One year apart. Same questions. Real partners. Here's how sentiment in the Shopify Partner ecosystem changed between 2025 and 2026.
The 2026 sample is smaller, but still useful for directional insights and year-over-year comparisons.
Sentiment became more negative in 2026.
Essentially unchanged. Distrust remains extremely high.
Strong increase in demand for Shopify to do more to promote partner apps.
Still more positive than negative, but optimism clearly declined.
Even stronger demand for transparency in 2026.
Slight improvement, but most respondents still think growth has become harder.
Slight improvement. Still a trust problem overall.
Perception got slightly worse. Most still believe ranking is driven more by hacks than quality.
Slight improvement, but distrust remains very high.
Slight improvement. Still a very strong consensus that app overload is a problem.
One of the biggest shifts in the entire survey. The majority now believes the approval process is not too strict.
Significant improvement in how BFS is perceived.
Major improvement. Fewer partners now avoid BFS because of complexity or unclear ROI.
Slightly worse in 2026. The feeling that Shopify is moving away from a partner-first mindset remains very strong.
Shift from slightly positive to slightly negative.
Even stronger consensus in 2026. The clearest point of agreement across the survey.
Some parts of the ecosystem appear to have improved, especially around Built for Shopify. But overall trust in the Shopify Partner ecosystem remains weak.
BFS sentiment improved, while confidence in Shopify as a long-term partner did not.