Lovable Shopify Integration: How Store Setup and Billing Work

Lovable connects to Shopify in two ways: it can create a brand-new Shopify store for you or plug into a store you already run. Either way, Shopify keeps the products, orders, inventory, checkout and shipping, while Lovable writes the storefront your customers actually see ^[1]. Lovable's docs attach no plan gate to the integration itself. The money arrives on two separate bills. A new store is a free Shopify sandbox until you claim it, and the claim starts Shopify's own 120-day free trial, after which Shopify charges for a paid Shopify plan. On the Lovable side you pay in credits for the building, and a custom domain needs at least Pro with 100 credits at $25 per month billed monthly or $21 per month billed annually, per workspace.

Two doors in: a sandbox store or the shop you already run

Starting from nothing, you ask Lovable for a store and it creates a Shopify development store: a sandbox that costs nothing on the Shopify side and cannot process real payments. Lovable detects your country and sets the new store's currency from it. You can also begin from one of Lovable's Shopify template projects, remixed into your workspace, though the mock products in it must be replaced with your own. All the building, previewing and refining happens against that sandbox until you decide the shop is ready to open.

Opening it means claiming the store. The claim migrates the store into your own Shopify account, makes you its owner and starts a separate 120-day free Shopify trial; when that ends, Shopify requires a paid Shopify plan to keep selling, billed by Shopify and unrelated to Lovable's pricing. Shopify also asks you to complete its identity checks (KYC) and activate payments in Shopify Admin, which can take some time. Do not leave a sandbox idle. Shopify removes unclaimed development stores after 30 days, and a store past that window can no longer be claimed.

Merchants already selling on Shopify take the other door. You sign in with a Shopify account that has access to the store, choose the store from a list and install the Lovable app in Shopify. This route is newer than the integration: at its October 2025 launch, only new stores were supported. Lovable's docs do not say which Shopify plan an existing store needs. Check your subscription with Shopify first. Your catalog and order history stay in Shopify, and Lovable builds a custom storefront on top of them.

Splitting the work between Lovable and Shopify

The integration draws a firm line. Shopify remains the system of record for products, orders, inventory and customers, all managed in the Shopify dashboard, and it handles payments and logistics once the store is live. Lovable generates the storefront from your description, covering product pages, navigation, branding, layout and the route into checkout. Because the visible store is ordinary Lovable code, you change it like any other Lovable app: by prompting the agent, or by editing the code yourself on a paid plan. Each agent request spends credits on the work done.

Catalog chores can run through the chat as well. Lovable can create, update and delete products, set prices, build collections, and add discount codes, reviews on verified purchases and wishlists. Bulk jobs move in batches of up to 20 products for creating or updating and 50 for deleting; you approve each batch once, Lovable processes it in order and reports any item that failed. Deletions are permanent. A loose prompt about clearing old stock can remove products you meant to keep. Read each batch first.

Who can change the store

The integration is switched on by default in every workspace, with its permission preference set to ask each time. Before a new store is claimed, every collaborator on the project has full read and write access to it. After the claim, or on a connected existing store, each collaborator links their own Shopify account and can change only what their Shopify role allows. Shopify sessions last up to 24 hours before Lovable asks you to reconnect, and teammates with no Shopify account at all can still work on the storefront.

One restriction matters if you reuse work across shops. A project with an active Shopify connection cannot be remixed, so a finished storefront cannot be cloned into a fresh project while it stays linked. Disconnecting lifts the block and leaves the Shopify store and its data intact. Our integrations guide explains how this connection sits alongside Lovable's other connectors, Git sync and the MCP server, if your shop also needs email, CRM or analytics hooks.

The web address, the badge and the Lovable bill

After a claim, Shopify assigns the store a permanent backend domain, but that is not where shoppers go. The real store address is the published Lovable app: either its free lovable.app subdomain or a custom domain. Publishing to lovable.app works on every plan, Free included. A custom domain requires a paid plan, starting with Pro with 100 credits at $25 per month billed monthly or $21 per month billed annually, per workspace with unlimited users ^[2].

