Shopify Themes Statistics
Why tracking Shopify theme statistics matters: The choice of theme impacts a store’s user experience, conversion rate, and SEO. A poorly optimized theme can slash conversion rates by up to 50% and spike bounce rates.
Conversely, faster themes yield higher sales, pages loading in 1 second convert 2.5x more than those taking 5 seconds.
Developers can spot market gaps (e.g. demand for headless or industry-specific themes) and build better products. In short, data-driven theme selection and optimization can directly improve revenue and customer satisfaction.
Shopify offers an official Theme Store with hundreds of free and paid templates, plus thousands more from third-party providers. Themes range from minimalist default layouts to feature-rich premium designs.
Each theme controls the storefront’s look and feel, layout, style, navigation, and built-in features (like product galleries or countdown timers).
Modern themes are all mobile-responsive and many support Online Store 2.0, Shopify’s new framework for flexible content sections.
Shopify Theme Ecosystem
Total Number of Available Shopify Themes
| Category | Number of Themes | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Total themes on Shopify Theme Store | 268 | Includes both free and paid themes (curated and Shopify-reviewed) |
| Free themes (official) | 23 | Developed and maintained by Shopify |
| Paid themes (official) | 245 | Created by third-party partners; curated by Shopify |
| Third-party themes (ThemeForest) | 1,500+ | External templates not listed on Shopify’s official store |
| Other external themes | Numerous | Available via agencies and independent developers (e.g., Debutify, Shoptimized) |
As of mid-2025, the official Shopify Theme Store lists 268 themes in total. This includes 23 free themes developed by Shopify and 245 paid themes from third-party partners. The theme catalog has grown substantially from around 100 themes a few years ago.
In addition to the official marketplace, there are many more themes on third-party sites. ThemeForest alone offers over 1,500 Shopify templates, and numerous agencies sell themes independently. This expansive ecosystem means merchants have no shortage of design choices.
Free vs. Paid Themes
Shopify’s free themes are popular for new and budget-conscious merchants. Currently 12–23 free themes are available (Shopify had 12 free themes in early 2024, and has since added more). Free themes provide solid basic features and are maintained by Shopify, for example, “Dawn” is a free theme now used by hundreds of thousands of stores (more on that later).
Paid themes, on the other hand, are created by third-party designers and typically offer more advanced styles and niche features. There are ~245 paid themes on the official store. Premium theme prices range from about $120 up to $400 USD for a one-time license fee.
Most professional themes cost $200–$350 each, though a few high-end ones (like Prestige or Impulse) are priced at $400. This is a one-time purchase, no recurring fees for using a theme. Paid themes come with dedicated support and often unique layouts, animations, or conversion-boosting elements not found in free themes.
Shopify Theme Store vs. Third-party Providers
The Shopify Theme Store is a curated marketplace where every theme is reviewed for quality, speed, accessibility, and multi-language support.
As of 2025 it offers “more than 220” mobile-responsive, ecommerce-optimized themes according to Shopify’s own blog (the exact count now being 268 as noted).
The Theme Store is convenient, themes can be tried and installed in one click and will receive updates through Shopify. However, the selection is intentionally limited (Shopify has strict acceptance criteria; e.g. at one point only ~80 partner themes were listed due to quality standards).
Many merchants therefore explore third-party theme providers: marketplaces like ThemeForest, TemplateMonster, or individual developers’ sites. These external sources vastly expand the choices (1500+ templates on ThemeForest, plus popular independent themes like Debutify or Shoptimized).
The trade-off is that off-store themes require manual installation and updates, and support depends on the seller. Still, some third-party themes have become best-sellers, for instance, “Ella” (a ThemeForest theme) has over 28,300 sales to date.
Most Popular Shopify Themes
Which themes are merchants actually using? Here we look at the most widely used Shopify themes across all stores, and then break down popularity by industry and other segments. We’ll also note trends over time, and identify the top free vs. paid themes.
