Sidekick by Shopify
Shopify's built-in commerce AI agent for product copy, campaigns and store questions
Pricing
Free & Paid
Platforms
Web
Developer
Shopify Inc.
Rating
4.5 / 5.0
Last Updated
September 18, 2026
Overview
Sidekick is the assistant Shopify calls your commerce-obsessed AI assistant, and it lives inside the Shopify admin rather than as a separate product you buy.
You open the admin, click the purple glasses icon, and it is there with access to your products, orders, customers, discounts and analytics.
Shopify answers the cost question on its own page: using Sidekick does not cost money, it is included with your Shopify plan, and features and usage limits vary by plan.
That framing matters when you compare it with third-party marketing agents, because the marginal cost of testing it is zero once you already pay for Shopify.
For marketers the value sits in the shortcut library more than in chat novelty.
Typing /product-description produces SEO-oriented product copy, /social-posts drafts social content, /email-campaign builds an email marketing campaign, /discount-code sets up offers, /marketing-mix asks Sidekick to look at ad spend by channel, /weekly-summary returns a performance summary, and /pricing-strategy audits pricing for revenue opportunities.
Shopify positions Sidekick as filling five roles at once - designer, photo editor, writer, tech support and marketer - and ships it continuously: ShopifyQL queries for web performance and payments data arrived in January 2026, customer and company creation in February 2026, and fullscreen mode in December 2025.
Two limits are worth understanding before you lean on it.
Everything depends on the quality of your store data, because Sidekick answers from your own records, so thin product copy, missing metafields and half-tagged campaigns produce mediocre suggestions that still need a human edit.
It is also an assistant rather than an autonomous agent platform: there is no workflow builder, no orchestration beyond your installed apps, and no way to run it on WooCommerce, BigCommerce or a standalone site.
Shopify is pushing further into agentic commerce with Agentic Storefronts and Campaign Autopilot, but Sidekick today is the free entry point into that stack rather than the whole stack.
Practical cost context, as published on shopify.com/pricing on 18 September 2026: Basic is $20 per month billed yearly ($27 month-to-month), Grow is $49 per month, Advanced is $299 per month, and Plus starts at $2,300 per month, with Shopify promoting three days free followed by $1 per month for three months.
Because Sidekick is included at every tier, the real budgeting question is not the agent itself but how much AI headroom your plan includes, since Shopify lists an AI assistant and millions of tokens as core features while usage limits scale by tier.
Use Cases
Writing SEO-focused product descriptions across a large catalogue without an agency retainer
Drafting social posts and email campaigns from the same place you manage orders and inventory
Asking for a weekly performance summary and a marketing-mix review of ad spend by channel
Setting up discount codes, bundles and pricing tests by describing the offer instead of configuring rules by hand
Building collections, editing theme sections and cleaning up product photography before a launch
Who Is This For
Shopify merchants who want AI marketing help without adding another subscription
Lean e-commerce teams where one person handles storefront, content and reporting
Brands launching new products who need copy, visuals and campaign drafts fast
Agencies running Shopify stores that want faster first drafts before human polish
Growing stores deciding whether to upgrade plans for more AI headroom and staff accounts
Key Features
Store-aware answers and actions
Sidekick reads your products, orders, customers and analytics, then acts inside the admin - editing sections, building collections, creating customers - instead of returning generic AI advice.
Marketing shortcut library
Prompt shortcuts cover the routine work: product descriptions for SEO, social posts, email campaigns, discount codes, pricing audits and a marketing-mix review of ad spend by channel.
Plain-language store analytics
Ask for a weekly performance summary or a ShopifyQL query against web performance and payments data, and get numbers pulled from your own store rather than a dashboard you have to build.
Designer, photo editor and writer in one
Shopify frames Sidekick as several roles at once: pick themes and edit layouts as a designer, clean up product photos as an editor, and generate launch copy as a writer.
Permissions-aware and multilingual
Every staff member can use Sidekick inside their admin permissions, so access controls are respected, and Sidekick adapts to your store language so teams can work in the language they prefer.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Included with any Shopify plan at no extra cost, so there is no separate subscription to justify before testing it
- Grounded in your actual store data - products, orders, customers and analytics - which generic AI assistants cannot see
- Ships with marketer-focused shortcuts for SEO product copy, social posts, email campaigns, discounts and ad-spend review
- No setup, no API keys, no integration project: it is in the admin behind the purple glasses icon and respects staff permissions
- Actively developed, with ShopifyQL data queries, customer and company creation and fullscreen mode all landing between December 2025 and February 2026
Cons
- Shopify only: it does nothing for WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento or a standalone store
- Features and usage limits vary by plan, so heavy AI use can push a growing store toward a more expensive Shopify tier
- It is an assistant, not an agent platform - no workflow builder and no orchestration beyond your installed apps
- Output still needs review, and weak product data produces weak copy, pricing and campaign suggestions
- Value concentrates once the store has real products, orders and traffic; brand new stores get little from it
Pricing Plans
Basic
Entry Shopify plan for solo entrepreneurs, with Sidekick included and plan-based usage limits.
- Sidekick AI assistant included
- Online store, themes and unlimited products
- 2% third-party payment provider fee
- Millions of AI tokens
- Up to $3,500 in credits
Grow
For small teams: more staff accounts and a lower payment fee, with Sidekick available to every member.
- Everything in Basic
- Up to 5 staff accounts
- 1% third-party payment provider fee
- Up to $5,000 in credits
- Sidekick for each staff member within their permissions
Advanced
For stores selling across regions, where regional storefront tailoring and more headroom matter.
- Everything in Grow
- Up to 15 staff accounts
- Live third-party shipping rates
- Tailor your store by region
- 0.6% third-party payment provider fee
Frequently Asked Questions
Editorial Review
Editorial Team
September 18, 2026
Verified on shopify.com/sidekick and shopify.com/pricing on 18 September 2026: Sidekick is included with every Shopify plan at no extra cost, usage limits scale by tier, and plan prices at that date were $20/month for Basic billed yearly ($27 month-to-month), $49 for Grow, $299 for Advanced and from $2,300 for Plus. The prompt library is genuinely marketing-shaped, with /product-description, /social-posts, /email-campaign, /marketing-mix and /weekly-summary doing work that agencies normally bill for, and the release notes since December 2025 show real shipping cadence rather than a launch announcement.
Editorial Team
September 18, 2026
Our caveats are scoping, not quality. Sidekick only exists inside Shopify, it is an assistant rather than an orchestration platform, and its output tracks the quality of your catalogue data - thin product pages produce thin copy. The other thing to budget for is plan tier, because AI usage limits rise with price, so a store that leans hard on Sidekick may end up paying for a higher Shopify plan rather than for the agent itself.
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