Is Shopify Down? How to Check Shopify Status and Fix Store Issues (2026)

Originally published on API Status Check.

Nothing panics an ecommerce entrepreneur faster than discovering your Shopify store won't load. Whether you're in the middle of a product launch, running a flash sale, or it's Black Friday weekend, "is Shopify down?" is the urgent question that can make the difference between thousands in sales and thousands in lost revenue.

With over 4.4 million stores powered by Shopify processing billions in annual sales, Shopify outages don't just affect you—they impact merchants worldwide from side hustlers to enterprise brands. A single hour of downtime during peak shopping hours can mean abandoned carts, lost customers, and damaged reputation.

This comprehensive guide will show you exactly how to check if Shopify is down, troubleshoot common Shopify issues, understand Shopify's outage history, learn what to do when Shopify goes offline, and discover how to get instant alerts before downtime impacts your sales.

🔴 Check Shopify Status Right Now

Before panicking about lost sales or troubleshooting your theme code, verify whether Shopify is actually experiencing a platform-wide outage.

The fastest way to check Shopify's current status is through our real-time monitoring dashboard:

→ Check Shopify Status Live

Our monitoring system tests Shopify's infrastructure every 60 seconds from multiple global locations, tracking:

• Shopify Storefront availability and load times
• Shopify Admin Panel accessibility and performance
• Shopify Checkout functionality and payment processing
• Shopify API endpoint response times
• Shopify POS system connectivity
• Regional outages by geographic location

If you see a green "operational" status, Shopify is up and the issue is likely with your specific store, theme, or apps (see troubleshooting section below). If you see red warning indicators, Shopify is experiencing confirmed platform-wide problems.

How to Check if Shopify is Down (5 Reliable Methods)

When your Shopify store won't load, you need to quickly determine whether it's a widespread Shopify outage or a store-specific issue you can fix yourself. Here are five proven methods:

1. Use API Status Check (Real-Time Automated Monitoring)

The most reliable method is automated monitoring that tests Shopify continuously, not just when you check manually.

API Status Check provides:

✅ Real-time testing every 60 seconds from multiple continents

✅ Historical uptime data showing Shopify's reliability over time

✅ Instant alerts via email, Slack, or Discord when outages occur

✅ Regional status to see if issues are location-specific

✅ Response time graphs to detect performance degradation before full outages

✅ API monitoring for developers building Shopify apps and integrations

Why automated monitoring beats manual checking: You'll receive an alert the moment Shopify starts having issues—often before Shopify's own status page acknowledges the problem. For merchants running high-volume stores, this early warning can help you prepare backup sales channels or communicate with customers before they start contacting support.

2. Check Shopify's Official Status Page

Shopify maintains an official status page at status.shopify.com that reports on their service health.

What you'll find:

• Current operational status for all Shopify services
• Active incident reports with real-time updates
• Scheduled maintenance windows
• Historical incident timeline
• Subscription options for email/SMS alerts

Important limitation: Like most vendor status pages, Shopify's official page can be slow to acknowledge outages. During the early minutes of an incident, it may still show "All Systems Operational" while thousands of merchants are experiencing problems. Third-party monitoring tools typically detect issues 5-15 minutes faster.

Best practice: Check Shopify's status page for official incident acknowledgment and resolution updates, but use third-party monitoring for early detection.

3. Search Social Media for Real-Time Reports

When Shopify is down, merchants immediately flock to Twitter/X, Reddit, and Facebook to report it. The phrase "Shopify down" often trends within minutes of an outage beginning.

Effective search strategies:

• Search "Shopify down" on Twitter/X and filter by "Latest" (not "Top")
• Look for tweets from the past 5-15 minutes
• Check if #ShopifyDown is trending
• Search Reddit's r/shopify for recent posts
• Follow @Shopify and @ShopifySupport for official updates
• Check Shopify Community forums for outage discussions

How to interpret the results:

• Under 50 mentions in 15 minutes: Likely isolated issues, not a widespread Shopify outage
• 50-200 mentions in 15 minutes: Possible regional or service-specific problem
• 200+ mentions in 15 minutes: Confirmed widespread outage

Pro tip: If you see recent posts like "Anyone else's Shopify store down?" with dozens of replies saying "yes, mine too," it's almost certainly a platform-wide outage, not your store specifically.

4. Check DownDetector

DownDetector aggregates user-submitted outage reports in real-time.

What to look for:

• Outage graph: Spike in reports in last 15-30 minutes indicates real outage
• Live outage map: Shows geographic distribution of issues
• User comments: Real merchants describing what's broken
• Problem breakdown: Percentage of reports for website, checkout, admin, etc.