Top Used Themes Across all Shopify Stores
| Rank | Theme Name | Developer | Type | % of Stores | Estimated Store Count |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Trademark | Maestrooo | Paid (Popular) | 23.1% | ~605,000 |
| 2 | Dawn | Shopify | Free (Default) | 8.8% | ~229,000 |
| 3 | Debut | Shopify | Free (Legacy) | 5.4% | ~141,000 |
| 4 | Rise | Unknown | Likely Paid | ~4.8% | Not specified |
| 5 | Impulse | Archetype Themes | Paid | ~2.0% | ~54,000 |
| 6 | Spotlight | Shopify | Free | 2–5% (est.) | Not specified |
| 7 | Refresh | Shopify | Free | 2–5% (est.) | Not specified |
| 8 | Origin | Shopify | Free | 2–5% (est.) | Not specified |
| 9 | Ella (ThemeForest) | Halothemes | Paid (3rd party) | N/A | 28,000+ sales |
Recent data shows a single theme family dominating the market: the Trademark theme. As of 2025, 23.1% of all Shopify stores use the “trademark” theme, making it by far the most popular (this theme is developed by Maestrooo, a Shopify Partner, and is especially popular among larger brands and Plus stores).
In distant second is Shopify’s own default Dawn theme, used by about 8.8% of stores. Third is the older Debut theme (Shopify’s pre-2021 default) at 5.4%.
These three themes alone power well over one-third of all Shopify sites. The Trademark theme’s lead is striking, over 605,000 stores run on Trademark storeleads.app, which reflects its strong adoption especially by professional and Plus merchants (as we’ll see below).
Dawn (the default free theme introduced with Online Store 2.0) has around 229,000 stores, a testament to how many new Shopify entrepreneurs stick with the default or switch to Shopify’s free options.
Debut, the deprecated default theme from the pre-OS 2.0 era, still has ~141,000 stores on it (likely stores that launched before 2021 and haven’t redesigned). However, Debut’s share is shrinking as merchants migrate to modern themes like Dawn or others.
Beyond, other popular themes globally include Rise (~4.8% of stores), Spotlight, Refresh, Origin, and Impulse (the top-selling paid theme on the official store) each with 2–5% share.
Notably, Impulse, often cited as the most popular paid theme is used by ~54,000 stores (roughly 2% share). In Shopify’s Theme Store, Impulse is indeed the #1 paid theme by popularity, while Dawn is the #1 free theme.
Most Downloaded Free Themes
Within the free theme collection, Dawn is the clear leader (as mentioned). Other free themes released by Shopify have also climbed the charts.
According to Shopify’s own stats, after Dawn the next most popular free themes are Craft, Refresh, Sense, Ride, Studio, Taste, Crave, and Colorblock, all of which are Shopify’s modern free themes for various industries (these 8 were all launched around 2021–2022).
In Shopify’s Theme Store popularity ranking, those free themes occupy most top slots (positions #1–#9) with Impulse being the only paid theme breaking into the top 10.
This suggests that many merchants experiment with Shopify’s diverse free themes (which cover fashion, food, home, etc.), and some later upgrade to premium if needed.
Best-Selling Premium Themes
On the official store, Impulse has been a consistent best-seller (ranked in the top 10 popular themes and boasting 1,100+ reviews with a 95% rating).
Prestige (a luxury theme) is another top premium choice, especially for high-end apparel brands, it’s priced at $400 and highly rated.
Outside the official store, as noted, Ella on ThemeForest is a top seller (28k sales), and other ThemeForest hits include Wokiee, Fastor, etc., each with thousands of sales.
Additionally, community-favorite themes like Debutify (often used by dropshippers) claim huge user bases, Debutify’s site boasts “378,000+ ecommerce brands” have used it (though this likely counts cumulative downloads).
