E-commerce
March 25, 2026
You are a Shopify Partner: an agency, studio, or freelancer, and you help brands move to Shopify, Shopify Plus, or POS. Between an initial LinkedIn contact and a signed deal, there are often weeks of qualification, documents, and follow-ups. Without a framework, opportunities are lost, duplicates with the Shopify sales team complicate matters, and you no longer know which deals deserve your energy. This guide helps you structure your referral and lead pipeline: alignment with the official documentation, real statuses in the dashboard, and best practices for co-selling properly. For program context, also see our overview of the Shopify Partner program and our strategies for accelerating the sales cycle on the partner side.
Summary
Partner pipeline: definition and scope
In this text, the pipeline refers to the set of merchant contacts that you identify, qualify, and move forward to a concrete action: submission of a Plus or POS lead in the Partner Dashboard, store transfer, or other paid activity according to the Shopify Partner compensation terms (English page, official reference for amounts and dates). It is not a single tool called “pipeline” in the admin: it is your method for aligning outreach, submissions, and follow-up with what Shopify exposes in Sales (Leads, Referrals).
Three useful ideas from the start:
Separate intent from a deal-ready file: an executive interested in a conference is not yet a submitted lead.
Track the source: event, customer referral, website, to measure what really feeds your funnel.
Align with internal teams: who approves the submission, who follows up with the assigned Shopify representative.
What the Shopify documentation says (leads and earnings)
The page Managing your leads and referrals (Help Center, English) states that Partners can earn money by referring merchants to Shopify, Shopify Plus, and Shopify POS, submit Shopify POS and Shopify Plus leads, and review history in the Sales section of the Partner Dashboard. This is the factual basis for the rest of the article: we align with status labels and admin workflows, not forum rumors.
« From the Leads page, you can track the status of your submitted leads, sort, filter and search for leads, and find the contact information of the Shopify sales representative assigned to your lead. »
For commission payments related to assisted sales Plus or Enterprise referrals, the detailed terms (including changes as of July 1, 2025 for certain contract scenarios) are listed in the Sales Plus or Enterprise Referral Terms section. In practice, your role is to review these tables before promising an amount to your team: amounts, currencies, and dates may change; only the official page is authoritative.
Theme | Where to check | Use for your pipeline |
|---|---|---|
Lead submission and tracking | Managing your leads and referrals | Statuses, Plus upgrade invitation, contact for assigned representative |
Commissions, promotions, taxes | Shopify Partner earnings | Plus, POS, apps, themes, active promotions |
Overall contractual framework | Shopify Partner Program Agreement | Eligibility rules, conduct, responsibilities |
Journey in the Partner Dashboard: POS and More
According to the documentation, submissions go through Sales > Leads in the Partner Dashboard (a working link of the type partners.shopify.com to the Leads page). You can submit a POS lead or submit a Plus lead, with fields required at the time of submission and a confirmation email after sending. For a Plus lead corresponding to a store already on Shopify, a section Send an upgrade invitation may appear if the merchant is eligible for an immediate upgrade: you can customize a message; the owner receives an email with a link to the terms; Plus tools are available within a timeframe indicated by Shopify after acceptance.
If the merchant is new to Shopify or not ready to upgrade right away, the documentation indicates that the lead will be qualified by a Shopify sales representative, who may contact you again for details. Anticipate this scenario in your pipeline: prepare a short brief (context, challenges, timeline) to respond quickly, which supports timely qualification.
Lead statuses: reading the table correctly
The Help Center presents a status table for Shopify Plus and Shopify POS. The labels may differ slightly depending on the lead type; the key is to understand where the case stands and who needs to act.
Status (doc. reference) | General idea on the Plus side | Key point for your team |
|---|---|---|
Submitted | Lead received; if you requested sales support, the team reviews the case. | Check messages and the assigned representative; provide additional information if requested. |
In progress | Ongoing exchanges with Sales when co-selling is active. | Keep a regular cadence of check-ins with the merchant and Shopify. |
Awarded | Compensation or commission according to the terms applicable to the lead type. | Document internally for billing and performance review. |
Ineligible | No commission for this lead under the rules. | Analyze the reason (duplicate, criterion, exclusion) to adjust future qualification. |
These labels replace approximate wording such as “assigned” if it does not match the interface: if in doubt, open the lead details in the table to see the chronology and the representative contact, as described in the doc.