Interpreting DownDetector data:

• Baseline: 0-20 reports is normal "background noise"
• Elevated: 20-100 reports suggests emerging issue
• Confirmed outage: 100+ reports in 15 minutes is definitive

Limitation: DownDetector is crowdsourced and reactive—it only shows data after users manually report issues. Automated monitoring detects problems faster.

5. Test Multiple Access Points

If your storefront won't load, try alternative access methods to isolate the problem:

Connection test checklist:

Decision tree:

✅ Other Shopify stores load + ❌ Your store fails → Your store issue (theme, apps, settings)
❌ Admin panel fails + ✅ Storefront works → Backend/authentication issue
✅ Mobile data works + ❌ WiFi fails → Your network/ISP problem
❌ Nothing works (all Shopify stores) → Shopify is likely down
✅ Incognito works + ❌ Normal browser fails → Clear cache/cookies

Quick test: Visit a popular Shopify store like allbirds.com or gymshark.com. If those won't load either, Shopify is definitely down.

Common Shopify Issues and Quick Fixes

Not every Shopify not working problem means the platform is down. Here are the most common issues merchants encounter and how to resolve them quickly:

Issue #1: Store Not Loading or Showing Error 404/500

Symptoms: Customers see blank page, "Page not found," or "Server error" when visiting your store.

Common causes:

• DNS propagation delays after domain changes
• SSL certificate renewal issues
• Theme file corruption
• App conflicts crashing the storefront
• Exceeded Shopify API rate limits

Quick fixes:

1. Check if it's just the homepage or all pages

• Try accessing specific product pages directly
• Try /collections, /products, /pages
• If only homepage fails, it's likely a theme issue

2. Test with default theme

• Admin → Online Store → Themes
• Find any free Shopify theme (Dawn, etc.)
• Click "Publish" temporarily
• Refresh your storefront
• If it loads now, your custom theme is the problem

3. Disable apps one by one

• Admin → Apps
• Disable recently installed/updated apps first
• Test storefront after each disable
• Identify which app is causing the crash

4. Check domain settings

• Admin → Settings → Domains
• Verify domain shows "Connected" status
• If recently changed domain, DNS can take 24-48 hours
• Try accessing via yourstore.myshopify.com instead

5. Clear browser cache and cookies

• Hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R or Cmd+Shift+R)
• Clear cache for your domain
• Test in incognito/private browsing
• Try different browser entirely

6. Check SSL certificate

• Look for "Not Secure" warning in browser
• Admin → Settings → Domains → verify SSL status shows "Active"
• SSL renewals can occasionally fail—contact Shopify support if expired

Issue #2: Checkout Not Working or Payment Processing Failures

Symptoms: Customers can browse but can't complete purchases, payment buttons don't work, or checkout throws errors.

Common causes:

• Payment gateway configuration issues
• Shopify Payments verification problems
• Expired credit cards on file (for subscriptions)
• Tax/shipping calculation errors
• Checkout app conflicts
• Geographic restrictions

Quick fixes:

1. Test checkout yourself

• Add item to cart, proceed to checkout
• Use test card if in test mode
• Complete full purchase flow
• Note exact error message

2. Check payment provider settings

• Admin → Settings → Payments
• Verify Shopify Payments or gateway shows "Active"
• Check for "Action required" warnings
• Ensure bank account is verified (Shopify Payments)

3. Review shipping settings

• Admin → Settings → Shipping and delivery
• Verify shipping zones cover customer's location
• Check that shipping rates are configured
• Ensure no conflicting shipping apps

4. Verify tax settings

• Admin → Settings → Taxes and duties
• Confirm tax regions are properly configured
• Check for tax calculation errors in checkout

5. Disable checkout customizations

• Admin → Settings → Checkout
• Temporarily remove custom scripts
• Disable checkout apps one by one
• Test if problem resolves

6. Check for geographic restrictions

• Admin → Settings → Markets
• Verify you're selling to customer's country
• Check if specific payment methods are restricted by region

Emergency workaround: If checkout is completely broken, enable "Create draft orders" and manually process sales via Admin → Orders → Create order until checkout is fixed.

Issue #3: Admin Panel Slow or Timing Out

Symptoms: Shopify admin loads extremely slowly, times out, or shows "Request timeout" errors.

