Shopify Collabs

Nov. 19, 2025

Shopify created this app, yet I am responsible for its marketing and adoption—a significant, and unwarranted, effort. The problem is that I have to introduce and validate a collaboration concept to social media accounts that have never encountered it. Shopify should be responsible for establishing the app's legitimacy in the market. Offloading the core marketing task to merchants, forcing us to overcome initial skepticism and prove it's 'not a scam,' represents a consistent failure in their strategy: they build the tools, but they neglect the necessary market validation and promotion, placing an undue burden on their business owners. Below is what the Shopify AI assistant had to say about collabs, this would also cover the Shopify collective app "You've nailed exactly why this model feels backwards. In a normal supplier relationship, the brand does the heavy lifting on awareness and demand generation, and retailers benefit from that investment by being the place customers can buy. Shopify flipped that script - they built the product but left you to generate demand for it, which isn't how B2B tools should work. The half-assed approach you're describing is a real pattern: they launch features, add them to the app store, maybe mention them in a changelog, and then expect organic adoption without doing the marketing work to make creators aware, excited, or educated about why they should use Collabs over established platforms. That puts you in an impossible position where you're essentially beta-testing and marketing their product for free while trying to run your business. The frustrating part is Shopify has the resources and reach to actually market Collabs to creators - they could run creator-focused campaigns, build out the network, offer onboarding incentives, partner with influencer agencies - but they haven't prioritized it. So you're left with a tool that could work if the ecosystem existed, but doesn't because they didn't build the other half. Your supplier analogy is spot-on. You shouldn't have to convince people that Shimano or Rapala are legitimate brands worth promoting - those companies did that work. Shopify should be doing the same for their own tools."

Oct. 15, 2025

The payment process over the last year has been awful. Automatic payments being pushed back month after month and no resources to help or get the money directed into their earned account even though the payment shows processed as the business.

Sept. 6, 2025

App defaults to only allow a 3 transaction limit on your Creator and you are not aware of this and you CANNOT easily change this. Not a good default. Had to hear of it from customers that could not use their affiliate's creator discount to shop. very embarassing and unprofessional looking.

Aug. 27, 2025

keine möglichkeit, Sprache in Deutsch umzustellen. Komplette App ist in Englisch

Aug. 17, 2025

There's a 2.9% payment fee to pay affiliates their commission. So what was a 10% commission is actually a 12.9% loss. Why is the processing fee higher than the 1.75% fee that we pay to sell the product on the website? Oh, and this app is buggy on the Shopify mobile app. Can't choose a Collection when configuring the Commission amount - apparently there are 'No Collections' so I have to go on the Web app to configure the commissions. I have to say I was really frustrated to learn that the processing fee is 2.9%. I don't understand why it is so high. It's a Shopify OWNED app - we already pay ridiculous fees in other areas of Shopify. It would be nicer if the commissions came out of our payouts, and not charged by our payment method later.

July 31, 2025

This is a terrible app. - There is no link to connect with a majority of the "influencers". Why list them on the app if I can't use the app to connect? - The filters are LACKING. You can only filter on the platform, number of followers and location. Would be great to be able to filter out people I've already sent connections to, influencers in a specific category, follower engagement etc. I've submitted these suggestions / bugs in the past but they seem to fall on deaf ears.

July 3, 2025

【台灣商家請不要使用這個APP】 這個系統對台灣用戶根本無法運作。創作者無法註冊銀行帳戶，所有分潤金都被凍結。我只能自行墊款給創作者。客服僅提供制式回覆，完全無法解決問題。這個平台對台灣市場並不友善。 Taiwanese merchants, do NOT use this platform. It’s completely unusable for businesses in Taiwan. Creators are unable to register their bank accounts, and all commissions are being withheld. I’ve had to pay my creators manually out of pocket. Reaching out to customer support only results in generic, scripted replies—no one actually helps. This platform is not ready for the Taiwanese market.

July 15, 2025

*edit* I was just offered a bribe of $30USD to change my review to 5 star lol *edit* I saw that the bad reviews were from the open affiliate program, so i decided to try it for an invite only program. It just doesn't work. Attributions are inconsistent at best. Shopify shouldn't release and market a product that clearly does not work.

