2.2), and an app-wide billing gate that redirected unsubscribed reviewers away from every route. See common rejection reasons and managed pricing vs the Billing API.
3. Fix, then re-test the exact path the reviewer took. On a fresh dev store, install, pick a plan, and use the app with no sample data.
4. Check what needs resubmission. Shopify’s table says billing issues do not require resubmission, while installation, embedding, interface and app-testing issues do. Resubmitting, the page notes, slows the review process.
5. Do not let the backend sleep. Reviewers will hit your live URL. A suspended server or a deleted database during review is its own rejection.

Also note Shopify’s rule that an app which no longer reflects the original core functionality submitted must be resubmitted for a full review.

A realistic schedule to plan around

Because the review length is unknown, build the plan around what you control. Treat the following as a planning template, not a promise:

• Before submission: finish every listing field, screenshot, testing instruction and plan name, because the editor locks after you submit. Run the automated checks last, so they are fresh.
• Week of submission: keep the app running, answer any email the same day, and avoid deploys that change behavior the reviewer is testing.
• Each exchange: reply with a specific note on what you changed and where, so the reviewer can retest quickly. Vague replies invite another round, and two or more unresolved exchanges can lead to a suspension, per Shopify’s documentation.
• After a rejection: budget days for the fix and re-test, then expect another wait of unknown length.

For a first-time developer, the practical advice is to submit one app, learn how your reviewer works, and carry those lessons into the next. Our rejection reasons guide lists the failure patterns worth checking against before you submit anything else.

While you wait

The editor is locked, so use the time on things that do not need it:

• Watch your server logs and error rates; a reviewer is testing your app on your infrastructure.
• Keep the backend and database running; do not redeploy casually.
• Prepare support documentation and a launch checklist.
• Draft the post-approval tasks below.
• Do not withdraw to make an edit unless the problem is serious; our notes say withdrawing resets queue position.

After approval: three checks

1. Visibility. In our experience a newly approved app’s listing defaults to Limited visibility, hidden from App Store search and recommendations and reachable only by direct URL. There is no account-wide setting; flip each app to Fully visible in Distribution. Also read the real listing URL from that page, since slugs can be suffixed.
2. Billing. Install the live app and confirm a plan prompt appears and a charge can be accepted. We found an app that went live with no billing check at all and had a merchant using it for free; the fix was straightforward, but only because we checked.
3. Filter your installs. Shopify review bots and your own test stores inflate install counts. Strip those before you decide how things are going.

For the listing side of submission, our listing requirements checklist covers the content Shopify expects. Confirm every requirement against Shopify’s current pages before you submit.