Common causes:

• Large product catalog causing performance issues
• Too many apps running simultaneously
• Browser extensions interfering
• Slow internet connection
• Shopify's backend experiencing degraded performance

Quick fixes:

1. Check your internet speed

• Visit fast.com or speedtest.net
• Shopify admin requires stable 5+ Mbps connection
• If below 2 Mbps, that's likely the issue

2. Use Shopify mobile app

• Download Shopify app for iOS/Android
• Try performing same task in mobile app
• If mobile app works fine, issue is with browser/computer

3. Disable browser extensions

• Ad blockers, privacy extensions can interfere
• Open admin in incognito/private mode (disables extensions)
• If that works, identify which extension is problematic

4. Clear admin cache

• Logout of Shopify admin
• Clear browser cache and cookies for shopify.com
• Login again
• Performance may improve

5. Reduce concurrent apps

• Review Admin → Apps
• Uninstall apps you're not actively using
• Each app adds processing overhead
• Keep only essential apps running

6. Use bulk operations carefully

• Avoid editing 1000+ products simultaneously
• Break large imports into smaller batches (500 max)
• Schedule bulk operations during off-peak hours

7. Check Shopify status

• If admin is slow platform-wide, check status.shopify.com
• "Degraded performance" incidents often affect admin panel specifically

Issue #4: App Errors or Apps Not Loading

Symptoms: Specific Shopify app won't load, throws errors, or functionality is broken.

Common causes:

• App developer's server issues
• API authentication expired
• App conflicts with other apps
• Shopify API changes breaking app
• Subscription payment failed

Quick fixes:

1. Check app status page

• Most major apps have status pages
• Search "[app name] status" in Google
• Check app developer's Twitter for outage announcements

2. Reinstall the app

• Admin → Apps → [App name] → Delete
• Visit Shopify App Store
• Reinstall app
• Reconfigure settings
• Often fixes authentication/connection issues

3. Update app to latest version

• Some apps require manual updates
• Check app settings for "Update available"
• Contact app developer if no update option visible

4. Check app subscription status

• Admin → Settings → Billing
• Verify app charges are active
• Failed payments can disable app features

5. Contact app developer support

• Most apps have in-app chat support
• Provide: error messages, screenshots, steps to reproduce
• Ask if known issues with current Shopify version

6. Identify app conflicts

• Disable all other apps temporarily
• Enable apps one by one
• Test problem app after each enable
• Identifies which apps conflict

Issue #5: Products Not Syncing or Inventory Issues

Symptoms: Product updates don't appear on storefront, inventory counts wrong, or variants missing.

Common causes:

• Theme cache not clearing
• Third-party inventory app conflicts
• Multiple inventory locations causing confusion
• CSV import errors
• API sync delays

Quick fixes:

1. Force storefront refresh

• Admin → Online Store → Themes
• Click "..." → Edit code
• Change any minor thing (add a space) in theme.liquid
• Save
• Forces theme cache to clear

2. Check inventory locations

• Admin → Products → Inventory
• Verify correct location is selected
• Products can exist but be set to wrong location
• Transfer inventory if needed

3. Review recent imports

• Admin → Products → More actions → View import history
• Check if recent CSV import had errors
• Re-import with corrected CSV if necessary

4. Disable inventory management apps

• If using third-party inventory sync (multiple stores, etc.)
• Temporarily disable to see if issue resolves
• May be sync delay or conflict

5. Verify product is published

• Open product in admin
• Check "Sales channels and apps" section
• Ensure "Online Store" is checked
• Check publication date hasn't been set to future

6. Clear CDN cache (if using custom domain)

• If using Cloudflare or similar CDN
• Purge cache for your domain
• CDN can serve stale product data

Shopify Outage History: When Has Shopify Actually Gone Down?

Understanding Shopify's outage history helps put current issues in perspective and shows patterns in when outages tend to occur. Here are the most significant Shopify outages:

November 24, 2023 – Black Friday Flash Outage

Duration: ~47 minutes

Impact: Intermittent checkout failures during peak Black Friday traffic

Affected regions: Global

Root cause: Database connection pool exhaustion during extreme traffic spike

Resolution: Emergency capacity scaling

Business impact: Occurred during highest-traffic hour of the year (2-3 PM ET). Estimated impact on 150,000+ stores. Some merchants reported 30-40% of attempted purchases failed during the window. Shopify issued service credits to affected Shopify Plus merchants.

Critical detail: This was a partial outage—storefronts remained accessible, but checkout completion rates dropped dramatically. Many merchants only noticed when they saw abandoned cart spike notifications.

July 12, 2023 – API Authentication Outage

Duration: ~3 hours

Impact: Third-party apps couldn't authenticate, API calls failing

Affected regions: Global

Root cause: OAuth service misconfiguration during routine update

Resolution: Configuration rollback

Developer impact: Merchants using third-party apps for inventory sync, order management, shipping, or analytics saw those integrations break. Shopify's native features worked fine, but ecosystem apps were offline.

