- Scripts are gone: Functions is now the only option
- The Checkout APIs are properly retired
- Product variants: 100 to 2,048
- API versioning changes worth a look
- App Store and billing changes
- The practical takeaway
- Frequently Asked Questions
- What happened to Shopify Scripts in 2026?
- What replaces Shopify Scripts?
- Are the legacy Shopify Checkout APIs still usable?
- How many variants can a Shopify product have now?
- What should I check if I have custom Shopify apps or integrations?
- Do Shopify App Store billing plans need to change?
- Not sure what’s quietly out of date on your store?
Shopify ships updates constantly, and most of them are safe to ignore until you’re ready. A small number aren’t: they’re deprecations with a deadline, or breaking changes to APIs your store or apps rely on. Here’s what’s actually landed in 2026 that’s worth checking against your own store, rather than filing away as background noise.
Quick Answer
The two Shopify changes in 2026 with real deadlines are the retirement of Shopify Scripts in favour of Shopify Functions, and the deprecation of the legacy Checkout APIs in favour of the Storefront Cart API and Checkout Sheet Kit. Alongside these, the GraphQL Admin API now supports up to 2,048 product variants, up from 100, and several smaller API versioning changes can quietly break older custom integrations if nobody is watching the changelog.
Scripts are gone: Functions is now the only option
Shopify Scripts, long used for custom discount, shipping and payment logic, were fully retired this year in favour of Shopify Functions. If your store, or an app you rely on, still has legacy Scripts running discounts or checkout customisations, they’ve either already stopped working or will soon. Functions require a different development approach: it runs server-side and needs to be rebuilt rather than simply copied over. If you’re not sure whether your store still depends on Scripts, that’s worth checking before something quietly breaks at checkout. It’s the kind of migration where getting a Shopify development team to audit your checkout logic first can save a rebuild done twice.
The Checkout APIs are properly retired
The legacy Checkout APIs were deprecated back in April 2025, and by now any store or custom app still calling them is running on borrowed time. The replacement path is the Storefront Cart API or, for mobile, the Checkout Sheet Kit.
Worth checking
If you have a custom app or integration that was built a few years ago and hasn’t been touched since, this is one of the more common places we find stores are quietly out of date. If that sounds like your setup, it’s worth getting someone to hire a Shopify developer to review it before the old API stops responding at all.
Product variants: 100 to 2,048
One of the more welcome changes
The GraphQL Admin API now supports up to 2,048 variants per product, up from the old cap of 100. If you’ve previously had to split a product into multiples purely to work around the variant ceiling (think apparel with a full size and colour matrix), this is worth revisiting. It can mean cleaner product structure, better SEO consolidation, and less admin overhead maintaining near-duplicate listings.
API versioning changes worth a look
A few recent changelog entries are the kind of thing that only bite if you have custom development in place:
- Order address updates: Updating an order’s shipping address now automatically recalculates tax, rather than requiring the order to be cancelled and recreated
- Metafield error handling: Invalid metafield queries now return errors in the Admin GraphQL API rather than failing silently, which is good practice but can surface issues in older integrations that weren’t handling errors properly
- Fulfilment status:
OrderDisplayFulfillmentStatusnow returns a distinct status for orders with nothing to fulfil, which matters if you have custom fulfilment logic checking against specific status values
None of these are urgent on their own, but they’re the sort of small API behaviour change that can cause a custom app to fail quietly months later if nobody’s watching the changelog.
App Store and billing changes
Shopify has tightened enforcement against incentivised and untrusted app reviews, and introduced a migration tool to move existing Billing API plans onto the newer App Pricing framework ahead of a broader subscription migration. If you run or maintain a Shopify app, it’s worth checking where your billing setup sits before that migration becomes mandatory rather than optional. A quick technical store audit is usually the fastest way to see everything that needs attention in one pass, rather than chasing each change separately.
The practical takeaway
Most of what Shopify ships in a given month is safe to skip. The two changes above with real deadlines, Scripts and the legacy Checkout APIs, are the ones we’d check first if you haven’t already, particularly if your store has custom development from more than a year or two ago. Everything else here is worth knowing, but not worth losing sleep over.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened to Shopify Scripts in 2026?
Shopify Scripts, previously used for custom discount, shipping, and payment logic, were fully retired in 2026 in favour of Shopify Functions. Any store or app still running legacy Scripts has either already stopped working or will stop soon.
What replaces Shopify Scripts?
Shopify Functions is the replacement. Unlike Scripts, Functions run server-side and need to be rebuilt rather than simply copied over, which means a genuine redevelopment effort rather than a like-for-like migration.
Are the legacy Shopify Checkout APIs still usable?
No. The legacy Checkout APIs were deprecated in April 2025, and any store or custom app still calling them is running on borrowed time. The replacement path is the Storefront Cart API, or the Checkout Sheet Kit for mobile.
How many variants can a Shopify product have now?
The GraphQL Admin API now supports up to 2,048 variants per product, up from the previous cap of 100. Stores that split products into multiples to work around the old limit, such as apparel with a full size and colour matrix, can now consolidate them.
What should I check if I have custom Shopify apps or integrations?
Check whether your custom app depends on Scripts or the legacy Checkout APIs, and review recent API versioning changes such as order address tax recalculation, metafield error handling, and fulfilment status values, since older integrations that weren’t built to handle these can fail quietly.
Do Shopify App Store billing plans need to change?
Shopify has introduced a migration tool to move existing Billing API plans onto the newer App Pricing framework, ahead of a broader subscription migration. If you run or maintain a Shopify app, it’s worth checking where your current billing setup sits before that migration becomes mandatory.
Not sure what’s quietly out of date on your store?
If you’d like us to check your store against this list directly, we’re happy to take a look.