“Net new” and exclusions: where a partner is eligible
The Sales Plus or Enterprise Referral Terms section of the help center sets strict conditions: form submitted by the Partner, accurate data for the merchant and the Partner, and a merchant who was not already in contact with Shopify sales before submission. Forms also expire if the lead is not qualified within a certain timeframe (the documentation mentions 90 days for qualification of referral forms: beyond that, resubmission may be required to keep eligibility, according to the displayed terms).
The listed exclusions deserve a column in your internal table: talking about Plus without creating a referral, submitting a lead already in the sales pipeline, co-selling efforts without an initial introduction, closing a deal without introducing the merchant, upgrades, development without referral, extension stores, etc. The full list appears in the official terms: use it as a checklist before every “warm” meeting with a prospect.
Example of an internal control table (to adapt)
Question | If no: risk |
|---|---|
Was the merchant already in contact with Shopify Sales before submission? | Possible exclusion under the Plus terms. |
Is the submission complete and accurate? | Delay or ineligibility. |
Is the file within qualification deadlines? | Form expiration; resubmission. |
Qualify before submitting: practical checklist
Qualification is not a vanity exercise: it avoids back-and-forth with the Shopify representative and protects your credibility. Without setting an arbitrary revenue threshold here (commercial criteria evolve), focus on observable elements: catalogue complexity, sales channels, legal or geographic constraints, need for integrations, maturity of the e-commerce team, migration or launch timeline. For Shopify Plus positioning, rely on the official Shopify Plus overview and public resources rather than thresholds circulating on social media.
Map the decision-maker: finance, ops, IT, marketing; who signs and who operates.
Clarify the scope: re-platforming, new channel, international, B2B, POS retail.
List the dependencies: ERP, PIM, logistics, payments, compliance (GDPR, cookies, card data).
Set a dated next step: technical workshop, call with Shopify, proof of concept.
Prepare the form: consistency of names, professional emails, store URL.
On the POS side, the promotions and bonuses described in how-to-earn have their own rules (volumes, durations, eligible countries). If you mix Plus and POS in your sales pitch, separate the two threads in your CRM to avoid cross-promises.
Co-sell with the Shopify sales team
When you request a sales support, the documentation indicates that the sales team can actively co-sell the referral with you when the status reflects this dynamic. Your value: merchant context, relationship history, technical framing of integrations. Shopify’s value: contract process, offer eligibility, alignment with internal teams. Internally, formalize who prepares the call agenda and who tracks action items.
Partner program resources (training, events, documentation) complement this setup: they do not replace reading the compensation terms, but help your sales team speak the same language as Shopify teams.
Internal framework: CRM, follow-ups, and prioritization
Even without an expensive tool, a shared spreadsheet with columns Step, Next action, Date, Owner, Lead type (Plus / POS), Partner Dashboard link, and Legal notes (prospect's consent to be introduced) improves conversion. Usability heuristics and best practices for information presentation (see in particular Nielsen Norman Group) remind us to limit unnecessary columns and keep an 'action' view by priority: Shopify's own documentation itself stresses sorting, filters, and search in the leads list.
Review cadence: weekly for hot cases, monthly for nurturing.
Response rule: handle requests from the assigned representative within 48 hours when a lead is in progress.
Archiving: note why a record was marked Ineligible so as not to repeat the mistake.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
Quick list
Submitting too early : no budget or timeline, no internal sponsor.
Ignoring exclusions : lead already in the Shopify pipeline, or co-selling without an initial introduction.
Spreading the information around : emails in a personal inbox instead of a shared folder.
Confusing upgrade invitation and complex sale : the “upgrade invitation” journey described by Shopify is a specific flow when the merchant is already on Shopify and eligible.