Lessons learned: Highlighted importance of monitoring both Shopify's core platform AND the API layer separately.

December 22, 2022 – Pre-Holiday Admin Panel Slowdown

Duration: ~6 hours (degraded performance, not complete outage)

Impact: Admin panel extremely slow, timeouts when editing products/orders

Affected regions: North America primarily

Root cause: Database query optimization issue after infrastructure upgrade

Resolution: Database query rollback and optimization

Timing impact: Occurred during critical pre-Christmas period when merchants were making last-minute inventory/shipping updates. While storefronts remained fast, backend operations were severely impacted.

September 17, 2022 – Shopify Payments Outage

Duration: ~2 hours

Impact: Shopify Payments transactions failing, other payment gateways unaffected

Affected regions: US and Canada

Root cause: Payment processor infrastructure issue (Stripe-related)

Resolution: Stripe resolved underlying issue

Merchant workaround: Stores using PayPal, Authorize.net, or other gateways continued processing orders. Shopify Payments-only stores lost sales during the window.

Financial impact: Estimated $50M+ in transaction volume affected during peak Saturday afternoon shopping hours.

July 14, 2022 – Global Storefront Outage

Duration: ~1 hour

Impact: All Shopify storefronts returning 503 errors, admin panel accessible

Affected regions: Worldwide

Root cause: CDN configuration error during routine maintenance

Resolution: CDN configuration rollback

Impact analysis:

• Approximately 4.2 million stores simultaneously offline
• Over 75,000 DownDetector reports within first 30 minutes
• #ShopifyDown trended globally on Twitter
• Occurred during business hours in US/Europe, affecting peak shopping times

Notable detail: Shopify admin remained accessible throughout—merchants could see their stores but customers couldn't. This created confusion as merchants tried to troubleshoot thinking it was their specific store.

November 25, 2021 – Black Friday Traffic Degradation

Duration: ~5 hours (intermittent slowness, not complete outage)

Impact: Slow page loads, intermittent checkout errors, API timeouts

Affected regions: Global

Root cause: Unexpected traffic volume exceeding capacity planning

Resolution: Progressive capacity scaling

Context: While not a complete outage, this was Shopify's first significant performance issue during Black Friday/Cyber Monday since 2019. Traffic exceeded projections by 35%, causing strain.

Merchant experience: Checkout conversion rates dropped 15-25% during peak hours due to slow load times and timeouts. Stores with optimized themes performed better than those with heavy customizations.

Shopify Outage Patterns and Statistics

Based on historical data from 2020-2024:

Overall uptime: Shopify maintains approximately 99.98% uptime for storefronts, which translates to about 1.75 hours of downtime per year. However, "degraded performance" (slow but not down) occurs more frequently, especially during high-traffic events.

High-risk periods:

• Black Friday / Cyber Monday (November) – Highest traffic, most strain
• Holiday shopping (December 1-23) – Sustained high load
• Prime Day (July) – Competitive shopping event driving traffic spikes
• Back to School (August) – Seasonal traffic increase

Time-of-day patterns:

• Most outages occur during US business hours (9 AM - 6 PM ET)
• Maintenance windows typically scheduled Tuesday-Thursday nights (lower traffic)
• Weekend outages more likely to impact international merchants

Interesting trend: Shopify's infrastructure has improved significantly. Major outages were more frequent in 2020-2021 (pandemic rapid scaling) but have decreased in 2022-2024 as infrastructure matured.

What to Do When Shopify is Down: Protect Your Revenue

When Shopify experiences a confirmed outage, you can't wait for resolution. Every minute of downtime is lost sales. Here's your action plan:

Immediate Actions (First 5 Minutes)

1. Verify it's actually a Shopify outage (not your store)

• Check apistatuscheck.com/status/shopify
• Search Twitter for #ShopifyDown
• Try accessing other Shopify stores (Allbirds, Gymshark, etc.)

