How to Use Shopify Sidekick: Complete Step-by-Step Beginner Guide
Shopify Sidekick is the free AI assistant built directly into your Shopify admin. Weekly active shops using Sidekick grew 385% year over year, and merchants built over 12,000 custom apps with it in a single quarter (Q1 2026). This complete beginner guide walks you through everything Sidekick can do in 2026 — analytics, admin automation, content generation, Shopify Flow workflows, and custom app building — plus a practical 5-day plan to get real value from it in your first week.
What You'll Learn:
- What Shopify Sidekick is and how it differs from Shopify Magic
- Pricing, availability, and plan-specific limitations
- The 6 core capabilities Sidekick offers in 2026
- A tested 5-day plan to get value from Sidekick starting today
- Where Sidekick falls short and how to fill the gaps
What Is Shopify Sidekick?
Sidekick is an AI-enabled commerce assistant, powered by Shopify Magic, that lives inside the Shopify admin. You open it from the purple glasses icon in the top navigation bar, the dedicated Sidekick page, or the Shopify mobile app. It is trained on Shopify's official documentation and connected to your store's data, so it can answer both "how do I" questions and "how is my store doing" questions in the same conversation.
Two design decisions make Sidekick safe to use on live stores. First, Sidekick never changes your store without your approval — it prepares every action and you review it before anything saves. Second, it respects staff permissions: each team member can only do through Sidekick what their admin role already allows.
Approval Model Protects Your Store
The biggest blocker to using AI on a live store is fear of breaking something. Sidekick's approve-before-save model removes most of that risk. Every form it fills, every action it takes — you review and approve before anything is saved.
Pricing and Availability
Sidekick is included free with every Shopify plan — no separate subscription, no hidden fees. There is one caveat: features and usage limits vary by plan. The clearest example is custom app generation, which requires the Grow, Advanced, or Plus plan and has hourly and weekly generation quotas.
Sidekick works in all 20 Shopify admin languages, by text or voice, on desktop, mobile, and even Apple Watch. A screen-sharing mode (early access, desktop) lets Sidekick see your screen and guide you step by step through any task.
| Plan | Sidekick Access | App Generation | Flow Automation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter / Basic | Full access | Not available | Available |
| Grow | Full access | Quota-limited | Available |
| Advanced | Full access | Higher quotas | Available |
| Plus | Full access | Highest quotas | Available |
What Shopify Sidekick Can Do in 2026
Sidekick started as a simple question-answering chatbot. By mid-2026 it covers six distinct jobs that span analytics, admin, content, automation, and app building.
Analytics & Reports
Writes ShopifyQL queries and builds charts. Covers payments, web performance, fulfillment, and payout data. Ask "Give me a weekly performance summary" and get a structured answer in seconds.
Admin Actions
Fills forms to create products, discounts, customers, companies, and marketing campaigns. Pre-fills everything — you review and approve before saving. Saves 5-15 minutes per task.
Content & Image Generation
Drafts product descriptions, blog posts, and emails. Generates up to 5 AI images per prompt. Useful for getting past blank-page syndrome on new product listings.
Flow Automations
Builds Shopify Flow workflows from a plain-English description. Example: "Tag every order over $200 as VIP." Sidekick creates the trigger, condition, and action automatically.
Custom App Generation
Builds small custom admin apps (Grow plan and above, quota-limited). Ask Sidekick to "Build an app that checks returns eligibility" and it generates the app for immediate use.
Proactive Insights (Pulse)
Sidekick Pulse (December 2025) analyzes your store in the background and surfaces recommendations automatically. No prompting required — it proactively flags issues and opportunities.
Two quality-of-life features round out the experience. Saved prompts let you save recurring requests like a weekly report and rerun them with a single shortcut. Memory allows Sidekick to remember context from your conversations and personalize answers over time. For longer tasks it keeps working in the background and notifies you when results are ready.
How to Get Value From Sidekick in Your First Week
Based on real testing with a live store, here is a proven 5-day plan to get immediate value from Sidekick. Each step builds on the previous one, starting with analytics and ending with page-level execution.
Day 1 — Ask for a Performance Baseline
Open Sidekick from the purple glasses icon in your admin. Type: "Give me a weekly performance summary." Sidekick will query sales, orders, and session data and return a structured diagnosis — not a generic dashboard. Save this as a saved prompt and rerun it every Monday to track trends over time.
Day 2 — Offload One Admin Task
Pick one repetitive admin chore and let Sidekick handle it. Try: "Create a 15% discount code for this weekend." Sidekick pre-fills the discount form with your specifications. Review the details, make any tweaks, and approve. You just saved 5-10 minutes on a task you do weekly.