Performance Metrics by Theme
Design is only half the story, a theme’s performance (speed, stability, mobile-friendliness, SEO) is critical. Here we examine how top themes stack up on Core Web Vitals (Google’s key speed/usability metrics), SEO capabilities, and mobile performance.
We’ll highlight which themes are optimized for technical excellence and which may lag, using real data.
Core Web Vitals (CWV): Load time, Interactivity, Visual stability
Shopify’s engineering team aggregates real-user performance data for themes, measuring the percentage of stores hitting “good” CWV thresholds. According to the latest data (Dec 2024), most Shopify themes achieve high CWV pass rates when up-to-date:
- The median Shopify theme had about 93.9% of stores pass Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), meaning fast loading, and 97.0% pass Interaction to Next Paint (INP, responsiveness). Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS, visual stability) had a median ~93.3% pass rate. In other words, a typical theme provides a good experience for the majority of its users.
- However, there is a wide gap between the best and worst performers. The best theme saw ~100% of its stores passing each vital, whereas the worst theme had only ~62.5% passing LCP and 26.9% passing all vitals. Table 2 shows the range:
This tells us that choosing a well-optimized theme can mean ~90% of your visitors get a fast, stable experience, whereas a poorly optimized theme could drop that below 50%.
For example, Shopify’s data shows many modern OS 2.0 themes like Dawn, Impulse, Prestige score around 85–90%+ overall CWV pass rates, whereas some older or heavier themes (e.g. ones with lots of scripts) fare much worse (one theme “Monaco” had only ~44.7% of stores passing all CWVs, indicating performance issues).
The Dawn theme itself achieves ~86.7% of stores passing all vitals (which is above average), while Impulse theme is around 89.3%, both are strong performers.
Meanwhile, a theme like Responsive (an older theme) has only ~68.2% stores passing all CWVs, and Retina theme only ~65.7%, possibly because they are more “feature-heavy” out of the box.
SEO Performance of Top Themes
A theme can indirectly affect SEO via its code quality, structured data, mobile friendliness, and speed (since Google uses CWV for ranking signals).
Top-tier themes typically advertise “SEO optimized” code. For instance, themes by Shopify (Dawn, etc.) come with built-in structured data for products, open graph tags, etc., which help SEO. Many premium themes also include schema markup and clean HTML by default.
One concrete measure is page speed, which we covered. Another is whether the theme supports SEO best practices out of the box:
- Clean code & minification: Many themes now ship with minified CSS/JS and only load what’s needed. (E.g. in our speed audit, Trademark theme did have minified assets but still had a large Speed Index ~6.6s, possibly due to heavier content.)
- Rich snippet support: Some themes explicitly support rich snippets for reviews, FAQs, etc. For example, the Enterprise theme highlights “expanded rich snippet support” to improve SEO.
- Meta tag customization: All OS 2.0 themes allow customizing title/description easily. Some themes might allow per-template meta tweaks.
- Mobile-first design: Since Google mobile-indexes first, a mobile-optimized theme (which all official ones are) is vital. We’ll discuss mobile in the next subsection, but note that themes that are fully responsive and fast on mobile contribute to better SEO rankings (Google has stated mobile speed and usability are key ranking factors).
The Shoptimized theme markets itself on conversion and SEO, it’s known for features like urgency timers but also claims to be built for fast load and good search performance instant.so.
Another example: Out of the Sandbox’s themes (Turbo, Flex) are known to be robust and SEO-friendly, offering things like lazy loading, deferred scripts, and preloaded LCP images, all technical boosts for SEO.
Mobile Responsiveness and Page Speed
As mobile traffic dominates, themes must be mobile-optimized. By the numbers, 66% of Shopify orders now come from mobile devices (2023 data), and over 60% of e-commerce searches happen on mobile.
Therefore, Shopify has made all official themes “responsive”, meaning the layout automatically adapts to different screen sizes. Many older themes were responsive too, but newer ones are designed mobile-first (starting with a mobile layout and scaling up).
Theme Usage by Store Size and Type
Different types of businesses gravitate toward different theme solutions.