2. Put up a maintenance page (if you have access)

• If admin is accessible but storefront is down:
• Admin → Online Store → Themes → Customize
• Create simple "We'll be right back" banner
• Include expected resolution time if known

3. Notify customers immediately

• Post to social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter)
• Send email if you have subscriber list
• Update Google Business profile if applicable

Sample social media post:

"We're aware our store is temporarily unavailable due to Shopify platform issues. We're monitoring the situation and expect service to resume within [timeframe]. We apologize for the inconvenience and will update you shortly! 🛒"

Short-Term Workarounds (If outage exceeds 30 minutes)

1. Enable alternative sales channels

Social media selling:

• Instagram Shopping – Tag products in Stories/Posts, DM sales
• Facebook Marketplace – List products directly
• TikTok Shop – If enrolled, process sales there
• WhatsApp Business – Take orders via messages

Manual order processing:

• Accept orders via email/DM
• Process payments through:
  • PayPal invoice (paypal.com/invoice)
  • Stripe payment link (dashboard.stripe.com)
  • Venmo/Cash App for small orders
  • Square invoices (squareup.com)
• Create draft orders in Shopify admin once system is back

2. Redirect traffic to backup page

• Create Linktree or Beacons page with:
  • Product images and descriptions
  • Contact info for ordering
  • Links to social profiles
  • Expected store restoration time
• If you control DNS, temporarily point domain to backup page

3. Leverage email marketing

• Send broadcast: "Our website is temporarily down, but you can still shop!"
• Include direct contact methods
• Offer incentive for ordering during downtime ("10% off orders placed via email today")

Revenue Protection Strategies

For high-volume stores (losing $1000+/hour during outage):

1. Emergency landing page on different platform

• Set up simple page on:
  • Carrd.co (5 min setup, free)
  • WordPress.com (quick setup)
  • Webflow (if you have account)
  • Google Sites (free, basic)
• Include:
  • Top 10 products with images
  • Contact form for orders
  • Phone number for immediate sales
  • Links to social profiles

2. Activate backup payment processor

• If Shopify Payments is down but Shopify isn't:
  • Add PayPal Standard temporarily
  • Add Stripe direct integration
  • Add cryptocurrency payments (if applicable)
• Configure in Admin → Settings → Payments

3. Implement phone sales team

• Staff up phone lines
• Take orders manually
• Process via backup payment system
• Enter into Shopify as draft orders when back online

4. Leverage Amazon/eBay/Etsy if you have listings

• If you cross-list products:
• Post to social: "Our website is down, shop on Amazon: [link]"
• Directs traffic to alternative channel
• You still make the sale

Long-Term Resilience Planning

For serious merchants who can't afford downtime:

1. Multi-channel strategy

• Don't rely solely on Shopify storefront
• Maintain presence on:
  • Amazon – 40% of online shoppers start there
  • eBay – Auction/fixed price backup
  • Etsy – For handmade/vintage
  • Facebook/Instagram Shops – Native social selling
  • TikTok Shop – Growing rapidly
• Use inventory sync tools to manage across platforms

2. Shopify Plus consideration

• Shopify Plus ($2000+/month) includes:
  • Priority support during outages
  • Dedicated account manager
  • Higher API rate limits (less throttling)
  • Service credits for downtime
  • Early notification of issues
• Worth it if losing $5K+/hour during outages

3. Headless commerce setup (advanced)

• Decouple storefront from Shopify backend
• Use Shopify as backend (inventory, orders, payments)
• Build custom frontend on:
  • Vercel/Netlify (globally distributed)
  • Cloudflare Pages (edge deployment)
  • Custom infrastructure
• If Shopify admin goes down, storefront can still function
• Requires developer expertise

4. Geographic redundancy

• If selling internationally:
• Use Shopify Markets Pro for regional storefronts
• If one region's infrastructure fails, others continue
• Distribute risk across data centers

5. Documented emergency procedures

• Written playbook: "What to do when Shopify is down"
• Assigned responsibilities (who posts to social, who handles phone orders, etc.)
• Pre-written customer communication templates
• List of backup payment processors and login credentials
• Contact info for Shopify Plus support (if applicable)

6. Regular downtime drills

• Quarterly "fire drill"
• Simulate Shopify outage for 1 hour
• Practice emergency procedures
• Test backup sales channels
• Identify gaps in plan

Customer Communication Templates

Email template for subscribers:

Subject: Store Temporarily Unavailable – Here's How to Still Shop

Hi [Name],

Our Shopify-powered store is currently experiencing technical difficulties due to a platform-wide outage affecting thousands of merchants. While we work to restore service, you can still shop with us:

Shop via Instagram: [link]

Email your order: orders@yourbrand.com

Text us: [phone number]

Call us: [phone number]

We're offering [X% discount] on all orders placed during the outage as a thank you for your patience.

We expect our online store to be fully restored by [estimated time].

Thank you for your understanding!

[Your Brand] Team

Social media update template:

🚨 STORE UPDATE

Our website is temporarily down due to Shopify platform issues (not just us – affecting stores worldwide).

