Shopify plans to cut a key benefit for 16,000 of its highest-paying subscribers, leaked email shows

• About 16,000 Shopify Plus merchants will lose access to the company’s merchant success managers.
• The changes will largely impact smaller merchants making less than $10 million in sales.
• Merchants success managers are a key perk of the Shopify Plus subscription.

Shopify intends to notify approximately 16,000 of its Plus merchants that direct access to merchant success managers, a key benefit of the higher-priced subscription, will be discontinued.

Shopify Plus is the platform for larger, more established brands on Shopify. Subscriptions start at $2,000 per month and include features that merchants on Shopify’s lower-priced plans do not have access to, such as tax services and B2B and wholesale tools. Merchant success managers are Shopify employees who advise Plus merchants on how to launch and manage their online stores. They’re frequently promoted as a feature that can help merchants “get the most value out of Shopify Plus.”

According to an internal email obtained by Insider, Shopify intends to change its model so that Plus merchants with less than $2 million in annual sales will no longer have access to merchant success managers. Instead, those merchants must use Shopify’s help center to contact Support staff.

Subscribers with an annual gross merchandise value of $2 million to $10 million will no longer have an assigned merchant success manager, but they will have access to merchant success teams for specific, escalated situations “such as monetized product adoption and merchants growth scenarios,” according to the email.

“The goal is not to take away from the merchant’s experience, but to transform the Merchant Success craft to make it more efficient, effective, and provide a better merchant experience,” read the email sent to the Plus Support organization by Senior Lead AnnMarie Biss.

The email estimated that approximately 16,000+ merchants would be affected in total. It also warned Support staff that the changes might result in a higher volume of inquiries. The company intends to hire more third-party contractors “to help with the potential increase” and to invest in more resources that merchants can access on demand.

“In true Shopify fashion, we’re venturing into unknown territory!” “We can be confident in our advanced customer care skills and the value we bring to Shopify’s mission,” Biss wrote in an email. “With 16,000 merchants affected by these changes, there is likely to be sentiment or concern shared by our merchants, which may result in higher effort interactions.” Just know that your peers and the leadership team are here to support you as we navigate these changes.

“Everyone, we’re all in this together!”

The changes were supposed to go into effect earlier this month, but they were postponed due to employee concerns about the impact on their work.

A Shopify representative confirmed the changes to Insider.

“Shopify is constantly updating and improving our services, and we’re investing in more self-serve success resources to give merchants the insights they need right away.” “We continue to offer our Plus Support Specialist team as a committed team dedicated to resolving all Shopify Plus related questions for Plus merchants who do not have a Merchant Success team,” they said.

Shopify’s Support organization is undergoing a number of changes as part of a transformation plan known as “Code Yellow.” During a town hall in July, Shopify executives unveiled a road map for the company’s support division that centered on AI.