Here we analyze how small businesses vs. large enterprises (Shopify Plus) choose themes, the preferences of dropshipping stores vs. DTC (direct-to-consumer) brands, and which themes tend to yield high conversion for certain models or niches.
Small Businesses / New Merchants
They often start with free or inexpensive themes. The zero cost of Shopify’s free themes (Dawn, Debut, etc.) is attractive when budget is limited.
Indeed, a huge portion of stores with low revenue stick to the default theme or other free options. For example, across all Shopify stores (the majority of which are SMBs), Dawn is the second most-used theme (8.8%).
Small merchants value ease-of-use and low cost, so they choose themes that “just work” out-of-the-box. They may also pick popular freemium themes like Debutify (which offers a free version with upsells).
Debutify is heavily marketed to new dropshippers and boasts that over 378,000 brands have used it, which indicates its popularity among small sellers. The key features appealing to SMBs are one-click setup, included basic features (so they don’t need many apps), and a broad appeal design (rather than something highly specific).
Enterprise (Shopify Plus) Stores
Larger, more established brands on Shopify Plus are more likely to invest in premium or custom themes to stand out and meet complex needs.
Data confirms that: among Shopify Plus stores, the top themes are Trademark, Dawn, and Impulse, but with a twist. Trademark is used by 9.0% of Plus stores (the #1 theme), Dawn by 7.9%, Impulse by 3.5%. This is similar to the overall ranking, but notice how Trademark’s share on Plus (9%) is much higher relative to its share among all stores (it leads there too at 23% because it’s popular beyond Plus as well).
Essentially, Shopify Plus merchants disproportionately use premium themes like Trademark and Prestige. They also are more open to custom themes: some enterprise clients hire developers to build a completely unique theme. While still a small minority overall, adoption of custom themes is rising, in 2020 only ~1.35% of top Shopify sites used custom themes, increasing to 1.53% in 2024.
Many of those are likely Plus stores with the budget for custom development. (Still, even in 2024, over 98% of stores use pre-built themes, showing custom builds are rare.)
Shopify Plus stores also use a variety of advanced partner themes, for example, the Prestige theme (tailored for high-end fashion) is used by 1,388 Plus stores in the data (~3.2%), and others like Impact, Focal, etc. appear in the Plus top 10.
Dropshipping vs. DTC brand Theme Choices
Dropshipping stores (which often rely on impulse buys and rapid store setup) have formed their own theme preferences. They typically seek high-converting, marketing-focused themes. Two names often come up: Debutify and Shoptimized. Debutify provides many conversion add-ons (like urgency banners, sales pop-ups) out-of-the-box, appealing to drop shippers who want those without installing dozens of apps.
As noted, Debutify’s usage has skyrocketed (hundreds of thousands of users according to the company), reflecting its popularity in the dropshipping community. Shoptimized is another theme built specifically for maximizing conversions, it includes countdown timers, stock counters, and other FOMO tactics known to boost sales.
DTC (direct-to-consumer) brands tend to prioritize branding and storytelling in their themes. These are merchants building a long-term brand (e.g. a niche apparel line or artisanal product) rather than quick-turn products.
DTC brands often choose premium, design-forward themes or even custom designs to stand out. They might opt for themes like Prestige, Warehouse, Pacific, Motion, etc., which offer editorial content sections, lookbooks, or elegant product displays. For example, a high-end watch brand on Shopify might use Prestige for its sleek typography and homepage video capabilities.
One statistic to illustrate the gap: In the top Shopify Plus stores list (which includes many DTC brands), only ~1.5% use the Debut theme, whereas among all Shopify stores (including many dropshippers) Debut’s share was 5.4%.
Conversely, Trademark and custom themes are far more prevalent in the Plus/DTC realm than among general dropshipper-run stores.
