Two Shopify deadlines broke quiet things this year. The next one is 1 March.

Shopify retires old features with plenty of warning, through developer changelogs that most store owners never read. When the date comes, nothing crashes. A discount stops applying, a pixel stops firing, a widget disappears, and the first sign is a number in a report that looks a bit low. These are the Shopify deadlines that mattered this year, and the one still to come.

Two of those dates passed this year. One more is coming.

30 June: Shopify Scripts stopped running

Scripts were small pieces of Ruby code that Plus stores used to change prices, shipping options and payment methods at checkout: “buy two, get 10% off”, “hide cash on delivery for orders over $500”, that kind of rule. Editing them ended on 15 April 2026 and they stopped running on 30 June.

Their replacement is Shopify Functions, which an app or developer builds and which run inside Shopify’s own checkout. Shopify gave every affected store a report mapping each script to its replacement.

If your store had Scripts and nobody rebuilt them, the rules have simply stopped. Customers are paying full price where they used to get a discount, or seeing shipping options you meant to hide.

26 August: the thank-you page lost its scripts

The page a customer sees after paying is where most stores used to put their conversion tracking: Google Analytics, Meta, TikTok, affiliate networks, survey tools. Plus stores lost the old way of adding code there on 28 August 2025. Every other plan followed on 26 August 2026, when script tags and the “Additional scripts” box stopped running on the thank-you and order status pages.

The modern route is Customer events, under Settings, where tracking runs as a web pixel in a sandbox. Most big tracking apps moved over. Hand-pasted code did not move by itself.

What this looks like in practice: sales in Shopify are normal, but your ad platforms report fewer purchases than before, so campaigns look worse than they are and automated bidding pulls back.

1 March 2027: script tags stop on the storefront

Since 1 October 2026 apps have not been able to create or update script tags, the old method for an app to add code to your store pages. On 1 March 2027 those script tags stop running on storefronts altogether.

Apps are meant to use theme app extensions instead, which you can see and switch off in the theme editor. Most well-kept apps already do. The ones that have not are usually older or smaller apps: a review widget, a pop-up, a chat bubble, a currency switcher. When the date comes, they will vanish from your pages without an error.

There is a security side to this too. In October the security firm cside found three Shopify apps serving injected code that sent shoppers to a fake payment page. The move to theme app extensions and sandboxed pixels limits what any one app can do on your pages, which is the reason behind all three deadlines.

Shopify deadlines: a 30-minute check

1. Discounts and shipping rules. If you are on Plus and used Scripts, test each rule now with a real basket. Rebuild missing ones with a Functions app or a developer.
2. Tracking. Place a test order. Within an hour, check that it appears as a purchase in GA4 (DebugView or Realtime) and in each ad platform’s events view. If not, set the pixel up under Settings > Customer events.
3. App list. Open every app you have installed and note whether it adds anything to your storefront. In Online Store > Themes > Customise > App embeds, see which ones load the modern way. Any app that adds visible things to your pages and is not listed there is a candidate to ask about.
4. Ask the vendors. Email the ones you are unsure of: “Do you load through a theme app extension or a script tag? Are you ready for 1 March 2027?” A good vendor answers in a day.
5. Remove what you do not use. Every app left installed is code you are responsible for.

While you are in there

If the deadlines make you rebuild parts of your checkout, use the moment to remove the reasons people leave it. Baymard Institute’s long-running research puts the average share of baskets abandoned at 70.22%. The top reasons among US shoppers: extra costs shown too late (40%), slow delivery (20%), not trusting the site with card details (19%), being forced to create an account (18%) and a long or complicated checkout (17%).

Show shipping costs and delivery dates on the product page and in the basket, keep guest checkout on, and put your returns policy one tap from checkout. Those are not deadline fixes, but they are worth more than most of them.

Our Shopify team can go through these Shopify deadlines with you and move what is left. Read also how fast a plugin bug becomes an attack.