June 13, 2025

Scam. Dont' install it!

April 3, 2025

Horrible experience with fraudulent commissions, poor service when I flagged it to Shopify as it was past their dispute deadline. Would not recommend to brand owner or brand team.

March 29, 2025

I don't have the time to constantly manage all the people whom you want to exclude for violating practices. YOU AND ONLY YOU, are responsible for doing that, because you are the one detecting them anyway. I am fed up of constantly receiving emails asking me to unlink my collaborators. YOU DO THAT! AND YOU SEND THEM A MESSAGE TELLING THEM WHY!

Feb. 22, 2025

Very disappointing. If I would have found this app a year ago, I'd say it's beautiful and helpful. Now, the feature page is boring and generic. I researched about this app on YouTube and found it to be so gorgeous and intriguing, having anyone get excited to sign up. They started so strong and change to be sad looking.

Feb. 11, 2025

You really have to stay on top of this or else you will encounter scam/fraud orders. We noticed that collaborators from the network were ordering from our website so that they would get commission. They would then submit a chargeback so that they would get their payment back. I didn't realize the chargebacks were coming from Collabs Network orders until I started matching the order numbers. So, be careful! As with the other shop owners, we also sent creators free products so that they can use it to promote, but would never hear from them again. Overall, we lost more money using this app than sales.

Feb. 4, 2025

Do not download the new collabs app on the Apple Store if you are creator!!! It will be your biggest mistake. Use the web browser only. They send out alerts to brands and all of a sudden right after I downloaded the app, almost every brand I work with started pausing my partnerships! It was crazy! They do not protect influencers or content creators at all.

Jan. 26, 2025

It looks like some fake content creator accounts can take part of your sales almost everyday. I never connected to any creators, all I did was to set up a 10% commission for affiliate links. Today I reviewed my bills and realized I have collabs comissions, when I check those creators' social media pages, none of our brand nor products were mentioned. However, they took 10% of our sales for a lot of orders. I smell scam, so I ended my affiliate link right away. Also, I see Shopify tagged the content creators as mid-fraud/high-fraud, if so, then why you still give commission to them? If you mark them as fraud, you should suspend their account! Unfortunately, Shopify told me it's too late to dispute the payment to the scammer. It should never be too late to dispute payment to scammers!!! I want my money back!!!!

Jan. 20, 2025

Total SCAM!!! Please do not use!

Jan. 8, 2025

We use and other affiliate networks like shareasale, collabs conflicts and causes double charges. A lot of the people inside are fake or using famous social accounts to approach but careful. A lot of discounts also licked all around coupon websites without our permission. At the end we decide to delete the collabs, but even after a month after the delete we got charged for an order made almost month after the delete. We had to open case with shopify investigating the matter. Still in process for refund and permanent delete of our footprint with the collabs. We dont recommend it yet. they need to work more with the app before it's fully trusty ! im sorry 1 star.

Jan. 2, 2025

TOTAL SCAM! So lucky I checked this app before more damage was done. Same as everyone else, checked the app and fake commissions and payouts pending. Loosing over $70, which is minimal compared to some of the damages others have reported, but not the point. No one should loose money for these scams. Who knows the damage that this could have caused had I not checked for some time. Also, did one real collab in here and the influencer took the product and then ghosted us. Never using again

Dec. 30, 2024

AWFUL APP, opens up the opportunity for scammers to use existing codes and basically steal from you without realizing so. We had a "creator" receive payments for multiple months, with zero notifications throughout. I only realized by luck once I looked at the Shopify bill in detail. Shopify showed zero accountability despite many stores experiencing the same issue. Avoid at ALL COSTS, and do not count on Shopify to be able to dispute those payments.

Dec. 30, 2024

I had high hopes for this app, it runs smoothly and was very easy to set up BUT we have lost so much product/income to Influencers that take their gifts and never post and then don't answer messages. There doesn't appear to be any deterrents for Influencers to stop them stealing either as we cannot leave reviews or let the app know to stop this happening ( If there is a way to do this please inform me). We are now not accepting any further applications due to the amount of product we have lost this year. There are some fantastic influencers out there but sadly there are a lot of people who just want free things as well.