Custom vs Prebuilt Themes
With thousands of pre-made Shopify themes available, one might ask: how many merchants opt for a completely custom-designed theme instead? Here we explore the prevalence of custom themes versus prebuilt, and the pros/cons of each approach.
Percentage of stores using custom-designed themes: The vast majority of Shopify stores use off-the-shelf themes (often with minor custom tweaks). Fully custom themes, i.e. a unique theme built from scratch or heavily modified by developers are relatively rare.
According to BuiltWith/Uptek data, only around 1.5% of Shopify sites run custom themes. Specifically, among the top 1 million Shopify sites, 1.35% used custom themes in 2020, rising to 1.53% in 2024.
This small increase suggests more large brands are investing in custom builds, but even in 2024 roughly 98.5% of stores still rely on standard themes.
On Shopify Plus (enterprise tier), custom usage is a bit higher but still limited, for example, the Store Leads report showed “Unknown” theme on ~608 Plus stores (which could indicate custom or unrecognized themes), that’s only a few percent of all Plus stores.
Why so few custom? Because building a theme from scratch is resource-intensive, it requires a skilled development team and significant time, which only larger businesses can justify.
Also, Shopify’s theme ecosystem is robust enough that many brands find a near-fit and customize it rather than start anew. However, as brands mature, some do transition to custom for complete control.
Feature Comparison Across Popular Themes
Shopify themes are not just different looks, they offer various built-in features that can aid marketing, conversion, and store management.
We’ll compare popular themes based on key features: marketing/conversion tools, Shopify 2.0 compatibility, product display capabilities, customization flexibility, and support for accessibility/localization.
Built-in marketing and conversion features: One reason merchants opt for certain themes is the suite of conversion-boosting elements included out-of-the-box. For instance:
- The Debutify theme (popular with dropshippers) comes preloaded with things like add-to-cart animations, urgency banners (“Only X left in stock”), sales pop notifications, and more. These can increase conversions by creating urgency and social proof without needing separate apps.
- Shoptimized theme (third-party) is renowned for its conversion features: it prominently features stock countdowns (“Hurry, 3 left!”), countdown timers for sales, trust badges, etc.. According to its marketing, stores using Shoptimized often see improved conversion rates due to these tactics.
- On the official Theme Store, many premium themes like Impulse, Turbo, Booster emphasize their built-in marketing sections. For example, Impulse has promotional banner sections, custom promotion “tiles” on collection pages, and a quick-buy feature. These encourage customers to engage with sales and add products faster, improving conversion funnel.
- Empire theme (designed for large catalogs) includes a robust mega-menu with images and product badges (e.g. “Sale” or “New” labels), features that help merchandising at scale and highlight deals.
- Themes by Conversion Bear (e.g. Funnel-ish) come with embedded funnels and upsell widgets.
In general, free Shopify themes have the basics (announcement bar, product recommendations, blog, etc.), while paid themes often bundle more advanced marketing tools. However, Shopify has been adding more features to free themes over time (like cart upsell options in the theme editor).
Still, if you want a one-stop solution, a theme known for conversion might save you installing 5 apps. The trade-off is sometimes these can marginally impact speed (though a good theme will implement them efficiently).
When comparing theme features: make a checklist of your must-haves (e.g., “I need a mega menu, product filtering, and EU translations”) and cross-reference with theme documentation. Many sources, including Shopify’s own theme store allow filtering by features (as shown by filters for swatches, countdown timer, etc. in the theme store UI).
Shopify’s filter counts indicate, for example, 178 themes have a countdown timer feature built-in, 233 support quick view, 227 have a stock counter, etc. So there’s likely a theme out there matching any desired feature list. It’s all about finding it, which these stats help with.
Geographic and Regional Theme Trends
Shopify is a global platform, and theme usage sometimes reflects regional preferences or requirements. Here we’ll discuss how theme choices vary by region, how themes support localization, and any notable trends in certain countries or markets.
