There are thousands of agencies calling themselves “certified Shopify Plus experts.” There are far fewer that are actually certified. The gap between those two groups is costing founders $50,000 to $200,000 in failed projects, missed timelines, and capabilities that were promised but couldn’t be delivered.
I’m Cesar Beltran, founder and chief technologist at Blackbelt Commerce. We’ve held Shopify Plus Partner status for over a decade. Here’s exactly what the credential means, what it unlocks, and how to verify it in 30 seconds.
The Shopify Partner Tier System Explained
Shopify runs a tiered partner system that most people outside the industry don’t fully understand.
Tier 1 — Shopify Partners (General). Any developer or agency that signs up for Shopify’s partner program and passes basic requirements. They can build and manage standard Shopify stores. There is no enterprise-level requirement.
Tier 2 — Shopify Partners with Plus Access. Partners who have worked on Plus stores but haven’t yet earned the Plus Partner designation. They can be added to a Plus merchant’s account but lack the full credential.
Tier 3 — Shopify Plus Partners (Certified). This is the designation that matters. To reach this tier, Shopify requires a documented track record of enterprise-level Plus builds, compliance with Shopify’s partner standards, dedicated support SLAs, and demonstrated proficiency with Plus-specific features. This tier is listed in the Shopify Partner Directory with a visible badge.
Blackbelt Commerce has been a certified Shopify Plus Partner for 10+ years. When an agency says they’re a “certified Shopify Plus expert” without the Plus Partner badge in the Directory, they’re using the language without the credential.
What a Certified Shopify Plus Expert Can Do That Others Can’t
The certification isn’t ceremonial — it unlocks real technical capabilities that non-certified agencies cannot access.
Checkout Extensibility. When Shopify deprecated checkout.liquid in 2024, only Plus Partners retained the ability to build custom checkout experiences. Checkout Extensibility — the replacement — lets certified experts add upsell blocks, custom fields, conditional logic, and trust signals directly in the checkout flow. Standard developers are locked out entirely.
We cover this in more depth in our Shopify Plus checkout customization guide and the Checkout Extensibility decision framework.
Shopify Flow. Trigger-based automation at the enterprise level: customer tagging, order routing, B2B workflow automation, Klaviyo data enrichment. Flow is a Plus-exclusive feature. Standard agencies recommend third-party app workarounds because they can’t access the native tool.
Launchpad. Scheduled product launches, price changes, and theme publishes — all automated. Used correctly, Launchpad eliminates the need for a developer on call during BFCM drops.
Multi-store via Organization Admin. Expansion into new markets, sub-brands, or international storefronts with unified analytics and shared customer data. Not available on standard Shopify plans.
B2B native. Wholesale pricing, net terms, company accounts, and draft orders — all built into Plus without third-party apps. A major performance and reliability upgrade over the app-based workarounds most stores use.
Custom apps via the Partners API. Building and submitting custom apps to Shopify’s ecosystem requires Plus Partner API access and Shopify’s approval pipeline. This covers ERP integrations, proprietary fulfillment logic, and any custom functionality that lives outside the app store.
How to Verify Shopify Plus Expert Certification in 30 Seconds
This is non-negotiable: verify before you sign anything.
- Go to shopify.com/partners/directory
- Search the agency’s name exactly
- Look for the “Shopify Plus Partner” badge on their listing
Not “Shopify Partner.” Not “Shopify Expert.” The words “Plus Partner” must be present on their verified listing. If they’re not there, the agency is not certified at the Plus level — regardless of what their website says.
This takes 30 seconds. Do it before any other vetting step.
The Shopify Scripts Deprecation — Why Certification Mattered More Than Ever in 2026
Shopify shut down Shopify Scripts on June 30, 2026. Every Plus store using Scripts for discounting, shipping logic, or payment customization had to migrate to Shopify Functions before that date.
Functions are more powerful and more performant than Scripts. But the migration required Plus Partner API access, deep knowledge of the Functions framework, and careful testing to avoid breaking active discount and checkout logic. A non-certified agency couldn’t handle this migration — they lacked both the access and the technical depth.
Blackbelt Commerce completed this migration for multiple clients before the deadline with zero downtime and no broken discount rules. We documented the full process in our Shopify Scripts to Functions migration guide.
This migration was a clean test of who actually has Plus-level expertise. Agencies that cleared it are real. Agencies that couldn’t are not.
Blackbelt Commerce’s Plus Partner History
We’ve held Shopify Plus Partner status for over a decade. In practice, that means:
More than 1,000 completed projects. Enterprise checkouts built with Checkout Extensibility. Migrations from Magento, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce with zero lost SEO rankings. Custom Flow automation deployed across retail, wholesale, and DTC clients. B2B storefronts built natively before most agencies knew the feature existed.
The Plus Partner credential isn’t a badge we earned last year. It’s a track record we’ve maintained through every major platform change Shopify has made — including Scripts deprecation, checkout.liquid removal, and the shift to Checkout Extensibility.
Next step: before you sign with any Shopify Plus agency, run through the 12 questions to ask before hiring Shopify Plus Experts. They’ll tell you everything you need to know about whether an agency is actually qualified.
Or skip straight to the call: book a free 30-minute strategy session with Blackbelt Commerce and we’ll answer all of them live.
