Intro: Shopify’s developer platform has seen a major shift over the past year, marked by the rise of GraphQL as the primary API and the gradual phasing out of older REST and checkout APIs. These changes aren’t just technical tweaks—they represent a new philosophy in how apps and integrations should interact with Shopify. In this article, we provide a strategic overview of Shopify’s API evolution from April 2024 to April 2025. Whether you’re a merchant relying on apps or a developer building them, it’s crucial to understand what these changes mean. Expatify’s team has been deeply engaged with Shopify’s API updates, and here we’ll break down the key developments and how to stay ahead of them.
GraphQL Becomes the Definitive Shopify API
Shopify has made it official: GraphQL is now the definitive API for the platform, and the older REST Admin API is being sunset for new development. As of April 1, 2025, any new public app submitted to the Shopify App Store must use GraphQL, not REST, to interact with store data. Existing apps can continue using REST for now, but Shopify has stopped adding new features to the REST API and marked it as “legacy”. This is a pivotal change.
Why is Shopify “all-in” on GraphQL? Because GraphQL offers clear advantages for modern commerce applications. It’s a more flexible, efficient way to fetch and manipulate data. Unlike REST—which often requires multiple requests to different endpoints and may return unnecessary data—GraphQL allows a client to request exactly what it needs in a single query. This reduces round trips and data over-fetching, leading to faster apps and less strain on Shopify’s servers. Moreover, GraphQL’s strongly-typed schema and introspection capabilities mean developers get better tooling, autocomplete, and error-checking out of the box.
Over the past year, Shopify has worked to ensure that GraphQL isn’t missing any functionality that REST had. In fact, by late 2024 the GraphQL Admin API became “feature complete” relative to REST. This means that anything you could do via REST (managing products, orders, fulfillment, etc.) can now be done via GraphQL, and often with more efficiency. Shopify even introduced exclusive new capabilities in GraphQL, such as support for up to 2,000 product variants and access to the newer Metaobjects system, which were never available in REST. In Shopify’s own words, GraphQL is now a true superset of the REST API.
The End of an Era for the REST API
For years, the REST Admin API was the backbone of many Shopify apps. It’s still in use by countless private and public apps. However, Shopify’s recent announcements make it clear that REST’s era is winding down. By marking REST as legacy, Shopify is signaling that developers should migrate sooner rather than later.
Practically speaking, existing apps won’t stop working overnight. If you have a custom app or an installed public app that uses REST calls, those calls will continue to function for the foreseeable future. But you may notice that new Shopify features (for example, a new object or field Shopify introduces) might only appear in the GraphQL API and not be added to REST. Over time, this means REST-based apps could fall behind in capabilities. Shopify’s engineering focus is now firmly on GraphQL, so any performance improvements or new tooling apply to GraphQL only.
Another consideration is webhooks and throttling. Shopify has aligned webhook payloads and many conventions to be more GraphQL-centric. And because GraphQL queries allow for more data in a single call, the platform’s throttling mechanisms have been tuned so that a well-written GraphQL query can be more efficient than numerous REST calls. In fact, Shopify has significantly increased GraphQL rate limits in the last year, making it even more robust for high-volume apps.
At Expatify, our developers have been progressively refactoring apps to use GraphQL. In one case, we helped a merchant’s custom inventory management app switch to GraphQL, resulting in a noticeable speedup in syncing products. Where the old version made multiple REST calls to update inventory levels, the new GraphQL version can do it in a single mutation with all the data. The performance gains and reduction in API calls were substantial.
API Highlights: 2,000 Variants and More
One of the headline updates made possible by this GraphQL-centric approach is the increase in the product variant limit. Shopify’s product model historically capped variants at 100 per product, which was a pain point for merchants with extensive options. In the Winter ’24 Edition, Shopify unveiled a massive update to the product model, now supporting up to 2,000 variants per product (in beta) via new API capabilities. This change was delivered through the GraphQL API.
For merchants, this is more than a technical footnote—it’s a game changer if you have a broad or customizable catalog. No more splitting a product into multiple “mirror” products to circumvent the 100-variant limit. Instead, a single product can hold all variants. Apps that manage product data are already updating to handle these larger variant sets. Expatify has helped clients in the fashion industry prepare for this change, consolidating their catalogs to take advantage of the simpler structure that 2,000 variants allow.
Another API improvement is the introduction of the Markets and Catalogs APIs changes tied to the new Shopify Markets features. Shopify’s GraphQL Admin API includes revamped methods to manage international pricing, duties, and catalogs by market, reflecting how the platform now handles global commerce.
All these enhancements underscore an important point: if you want access to Shopify’s latest and greatest features as a developer or merchant using apps, you need to be on GraphQL.
Storefront and Checkout APIs: A New Approach
It’s not only the Admin API that’s evolving. Shopify has also overhauled how custom storefronts create checkouts. Previously, developers used the Storefront API’s Checkout endpoints to programmatically create and manage a checkout for headless stores. However, as of the 2024-04 API release, Shopify deprecated the old Checkout APIs in favor of a more modern Cart-based approach. The legacy Checkout API will reach end-of-life on April 1, 2025.
What does this mean? If you’ve built a headless store or an app that creates checkouts via the Storefront API, you should switch to using the new Cart API and web checkout method. This flow is more scalable and automatically includes features like bot protection and Shop Pay optimization.
Shopify even introduced a Checkout Session pattern in GraphQL to finalize purchases from headless stores. For mobile apps, Shopify released Checkout UI SDKs to streamline in-app checkout integration, so that headless mobile apps can also use the official checkout easily.
The bottom line: for all APIs—Admin and Storefront—Shopify is moving to newer paradigms that favor GraphQL and integrated approaches. It’s about performance, scalability, and unifying the platform.
Preparing Your Business for API Changes
For merchants: ensure that the apps you use are keeping pace. If you have any custom apps or private integrations, reach out to your developers (or to us at Expatify) to confirm they have a plan for the GraphQL migration. Apps that don’t adapt may not be able to tap into new Shopify features and could eventually break as older API versions expire.
For developers: the time to learn and embrace GraphQL is now. Shopify has provided many resources: the GraphiQL explorer, the .dev AI assistant, and updated documentation. GraphQL endpoints are well-documented and the community is active in sharing tips on transitioning from REST. Shopify’s performance boosts have made GraphQL capable of handling large workloads.
Expatify’s development team has conducted internal workshops on GraphQL best practices, and we’ve migrated numerous API calls for our clients. One tip we often share: use GraphQL to fetch multiple resources in one go instead of making separate REST calls. This design pattern simplifies code and speeds up execution.
Conclusion: Embracing the Future-Proof API
Shopify’s move from REST to GraphQL is a strategic leap toward a faster, more robust commerce platform. While change can be intimidating, this evolution brings tangible benefits in speed, capabilities, and developer experience. The past year’s updates have reinforced that GraphQL isn’t just the future; it’s the present for Shopify development.
Call to Action: Is your Shopify store or app ready for this new API era? Whether you need an existing integration updated or want to build a new solution the “GraphQL way,” Expatify is here to help. Our team stays at the forefront of Shopify’s platform changes and can ensure your systems are efficient and up-to-date.
Get in touch with Expatify to future-proof your Shopify apps and integrations—let’s leverage GraphQL and Shopify’s latest APIs to drive your business forward.