🛒 You can still shop:
→ DM us your order
→ Email: [email]
→ Call: [phone]

We'll have a special discount for everyone who orders during the downtime!

Expected resolution: [time]
We'll update you as soon as we're back online! 💙

How to Get Notified About Shopify Outages (Before You Lose Sales)

Reactive checking—discovering Shopify is down when you notice sales stopped—means you've already lost revenue. Proactive monitoring gives you advance warning so you can activate backup channels before customers even notice.

Why Automated Monitoring Matters for Ecommerce

The cost of reactive discovery:

Scenario: It's 2:00 PM on a Saturday (peak shopping time). Your Shopify store goes down. You don't notice until 2:45 PM when you check your dashboard and see zero orders for 45 minutes. By the time you post to social media and activate backup channels, it's 3:00 PM. You've lost 1 hour of peak sales—potentially $2,000-$10,000+ depending on your volume.

The advantage of instant alerts:

Same scenario with monitoring: Shopify goes down at 2:00 PM. You receive an alert at 2:01 PM. By 2:05 PM, you've posted to social media, sent an email to your list, and set up a backup order form. By 2:10 PM, you're taking orders via alternative channels. Lost sales: minimal.

Real merchant example:

A Shopify Plus merchant selling electronics noticed their store was down at 11:00 AM on Cyber Monday. By the time they activated backup channels, 45 minutes had passed.

• Normal sales rate: $4,000/hour
• Lost sales (45 min): $3,000
• Cost of API Status Check monitoring: $29/month

The merchant immediately set up monitoring after the incident. During the next outage (July 2023), they received an alert within 60 seconds and activated backup channels in under 5 minutes, minimizing loss.

Setting Up Shopify Monitoring with API Status Check

API Status Check provides enterprise-grade Shopify monitoring with multiple notification channels:

What we monitor:

• ✅ Shopify Storefront – Page load tests every 60 seconds from 5 global locations
• ✅ Shopify Checkout – Full checkout flow testing including payment gateway
• ✅ Shopify Admin Panel – Backend accessibility and performance
• ✅ Shopify API – Endpoint availability and response times (critical for apps/integrations)
• ✅ Shopify POS – Point of sale system connectivity
• ✅ Regional status – US East, US West, EU, Asia-Pacific separate monitoring
• ✅ Response time tracking – Detects slowdowns before they become full outages

Alert channels:

📧 Email Alerts

• Instant email when Shopify issues detected
• Includes severity level (degraded performance vs. full outage)
• Links to detailed incident page with real-time updates
• Resolution notifications when service restored

💬 Slack Integration

• Real-time alerts posted to your team Slack channel
• Color-coded severity (yellow warning, red critical)
• @channel mentions for critical outages affecting checkout/storefront
• Perfect for teams managing multiple stores

📱 Discord Webhooks

• Similar to Slack, for Discord-using teams
• Customizable alert formatting
• Role mentions for urgent notifications
• Historical incident feed

🔗 Custom Webhooks

• Send alerts to any platform via HTTP POST
• Integrate with:
  • PagerDuty (on-call alerting for dev teams)
  • Opsgenie (incident management)
  • Zapier/Make (trigger custom automations)
  • Custom dashboards
• JSON payload with full incident details

📱 SMS Alerts (Premium)

• Text message alerts for critical outages
• When you need to know immediately, even without internet
• Configurable quiet hours

Email Alert Configuration

Setup process:

1. Create free account at apistatuscheck.com
2. Navigate to Shopify service page
3. Click "Add Alert"
4. Enter your email address
5. Choose alert threshold:
   • Any degradation (most sensitive, best for high-volume stores)
   • Partial outage (balanced, filters minor slowdowns)
   • Complete outage (least noise, only major incidents)
6. Save

You'll receive emails for:

• 🚨 Incident start – "Shopify experiencing checkout failures"
• 📊 Updates – "Issue ongoing, Shopify posted update: investigating database issues"
• ✅ Resolution – "Shopify service fully restored"

Email customization:

• Choose specific Shopify services (Storefront, Checkout, Admin, API, POS)
• Filter by region (only alert if US-based data centers affected)
• Set quiet hours (no alerts 11 PM - 7 AM unless critical)
• Digest mode (daily summary instead of instant alerts)

Slack Integration for Teams

Best for:

• Agencies managing multiple client stores
• Brands with dedicated ecommerce teams
• Stores with 24/7 operations

Setup process:

1. API Status Check dashboard → Integrations
2. Select "Add Slack Integration"
3. Click "Authorize API Status Check"
4. Choose Slack channel (#ecommerce-alerts, #shopify-status, etc.)
5. Configure which services and severity levels trigger alerts
6. Save

Sample Slack alert:

🔴 SHOPIFY OUTAGE DETECTED
Service: Shopify Checkout
Severity: Critical
Region: Global
Started: 2:47 PM ET

Customers unable to complete purchases. Payment processing failing.
Affecting all Shopify stores worldwide.

