Skip to content

Shopify Catalog

Shopify Catalog eligibility: all 11 requirements

Published

The verbatim Shopify Catalog requirements

Shopify Catalog eligibility has six store-level gates and five product-level gates. Store: follow the Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy, be on the Starter plan or higher, not be in private mode (password-protected), publish products to the online store / Hydrogen / Headless, use the correct route format or external product URL where required, and keep the Shopify account in good standing. Product: has a title, at least one product image, a price over $0, a published identifiable URL, and is not Unlisted or hidden from search engines. Sensitive content, such as mature content, is excluded on top. All eleven must pass; missing any one disqualifies that product.

The requirements come from Shopify's Catalog requirements page1. Shopify lists ten bullets plus a separate section on account standing and history. We regroup them into eleven checks: plan and private mode as two gates, title and image as two, the Hydrogen and Agentic-plan rules as one, account standing as one, and the sensitive-content rule as a separate exclusion. Hydrogen and Headless storefronts qualify but require the correct route format. Agentic-plan stores that haven't published a Shopify online store have an extra gate: external product URL on every product3.

There is no shipping-country gate. Earlier versions of Shopify's page required stores to ship to the United States or Canada, and this guide listed that gate until 16 September 2026. The current page has no country requirement. Country rules now sit with the individual AI channels: ChatGPT, for example, requires that your store "must sell to customers in the United States," though the store can be based anywhere6.

The six store-level gates

The store-level gates apply to every product in the store. If the store fails one, every product fails Catalog. Most stores pass these in setup; the two gates that catch live stores are private mode (a development setting forgotten in production) and account standing (a new store with no sales history, unverified identity, or unpaid Shopify invoices).

  • Terms of Service + Acceptable Use Policy. The store must follow both. Stores selling categories Shopify explicitly disallows (mature content, certain regulated goods) fail this gate at the store level, not the product level.
  • Starter plan or higher. The Catalog requirements page1 calls this out directly — free trial and downgraded stores don't qualify.
  • Not in private mode. Shopify now calls the storefront password "private mode" (Online Store > Preferences > Store access). A store in private mode isn't eligible. The one exception: an Agentic-plan store that hasn't published its online store to a paid plan can still reach Catalog through agentic storefronts1.
  • Account in good standing. Shopify's page has a separate section, "Eligibility requirements related to account standing and history", which says standing "is based on a number of factors, and is reviewed over time"1. The steps it lists: verify your email address, turn on two-step authentication, set up a passkey if available, and complete identity and business verification when prompted. Then build a record: genuine sales to real customers, orders fulfilled promptly and accurately, a low chargeback rate, Shopify invoices paid on time, Shopify Payments in good standing, and no open policy or compliance issues. Shopify publishes no thresholds for any of these.
  • Products published to the online store, Hydrogen, or Headless channels. A product published only to the Shop channel or a custom Sales Channel app fails this gate.
  • Hydrogen / Headless requires correct route format; Agentic plan requires external product URL. Two technical sub-gates on the same line.

The five product-level gates

The product-level gates apply per product. A store can have 90% of products eligible and 10% disqualified; the AI channels read only the eligible 90%. The most common single failure: missing or empty product title on an imported product. The second most common: a price of $0.00 on a free promotional product.

  • Has a title. Non-empty product title.
  • At least one product image. Imported products without images fail this gate.
  • Price over $0. Free products are explicitly excluded.
  • Published with an identifiable product URL. Draft or archived products fail this gate.
  • Not set to Unlisted status, not hidden from search engines. Per Shopify's hide-a-page doc5, Unlisted products are 'hidden from internet search, Shopify Catalog, and your store's sitemap.' Products with the seo.hidden metafield set to 1 are excluded too.

The sensitive-content clause — "Your products can't contain sensitive content, such as mature content" — sits in the product list but applies to the whole Catalog (Shopify can pull the entire store if a meaningful portion violates Acceptable Use Policy). The catalog-not-eligible diagnostic walks the failure modes.

Edge cases

Three edge cases catch otherwise-eligible stores. New stores whose products pass every check but whose account is still being reviewed. B2B-only stores that hide pricing behind authentication. Stores where the Online Store sales channel is disabled in favor of Headless without the corresponding correct route format.

The account-standing gate is the one merchants can't see. Shopify's page doesn't quote the admin message, but it does say eligibility "is reviewed over time" and that a store which meets the requirements later "becomes eligible for Shopify Catalog"1. That fits a store whose products pass every check above and still shows as being reviewed for Catalog eligibility. Shopify gives no timeline. Work through the verification steps and keep taking genuine orders; there is nothing to toggle. The same section warns that a store "may lose Shopify Catalog eligibility if you no longer meet the requirements", so chargebacks and unpaid invoices can take an established store out too.

The eligibility checklist

Walk these in order on every store you operate. Most stores pass; the ones that don't typically fail on private mode, account standing, or product status. Eleven checks total — five minutes per store, except account standing, which only time and clean trading fix.

  1. Plan is Starter or higher (Settings > Plan).
  2. Private mode is off (Online Store > Preferences > Store access).
  3. Account is verified: email confirmed, two-step authentication on, passkey set up if offered, identity and business verification completed if Shopify has asked for it.
  4. Account is in good standing: Shopify invoices paid, chargeback rate low, Shopify Payments in good standing, no open policy or compliance issues.
  5. Products are published to Online Store / Hydrogen / Headless (per product, Sales channels panel).
  6. Each product has a non-empty title.
  7. Each product has at least one image.
  8. Each product has a price > $0.
  9. Each product is set to Active, not Draft or Archived.
  10. No product is set to Unlisted status (the Status field on the product page).
  11. No product has the seo.hidden metafield set to 1.

Keep reading