Day 3 — Diagnose a Problem Metric
Look at the numbers from your Day 1 summary. Pick one metric that underperforms — conversion rate, bounce rate, or add-to-cart rate. Ask: "Why is my conversion rate low?" Sidekick will follow the data trail, flag correlated issues, and suggest where to investigate. This replaces 30 minutes of manual analytics digging.
Day 4 — Automate One Workflow
Describe a manual process you repeat regularly and let Sidekick build the automation. Try: "Email me when inventory drops below 5." Sidekick creates a Shopify Flow trigger (inventory level), condition (below threshold), and action (send email). Review, activate, and that task is now fully automated.
Day 5 — Act on Sidekick's Diagnosis
Sidekick tells you what is underperforming — now fix it. If it flagged a product page with a 0% add-to-cart rate or a landing page with high bounce, use a page builder like PageFly to run an AI Page Checkup on that page, get specific conversion blockers, and rebuild using AI-generated sections. Sidekick spots the problem; your page builder fixes it.
Shopify Sidekick vs Shopify Magic
This distinction confuses many merchants. Shopify Magic is the umbrella name for all AI features embedded across Shopify — the sparkle icons that generate product descriptions, edit images, or suggest email subject lines inline. Shopify Sidekick is the conversational assistant powered by Shopify Magic. Magic is the toolbox; Sidekick is the assistant that picks the right tools, combines them with your store data, and executes multi-step requests. Both are free and you do not choose between them — Sidekick simply gives you a conversational interface to access Magic's capabilities at scale.
Where Shopify Sidekick Falls Short
An honest evaluation of Sidekick needs to acknowledge its current limitations. Understanding these gaps helps you set realistic expectations and plan your workflow accordingly.
Key Limitations to Know
Sidekick stays inside Shopify — it cannot act on your external CRM, ad platforms, or email tools. It diagnoses pages but does not redesign them. It is not customer-facing and cannot replace your page builder. Third-party app integration remains in developer preview as of mid-2026.
Specific gaps to be aware of: quota and plan gates apply to heavier features like app generation. Accuracy still needs human review — some merchants report imprecise answers on complex tasks, which is exactly why the approve-before-save model exists. Treat Sidekick's output as a fast first draft, not a final answer. For page-level fixes, you need a dedicated page building tool to act on Sidekick's diagnoses.
Where PageFly Fits: Acting on Sidekick's Diagnosis
Sidekick tells you what is underperforming but does not rebuild the page. This is where a dedicated page builder picks up the workflow. PageFly, used by over 230,000 Shopify merchants, turns Sidekick's diagnoses into concrete page improvements through AI Page Checkup for conversion blocker identification, Smart Pages for AI-generated page structures, Section Generator for targeted section improvements, and A/B Testing with Dashboard Analytics to validate every change before rolling it out.
The two tools are complementary by design: Shopify's AI watches the store and finds the problems; your page builder's AI fixes the pages and measures the improvement.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Shopify Sidekick?
Shopify Sidekick is the free AI assistant built into the Shopify admin. Powered by Shopify Magic, it answers questions about your store data, fills in admin forms, builds automations and custom apps, and never makes changes without your approval.
Is Shopify Sidekick free?
Yes — Sidekick is included with every Shopify plan at no extra cost. Features and usage limits vary by plan. Generating custom apps requires the Grow plan or above and has hourly and weekly quotas.
What is the difference between Shopify Sidekick and Shopify Magic?
Shopify Magic is the umbrella suite of AI features embedded across Shopify. Sidekick is the conversational assistant powered by Magic that combines those tools with your store data to execute multi-step requests.
Can Shopify Sidekick redesign my product pages?
No — Sidekick diagnoses underperforming pages but does not rebuild layouts. Merchants pair it with a page builder like PageFly, whose AI Page Checkup and Smart Pages handle the page-fixing side of the workflow.
How accurate is Shopify Sidekick?
Sidekick produces accurate results for standard analytics queries and admin tasks. For complex or nuanced requests, treat its output as a fast first draft and always review before approving. The approve-before-save model is designed specifically for this reason.
Need Help Getting the Most Out of Shopify?
Our AI and ecommerce experts can help you set up Shopify Sidekick, build custom automations, and fix the pages Sidekick flags as underperforming. Get a free consultation tailored to your store.
About the author
Founder & Odoo Practice Lead, Braincuber Technologies
Founder of Braincuber. Has scoped and shipped 500+ Odoo implementations for US mid-market and global brands. Takes every founder call personally — no SDR layer between buyers and the people building the system.