Status page: https://status.shopify.com
API Status Check: https://apistatuscheck.com/status/shopify

Recommended action: Activate backup order channels immediately.

Team collaboration:

• Entire team sees alert simultaneously
• Discuss response strategy in thread
• Coordinator can @channel notify about action plan
• Creates incident timeline in Slack history

Advanced: Automated Failover with Webhooks

For technical teams managing high-volume stores:

When Shopify checkout goes down, automatically:

1. Update website banner: "Checkout temporarily unavailable, order via [backup method]"
2. Send automated email to recent cart abandoners with alternative ordering info
3. Post to social media via Buffer/Hootsuite API
4. Create PagerDuty incident for on-call team
5. Log to internal incident management system

Webhook payload example:

{
  "service": "shopify",
  "component": "checkout",
  "status": "outage",
  "severity": "critical",
  "started_at": "2024-02-14T14:47:32Z",
  "message": "Shopify Checkout experiencing payment processing failures",
  "affected_regions": ["global"],
  "estimated_revenue_impact_per_hour": "high",
  "incident_url": "https://apistatuscheck.com/incidents/shopify-2024-02-14"
}

Automation ideas:

• Trigger Cloudflare Workers to display maintenance banner
• Send SMS to store owner via Twilio
• Update status page (statuspage.io, etc.)
• Pause Google/Facebook ads to avoid wasted spend on unusable store
• Automatically create "alternate order form" on backup domain

Multi-Platform Monitoring

Don't just monitor Shopify—track your entire ecommerce stack:

If Shopify checkout is down because Stripe is down, you need to know both are having issues.

Comprehensive ecommerce monitoring:

• ✅ Shopify (primary platform)
• ✅ Stripe (payment processor)
• ✅ PayPal (backup payment option)
• ✅ Cloudflare (if you use their CDN/security)
• ✅ SendGrid/Mailchimp (email marketing)
• ✅ Klaviyo (email automation)
• ✅ Google Analytics (tracking pixels)
• ✅ Facebook Pixel (ad tracking)

Example scenario:

You receive two alerts:

1. "Stripe API experiencing elevated error rates"
2. (5 minutes later) "Shopify Checkout payment processing failures"

You immediately know:

• The issue is Stripe, not Shopify
• Shopify Payments won't work (uses Stripe)
• PayPal will still work as backup
• You enable PayPal Express Checkout prominently

Without monitoring both, you'd waste time troubleshooting Shopify when the root cause is elsewhere.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How do I know if Shopify is down for everyone or just my store?

Check API Status Check's Shopify monitoring page for real-time platform status. Also try visiting other popular Shopify stores (Allbirds.com, Gymshark.com, Kylie Cosmetics). If those won't load either, it's a platform-wide Shopify outage. If other stores load fine but yours doesn't, it's specific to your store (theme, apps, or settings issue).

Does Shopify have an official status page?

Yes, Shopify maintains status.shopify.com showing operational status for all services. However, Shopify's official page often lags 10-30 minutes behind in acknowledging outages. For faster detection and instant alerts, use automated monitoring tools like API Status Check.

How long do Shopify outages typically last?

Most Shopify outages resolve within 1-3 hours. Minor issues (single feature or region) are often fixed in under 30 minutes. Major global outages can last 2-6 hours, though these are rare (1-2 per year). The most critical outages occur during Black Friday/Cyber Monday and are usually resolved within 1 hour due to high priority.

Will I get refunded for lost sales during a Shopify outage?

Shopify Plus merchants may receive service credits for documented outages affecting their stores. Standard Shopify plan merchants typically do not receive refunds or credits, as per the Terms of Service. However, for major outages during critical sales periods (Black Friday), Shopify has historically provided goodwill credits. Contact Shopify Support to inquire about specific incidents.

Can I get notified before my store goes down?

Yes. API Status Check monitors Shopify every 60 seconds and sends instant alerts via email, Slack, or Discord when issues are detected—typically 5-20 minutes before Shopify's official acknowledgment. This early warning gives you time to activate backup sales channels and notify customers before they encounter problems.

Why does Shopify go down?