For app and theme developers, also refer to our App Store publishing guide and the Built for Shopify criteria: the product pipeline is different from the Plus pipeline, but the documentation standards are the same.
After the signature: launch, apps and market value
Once the lead is advanced, your role often remains central in implementation: design, data, training, SEO. To help the merchant convert traffic and reduce support load, suggest concrete solutions: an e-commerce chatbot like Qstomy can answer recurring questions about shipping, returns, or products, as a complement to the measured journey in your campaigns. This is not a requirement of the Partner program: it is added value that you can offer in your service packages. Learn more: AI chatbot integration on Shopify and e-commerce chatbot: automation and support.
Indicators and review: stay honest with the numbers
The Partners program is not a race for percentages displayed on social media: the only contractual figures that bind Shopify are those published in the help center and the program agreement. For your internal management, you can track qualitative and process metrics: average delay between first merchant contact and form submission, rate of "complete" files before sending, number of follow-ups required before qualification, merchant satisfaction after going live (short questionnaire). These indicators help you train juniors and justify CRM tools without promising an average revenue per lead, which Shopify does not guarantee in a single formula.
A monthly review as a team may be enough at the start: 30 minutes, three columns on the whiteboard (new cases, blocked cases, lessons from Ineligible statuses), then one single action per person for the following month. As you scale, separate commercial practices (prospecting, conferences) from project delivery (integration, SEO, maintenance) to avoid the same consultants being overloaded and leaving follow-ups to the Shopify representative to pile up.
Internal documentation and knowledge transfer
Each lead "interesting but premature" deserves a record: sector, current stack, main blocker (budget, timing, technical). That way you build a case library to speed up future interviews. Cross-reference with the guides already published on our blog when the topic goes beyond the pure pipeline: Partner ecosystem lever, program benefits, or social channels if your acquisition mixes social selling and formal referrals. The goal is a coherent narrative thread for the merchant, from the first LinkedIn post to the Partner Dashboard form.
Brief template: maximum one page per opportunity, sections aligned with the form fields.
Versioning: date and author on each update for files that drag on for several months.
Compliance: do not promise commission amounts to your end client; refer to the public terms on the merchant side if necessary.
Summary
Maximizing your success as a Shopify Partner in the pipeline dimension means: (1) using Sales > Leads and the referral history as described in the Help Center; (2) reading the statuses Submitted, In progress, Awarded, Ineligible with the correct sales owner; (3) respecting the Plus / Enterprise terms for net new, exclusions, and timelines; (4) maintaining an internal framework for qualification and follow-ups; (5) grounding your financial claims in the Shopify Partner earnings page rather than rumors. Adjust your reading of the terms each quarter: the official tables may change.
FAQ
Where can I find the Leads page in the Partner Dashboard?
According to the documentation, from the Partner Dashboard: Sales > Leads to submit and track; Sales > Referrals for the history of successful referrals.
Are the statuses identical for Plus and POS?
The Help Center presents a common table with nuances by column: read the line that corresponds to your lead type.
What does the 90-day deadline mentioned for Plus forms mean?
The terms indicate that forms may expire if the lead is not qualified within that time; beyond that, resubmission may be required for eligibility: always check the up-to-date text on the how-to-earn page.
How much do you receive on a Plus sale assisted by sales after July 2025?
The documentation indicates a one-time payment of USD 2,500 for net new sales-assisted contracts signed from the July 1, 2025, according to the listed terms (replacing an older recurring revenue-sharing framework for this scenario). Check the exceptions, currencies, and payout timing on the official page.
What is the “upgrade invitation” for Plus?
For a merchant already on Shopify, if they are eligible, you can send an upgrade invitation with a custom message; the owner receives an email about the terms. This flow is separate from a long deal requiring full sales qualification.
Can a chatbot help my partner business?
It does not change Shopify's rules, but it can improve the satisfaction of the merchants you support after launch: fewer repetitive tickets, better conversion on the client's site.
March 25, 2026
