Shopify Uptime Monitoring: Status Page, Store and Checkout
Shopify uptime monitoring has two halves: Shopify reports the platform’s health per component on shopifystatus.com, and you watch what you added on top, such as theme edits, apps, your domain and payment settings. Subscribe to the status page, and run your own checks of your storefront and checkout, because the parts you added can break a single store while the platform is fine.
Sources, read on October 23, 2026: Shopify Status, the Shopify Help Center pages on web performance and the Plus plan, and the App Store listing named below.
What Shopify monitors and what it does not
| Part of your store | Who runs it | Where you see problems |
|---|---|---|
| Admin, Checkout, Storefront, Reports and Dashboards, API & Mobile, Point of Sale, Oxygen, Support, third-party services | Shopify | shopifystatus.com, per component |
| Your theme and its code edits | You (or your developer) | Only by looking at your store |
| Apps and their app embeds and scripts | The app developers, in your store | Only by looking at your store, or the app’s own status |
| Your custom domain and DNS records | You and your domain provider | Your store not loading on your domain |
| Payment provider settings | You and the provider | Failed or missing payment options at checkout |
| Products: status, stock, channel publishing | You | Sold-out or hidden products, empty collections |
On Shopify Plus, Shopify’s plan page says the plan might include a 99.99% uptime service level agreement. For other plans, Shopify Status is the place to see what is happening on the platform side.
What can break a Shopify store
Shopify’s web performance guidance says every feature you add, including theme code and apps, can slow the site or create unexpected behavior. Store-side failures can look like this:
- An app update changes its script or app embed, and the add-to-cart button or the cart drawer stops working.
- A theme code edit breaks a template, often a product page or the cart, after a quick fix.
- Two apps fight over the same element, such as two popups or two currency switchers.
- DNS changes at the domain provider point the domain away from Shopify, or remove the email records.
- A payment provider is disconnected or a method is switched off, and checkout shows fewer options.
- A product import sets products to draft or out of stock, and collections go empty.
We build apps that run inside merchants’ themes, and we run automated checks on our own sites every week for the same reason: an update anywhere in the chain can change a page that worked the day before.
Set up free monitoring in 20 minutes
- Subscribe to Shopify Status. On shopifystatus.com use Subscribe to Updates, so platform incidents reach you without checking.
- Add an external uptime check with any free uptime monitoring service: one check on your homepage and one on a product page, on your own domain, every few minutes. You get an alert when they stop returning a working page.
- Add a check on your cart page. A broken cart can still return a page, so set the check to look for text that appears only when the page works, such as your “Check out” button text.
- Place a weekly test order through the full checkout with a real card, then refund it. It is the only check that proves payments work end to end; processing fees on that order are usually not returned with the refund, so count it as a small weekly cost.
- Check after every change. After installing or updating an app or editing theme code, open a product, add to cart and go to checkout on a phone.
- Keep a copy of your theme. Shopify keeps unpublished themes in your themes list, so you can switch back to the last working version quickly.
When paid checkout monitoring is worth it
When an hour of a broken checkout costs more than a monthly subscription, automated tests that click through the store pay for themselves. As an example, Uptime – Automated Store Tests by Jagged Pixel (5.0 from 31 reviews on its listing) monitors the Shopify status page and selected apps from $29 a month; its $99 Pro plan adds three automated UI tests that also run on theme updates, and its $299 Plus plan ten tests and checks from several countries. Each plan has a 7-day free trial.
For most small stores, the free setup above plus a weekly test order covers the risk. Paid tests make sense for stores with high daily revenue, frequent theme changes or many apps.
When something breaks
- Check shopifystatus.com. If Checkout or Storefront shows an incident, it is Shopify’s side; wait for updates.
- If Shopify is fine, think about the last change. The most recent app install, app update or theme edit is the first suspect.
- Switch off the last app’s embed in Online Store > Edit theme > App embeds and test again.
- Publish the previous theme copy if a theme edit caused it.
- Check payments and domain settings if checkout options or the domain are the problem.
- Contact the app developer with the time it started and what you see.
Speed problems are a different job, covered in Shopify speed optimization. Recurring checks belong in a Shopify store maintenance checklist, and protecting your data in Shopify data backup. More in the running a store hub.
Frequently asked questions
Is Shopify ever down? Shopify reports incidents on its status page, shopifystatus.com, per component such as Admin, Checkout, Storefront and Point of Sale. A single store can also break while the platform runs normally, through its own theme, apps, domain or payment settings.
Where do I check Shopify’s status? At shopifystatus.com. It lists each Shopify component with its current status, and you can subscribe to updates there.
How do I know if my checkout is broken? Place a test order through your own checkout regularly and after every app or theme change, and use an uptime check that looks for your checkout button text. Paid store-testing apps can run automated add-to-cart and checkout tests for you.