Common causes include: infrastructure issues at cloud providers (Google Cloud, AWS), deployment errors when Shopify pushes platform updates, database failures in checkout or authentication services, traffic spikes exceeding capacity (especially Black Friday/Cyber Monday), CDN configuration mistakes, and occasionally DDoS attacks. Most outages are infrastructure-related, not security incidents.

What's the difference between storefront down vs. checkout down vs. admin down?

These are separate services that can fail independently:

• Storefront down – Customers can't access your store at all (404/503 errors)
• Checkout down – Store loads fine, but customers can't complete purchases
• Admin down – Customers can shop normally, but you can't access backend to manage store
• API down – Third-party apps/integrations stop working, but native Shopify features work

This is why monitoring each component separately matters. During the September 2022 outage, Shopify Payments was down but other payment gateways (PayPal, etc.) worked fine.

Should I switch to a different ecommerce platform?

Not necessarily. Shopify maintains 99.98%+ uptime, which is excellent for a platform of its scale and comparable to competitors like BigCommerce and WooCommerce. All platforms experience occasional outages.

Instead of switching:

• Set up monitoring to minimize impact of outages
• Maintain backup sales channels (social commerce, Amazon, etc.)
• Have documented emergency procedures
• Consider Shopify Plus if outages critically impact your revenue

When to consider alternatives:

• If you experience store-specific issues Shopify Support can't resolve
• If your business model requires 99.99%+ uptime (mission-critical applications)
• If you need features Shopify doesn't offer

Can I monitor my Shopify store's uptime separately from Shopify's platform?

Yes, and you should! Platform monitoring (is Shopify up?) is different from store-specific monitoring (is MY store loading correctly?).

API Status Check offers both:

• Platform monitoring – Tracks Shopify's infrastructure (what we've discussed)
• Custom store monitoring – Tests YOUR specific store URL, checkout flow, and critical pages

Why monitor your specific store:

• Your theme could crash even when Shopify is up
• An app could break your storefront
• DNS issues could affect only your domain
• SSL certificate could expire
• You'll know immediately if customers can't access your store, regardless of cause

What should I do if Shopify is down during Black Friday / Cyber Monday?

Immediate actions:

1. Post to all social media: "Website experiencing high traffic, you can also shop via [Instagram/Facebook/Amazon]"
2. Send email blast with alternative ordering methods
3. Enable Facebook/Instagram Shop if configured
4. Set up phone ordering with additional staff
5. Create Google Form for orders if needed
6. Offer incentive: "Order via [method] during downtime, get 15% off"

Pro tip: The phrase "high traffic" sounds better to customers than "Shopify is down." It makes your brand seem popular rather than broken.

How can I tell if it's Shopify or my payment processor that's down?

Test both separately:

1. Check Shopify status: apistatuscheck.com/status/shopify

2. Check your payment processor:

   • Shopify Payments (uses Stripe): status.stripe.com
   • PayPal: status.paypal.com
   • Authorize.net: status.authorize.net

3. Test different payment methods:

   • If you have multiple gateways enabled, try each
   • If PayPal works but Shopify Payments doesn't, it's payment-processor specific

4. Check error messages:

   • "Cannot connect to Shopify" = Shopify issue
   • "Payment declined" / "Gateway timeout" = Payment processor issue

Quick test: Try completing a test purchase using each payment method in your store. The one that fails reveals the culprit.

Conclusion: Stay Ahead of Shopify Outages

Shopify outages are rare but inevitable. The difference between losing thousands in sales and protecting your revenue is knowing about issues immediately and having backup plans ready.

Key takeaways:

✅ Check status first – Visit apistatuscheck.com/status/shopify before troubleshooting

✅ Fix common issues – Most "Shopify down" reports are actually store-specific (themes, apps, settings)

✅ Have backup channels ready – Maintain social commerce, email ordering, and alternative payment methods

✅ Get instant alerts – Monitor Shopify automatically to receive warnings before outages impact sales

✅ Know Shopify's history – Major outages average 1-2 per year, with highest risk during Black Friday/Cyber Monday

✅ Protect revenue – Every minute of downtime is lost sales—early warning is critical

Don't wait for the next outage to catch you unprepared.

→ Start monitoring Shopify status now – Get instant alerts when Shopify goes down, track uptime history, and never lose sales to unexpected outages.

Free plan includes:

• Real-time Shopify status monitoring
• Email alerts for outages
• Historical uptime data
• Multi-region status tracking

Paid plans add:

• Slack/Discord integration
• SMS alerts
• Custom webhooks
• Store-specific monitoring
• Priority support

Sign up for free →

Last updated: February 14, 2025