The data from Store Leads “Top themes” globally doesn’t break down by region, but if we had country-specific data: For example, perhaps in India the Dawn theme might have an even higher share (since it’s free and many Indian SMBs might stick to free). Or in Germany, perhaps Impulse and Prestige have higher shares because German Shopify agencies often recommend those for their quality (this is speculative).
One concrete regional stat: .com domains vs local TLDs, 67.4% of Shopify stores use .com, but countries like Australia see .com.au at 1:1 with .com for local stores.
That suggests Australian merchants serve local market. Do they pick different themes? Possibly not significantly, though a local dev like Out of the Sandbox had an Aussie following early on.
Localization support in themes: As touched on, a major regional factor is language. Shopify stores operate in 175 countries, so themes must handle various languages and writing systems.
Many themes boast being “translation-ready”, meaning all text strings in the theme can be translated via Shopify’s Translate & Adapt app or manually. For example, Dawn includes translations for 19 languages. If a theme didn’t include a certain language, you could still translate it, but having pre-made translations is a plus.
The filters from Shopify Theme Store are telling:
- 230 themes support EU languages (EN, FR, IT, DE, ES) built-in.
- This implies those themes likely have locale files for those languages. This covers a lot of Europe and the Americas.
- 76 themes support Right-to-Left, critical for Arabic, Hebrew, Persian.
- Also, many themes likely support Chinese and Japanese. (Shopify generally ensures their free themes have Chinese translations since .myshopify.com admin is available in those languages.)
Currency formatting and metric/imperial units can be region-specific. Good themes ensure prices show in the proper format when currency is switched (like using commas vs periods, etc., which Shopify’s money filters handle). Some themes might allow switching units (rare, usually that’s manual).
Conclusion
The world of Shopify themes is rich with options, and the statistics reveal clear patterns to inform our choices. Shopify offers over 250 themes on its official store (with 23 free and ~245 paid), and many more externally.
Yet, usage is concentrated: a handful of themes dominate the market. The “Trademark” theme leads globally (used by ~23% of stores) storeleads.app, with Shopify’s own “Dawn” and the legacy “Debut” also powering a large chunk. Popular free themes like Dawn have become ubiquitous for new and small merchants, while premium themes like Impulse and Prestige are go-to choices for growing brands.
Tracking theme statistics provides concrete insights: for example, knowing that nearly 924,000 live stores use Dawn underscores its reliability and performance, a reassuring fact for anyone considering it.
Likewise, seeing that custom themes are used by under 2% of stores tells most merchants that a well-chosen prebuilt theme can carry them to success without custom development. We also saw that mobile matters immensely, with ~66% of orders on mobile, themes must be responsive and fast.
Core Web Vitals data shows top themes enable ~85–90% of their stores to meet Google’s standards, whereas poorly optimized ones can drag that down, a reminder to pick a theme with performance pedigree.
For store owners and developers, the key takeaways are: use data to drive your theme decisions. We encourage you to review the stats we’ve cited:
- Shopify theme ecosystem: If budget is a concern, note there are 23 free themes (and they are quite capable). If considering a paid theme, know the average cost is $200–$350 and up to $400 for top-tier, plan that into your ROI calculations.
- Popularity & industry trends: Check what your industry peers use (as we outlined for fashion, sports, etc.). A theme’s popularity in your niche often signals it has the needed features.
- Performance metrics: Don’t ignore speed and CWV stats. We’ve shown how faster themes correlate with higher conversions. When in doubt, lean toward the leaner theme.
- Growth and scalability: If you aim to scale to Plus, consider starting with a theme Plus stores favor (Trademark, Impulse, etc.) so you won’t need a radical change later. The data on Plus theme usage can guide ambitious brands.
The best theme is one that balances aesthetic appeal with solid data-backed performance for your specific context. Use the statistics as a compass: they can point you to themes that are proven winners (either by widespread adoption or by technical merit). Avoid choices that data flags as risky (e.g., an outdated theme with no OS 2.0 support or one known to be slow).