For a shop, that upgrade is close to mandatory. Lovable owns lovable.app and can reclaim a subdomain, generally with seven days' notice, and it advises a custom domain for mission-critical apps. You can buy a domain inside Lovable through Stripe checkout, and Lovable connects the root and www addresses with DNS and a free SSL certificate set up for you ^[3]. Paid plans also hide the Edit with Lovable badge, which otherwise appears on the published storefront.

Over a year, by our arithmetic, Pro with 100 credits comes to $300 billed monthly, or one $250 charge billed annually, since the annual price equals ten monthly payments. Shopify's own plan comes on top once its trial ends. Credits are the unpredictable part. Every message is billed on the work done, failed or unwanted attempts included, and a published app's hosting, backend and AI features draw on the same workspace balance, so visitors spend the owner's credits. At zero credits the published storefront stays up, but AI features fail and a built-in backend pauses until you add credits and wake it up. Our pricing breakdown covers the credit menu and rollover windows.

When Stripe or Paddle beats a Shopify store

Shopify is the route Lovable points to for physical products. For digital goods and software, such as SaaS subscriptions, memberships, downloads and API plans, Lovable's built-in payments fit better: Lovable creates and manages a Stripe or Paddle account for the project, with no API keys to handle, covering subscriptions and one-time purchases. Built-in payments need Pro or higher. On Free, the alternative is pasting your own Stripe restricted or secret key. Physical goods can go through Stripe too, but you would then run inventory and shipping yourself, the very work Shopify already does.

Lovable adds no fee on top of either provider ^[4]. Stripe charges its standard pay-as-you-go rates. Paddle through Lovable costs 5.0% plus $0.50 per transaction with no monthly fee, or a flat 10% on transactions under $10, and it acts as merchant of record, handling tax, invoices and receipts. Stripe's checkout is embedded and cannot be customized through Lovable, while Paddle offers overlay or inline checkout.

Each project runs one built-in provider at a time, and switching between Stripe and Paddle migrates no products, prices or subscriptions. As with Shopify, a project with payments enabled cannot be remixed. Going live has its own checks: claiming the Stripe account Lovable created, or for Paddle a readiness review of your policies, identity verification and a domain review, with most sellers approved within a day, though it can take several days. Other commerce systems connect differently. Since June 2026, WooCommerce, PrestaShop and Wix have app connectors, and the Mollie connector sends customers to Mollie's hosted checkout.

How Replit and Base44 handle online stores

Replit offers a close parallel. Its Shopify connection is open to all builders and provisions a Replit-owned development store that is password-protected and cannot take real payments until it goes live. Buyers pay on Shopify's hosted checkout, and claiming the store, choosing a Shopify plan and switching on payments all happen at Shopify, with a free trial starting at the claim. Replit scopes each Shopify store to a single app. For a buyer weighing Lovable, the Shopify half of the bill works in a similar way on either builder, though Replit's pages give no length for that trial.

Base44 takes a different route. Instead of a Shopify storefront, it puts payments inside the app through Base44 Payments, powered by Wix, or through Stripe, both from its Builder plan upward and both covering one-time and recurring charges. Base44 credits and Lovable credits are different units, so compare the two only on plan prices with the same billing term. Our Base44 review sets out its plans and gates in detail.

The bottom line

Lovable is a sound way to give a Shopify catalog a custom, code-based storefront while Shopify keeps checkout, orders and stock. Use the new-store path to experiment in a free sandbox, but claim it within 30 days and budget for a paid Shopify plan once the 120-day trial ends. Pay Lovable for Pro when the shop needs its own domain and no badge, and watch the credit balance as the storefront changes. If you sell software, memberships or downloads rather than boxes, skip Shopify and use built-in Stripe or Paddle payments on Pro or higher, or your own Stripe key on Free.