TL;DR
- Shopify's promoted placements program pays AI agent developers a 0.3% (30 bps) base commission on attributed purchases made through its Global Catalog.
- Merchants running Shop Campaigns with external platforms on can fund a higher rate (Shopify's example shows 1.5%), but only for active US campaigns in USD and only when checkout happens in the Shop app or on shop.com.
- Attribution is last non-direct click over 7 days; purchases started via Cart MCP or Checkout MCP are not yet attributed, and altered or masked links disqualify the sale.
- The program is an invite-only Developer Preview from a waitlist, and Shopify tells developers to label promoted results and disclose possible commission where the law requires it.
Shopify now documents a way for AI shopping agents to earn money from the products they recommend. Its "promoted placements" program pays the developer behind an agent a commission on purchases that agent drives through the Shopify Global Catalog: a base rate of 0.3%, plus a higher rate on products whose merchants fund extra commission through Shop Campaigns. The program is a Developer Preview, open by invitation from a waitlist, and Shopify says field names, shapes and behavior are not final.
The details come from Shopify's own developer page, "Earn with promoted placements" on shopify.dev, read on 1 November 2026. It is written for agent builders, but merchants, ecommerce marketers and anyone who reads Shopify traffic in analytics should know how it works, because it changes who gets paid when an AI agent sends a shopper to a store.
What Shopify's promoted placements program is
Shopify's Global Catalog is the product search that AI agents can query to find products to recommend. Promoted placements add an optional paid layer on top. A developer turns the program on for a saved catalog, then passes that catalog's ID, as catalog.catalog_id, in each search_catalog call. Shopify then blends promoted products into the ranked results it returns. Each promoted product carries a placement object that tells the agent it is promoted and how much commission it pays. Products without that object are organic results.
The page says the program uses a developer's existing integration and conforms to the UCP Catalog specification. To take part, a developer needs two things: an existing Global Catalog integration and access to their organization's Dev Dashboard. Joining does not change any existing request. Commission is earned only on requests that include the ID of a saved catalog with the "Earn commission" setting turned on. Shopify's developer changelog announced the Shop Campaigns addition on 27 October 2026 and describes the program as a beta, while the documentation page labels it a Developer Preview.
How the commission works: 0.3% base, more through Shop Campaigns
Shopify pays the commission on the value of attributed purchases. Each promoted product shows one total rate in the field placement.commission.percentage.value. That number is Shopify's base rate plus whatever extra commission the merchant funds through Shop Campaigns, Shopify's paid promotion program.
The base rate is 0.3%, or 30 basis points, on attributed purchases of eligible products. Merchants who run Shop Campaigns with external platforms turned on include the Catalog API as one of those platforms. Shopify converts their campaign settings into a commission and adds it to the base rate, so those products pay more. Shopify's sample response shows a product with a total rate of 1.5%. The placement.type value is always "affiliate", including on products that carry Shop Campaigns commission.
The following table sets out the commission terms Shopify lists for the Developer Preview.
| Term | What Shopify's documentation says |
|---|---|
| Base rate | 0.3% (30 bps) on attributed purchases of eligible products |
| Higher rate | Base rate plus merchant-funded Shop Campaigns commission; active US campaigns in USD only; paid only when the purchase is completed in Shop |
| Order scope | Every eligible item in the attributed order that is in the Global Catalog earns commission, not only the item clicked |
| Attribution | Last non-direct click, 7-day window |
| Status | Invite-led Developer Preview; rates and fields might change before general availability |
Two conditions limit the higher rate. Shop Campaigns commission applies only to products in an active campaign in the US, in USD. And it is paid only when the buyer completes the purchase in Shop, either in the Shop mobile app or on shop.com. If the buyer buys the same product somewhere else, such as the merchant's own online store or an embedded checkout, the purchase earns only the 0.3% base rate, if the product is eligible for it.
Products from merchants outside Shopify, which use gid://catalog/... IDs, are not eligible and never include a placement object. Shopify's explanation is that these products are not sold on Shopify, so they are not part of the program.
Why the links point to shop.com
The shop.com detail matters most for merchants. When a merchant funds extra commission on a product through Shop Campaigns, Shopify's documentation says that product's url and checkout_url point to the product in Shop (shop.com) instead of the merchant's online store. Developers are told to send buyers to those URLs exactly as provided so the purchase is attributed.
Put simply, for products with merchant-funded commission, Shopify itself points the agent's link to shop.com, and the agent must use that link unchanged to be credited. If the buyer completes the purchase anywhere else, such as the merchant's own online store, it earns only the 0.3% base rate, if the product is eligible. Shopify's page does not discuss what the shop.com route means for the merchant's own analytics, email capture or customer data, so that question stays open. A brand weighing whether to turn on external platforms in Shop Campaigns should ask it before switching anything on.
How attribution is tracked
In an authorized response, every variant URL carries two attribution parameters, whether the product is promoted or organic: shclid, which identifies the click, and shcgid, which identifies the developer's catalog for attribution and payout. All variant URLs also carry utm_source=shopify, utm_medium=catalog and a _gsid value that identifies the catalog search that returned the product. Shop app URLs add a utm_campaign value that marks Shop Campaigns commission; Shopify's example uses utm_campaign=sca_1.
Shopify is strict about the links. Commissions are credited only when buyers go through the variant url or checkout_url exactly as provided. Rerouting, masking the link behind the developer's own domain, or altering parameters breaks attribution and disqualifies the conversion.
There is also a gap in the current build. Shopify's Cart MCP and Checkout MCP accept variant IDs that carry the attribution parameters, but they "don't yet carry the attribution through to the order". A purchase made by adding a variant ID to a cart or checkout is not attributed to the developer's catalog. For now, only the URL route pays.
For developers on the draft version of UCP, lookup_catalog and get_product calls can also take catalog.catalog_id, and Shopify adds the same attribution parameters to the URLs and IDs those calls return. Those responses do not include placement objects, so commission rates are visible only through search_catalog.
Sign-up, payouts and what disqualifies a sale
Developers join the waitlist with their organization ID, which appears in the Dev Dashboard URL. Shopify onboards developers from the waitlist in batches. Once onboarded, a "Get paid" action appears on the Catalogs page in the Dev Dashboard; clicking it, reviewing the program terms and choosing "Agree and sign up" enrolls the organization. Saved catalogs created after joining have "Earn commission" on by default. Catalogs created earlier stay off until the developer turns the setting on, and Shopify asks developers to check that the experiences using those catalogs carry the required disclosures first.
A developer who is not enrolled and sends a catalog ID gets organic results back with an "unauthorized" message. If Shopify cannot verify enrollment, the response returns products without attribution and a "failed" message, and the request can be retried.
Payouts run through the same rails as other Shopify Partner payments, via Hyperwallet, on the same monthly schedule and the same minimum payout threshold. A balance below the threshold rolls over to the next period. A purchase becomes a qualified conversion only after Shopify verifies it during a hold period. A conversion can be disqualified and earn nothing for cancellations, returns, refunds, fraudulent or invalid traffic, purchases by the developer or people connected to them, or missing or altered attribution parameters. If an order is later canceled, returned or refunded, the commission is reversed and can reduce a later payout.
Disclosure: Shopify asks agents to label paid results
Because a developer can be paid for referring buyers, Shopify says they have a material connection that must be disclosed where the law requires it, and the disclosure should make the paid relationship clear before buyers act on a promoted result. Shopify's guidance has four points: tell users the agent may earn a commission (its sample wording is "We may earn a commission on purchases."), label promoted placements so users can tell them apart from organic results, do not bury the disclosure in a footer or privacy policy, and do not make false or misleading claims about products, prices, merchants or Shopify.
Shopify names US FTC material-connection requirements and comparable advertising-transparency and sponsored-content rules in the EU, the UK and other jurisdictions. It does not prescribe the exact wording or placement, and tells developers to follow the rules for their audience and check with their own counsel.
What the documentation does not say
Several things a marketer would want to know are absent from the page. It does not say how Shopify decides where promoted products appear in the ranked results, or whether a higher commission moves a product up. It does not say how many promoted products a result set can contain. It names no developers or AI assistants taking part, gives no date for general availability, and does not describe what Shop Campaigns costs a merchant or how campaign settings convert into a commission percentage. Any claim on those points goes beyond what Shopify has published.
What this means for Thai marketers
The direct effect in Thailand is small for now. The higher Shop Campaigns rate applies only to active US campaigns in USD, and the program is an invite-only preview. A Thai shop selling only in baht cannot attach merchant-funded commission through this program today.
Thai brands that sell into the US through Shopify are in a different position. If they run Shop Campaigns with external platforms turned on, their products can be offered to AI agents with a higher commission attached, and those agents will be pointed to shop.com rather than the brand's own store. That trade (higher commission for agents, less traffic through the brand's own checkout) is a decision for the brand and its ecommerce marketing plan, not a default to accept unread.
The broader signal is about how AI shopping agents pick products. If agents read prices and commission data straight from a catalog, then a store's product data feeds directly into whether those agents surface it. For Shopify stores, clean product titles, variants and structured data are part of Shopify SEO already, and the same groundwork supports visibility in AI search and answer engines.
Two practical checks follow. First, look for utm_source=shopify with utm_medium=catalog in analytics to see whether any Global Catalog traffic is already arriving (an inference from the URL parameters Shopify lists, not a Shopify feature; visits sent to shop.com will not appear in a store's own analytics). Second, if Shop Campaigns is in use, review whether external platforms are turned on, since that is the setting Shopify says feeds the Catalog API commission.
Frequently asked questions about Shopify promoted placements
How much does Shopify pay AI agent developers?
Shopify pays a base commission of 0.3% on attributed purchases of eligible products, plus any extra commission a merchant funds through Shop Campaigns. Each promoted product shows the total rate in its placement data; Shopify's example shows 1.5%. The higher rate is paid only when the buyer completes the purchase in the Shop app or on shop.com.
Is the program live in Thailand?
The higher, merchant-funded rate is not available for Thai-currency campaigns, because Shopify limits Shop Campaigns commission to active US campaigns in USD. The documentation does not state any country restriction on which developers can join the waitlist, and access is invite-led during the Developer Preview.
Do merchants have to do anything?
Shopify's page describes no merchant step for the base rate. Extra commission applies when a merchant runs Shop Campaigns with external platforms turned on, which includes the Catalog API, and those products are linked to shop.com, not to the merchant's own store.
Does paying a higher commission improve ranking?
Shopify's documentation does not say. It states that Shopify blends promoted placements into the ranked results for enabled catalogs, but it does not explain how placement is decided or whether commission level affects position.
How long is the attribution window?
Shopify attributes conversions using a last non-direct click method with a 7-day window. Every eligible item in the attributed order earns commission, not only the product the buyer clicked, and purchases started by adding a variant ID through Cart MCP or Checkout MCP are not attributed yet.
The bottom line
Shopify has published working rules for paying AI agents to recommend products: a fixed 0.3% floor, merchant-funded top-ups tied to shop.com checkout, a 7-day last non-direct click window and required disclosure of paid results. It is still a preview, and Shopify warns the details might change. Brands selling into the US on Shopify should check their Shop Campaigns settings and their analytics now. Relevant Audience helps ecommerce brands plan for search and AI-driven discovery; get in touch if you want a second look at how your store shows up.
