You’ve got your products ready and you’re excited to launch but, then you hit the theme selection page and freeze. 😅
Sound familiar? With hundreds of options staring back at you, it’s easy to get stuck in analysis paralysis.
Your Shopify theme is like picking out the perfect storefront for your brick-and-mortar shop. It controls how your website looks, how customers navigate, and what special features your shop has. Just like a real store, the way your online shop looks and feels can make a huge difference in whether people stay, browse, and buy or not.
To help you decide, I’m breaking down the 10 most popular Shopify themes. We’ll talk about what each one is best for, what cool features it has, and what it costs so you can pick the right one for YOUR stop. Let’s get started!
#1 DAWN
Dawn is Shopify’s most popular free theme and is designed to be modern, and fast. It focuses on big, beautiful images to showcase your products.
Type: Free (Official Shopify Theme, Developed by Shopify)
Best for:
- Perfect for those just starting out, as it’s easy to set up and use.
- Great if your products look amazing in photos (e.g., clothing, art, home decor).
- Works well for stores that have a small to medium size product inventory.
Key Features:
- Puts your product photos and videos front and center.
- Has advanced customization options. Even though it’s free, it offers good flexibility to change colors, fonts, and layouts without needing code.
- Predictive search: As customers type, it suggests products to help them find things faster.
# 2 KALLES
Kalles is like the Swiss Army knife of Shopify themes—it comes packed with tons of different styles and layouts, making it work for pretty much any type of store.
Type: Premium (Third-party theme, Developed by The4)
Price: $89 USD
Best for:
- Great for any industry: Fashion, electronics, furniture, pets, you name it.
- Plenty of advanced options without having installing a bunch of apps.
- Growth-focused businesses: It’s built for speed and conversions.
Key Features:
- 60+ demos: Choose from a huge variety of starting looks to save you design time.
- Advanced product filtering and sorting: Helps customers easily narrow down choices in large catalogs.
- Includes a mega menu. Mega menus are the large, organized drop-down menus for easy navigation.
- Fast loading speeds: Optimized to keep your site quick.
#3 PIPELINE
Pipeline offers a clean, minimalist, and modern design with a popular “parallax scrolling” effect feature where background images move at a different speed than the foreground content creating a cool 3D illusion.
Type: Premium (Official Shopify Theme, Developed by Groupthought)
Price: $360 USD
Best for:
- Great for telling a story with high-quality images, perfect for lifestyle brands.
- Fashion, apparel, home goods: Where visual presentation is key.
- Stores who want a sleek, editorial look.
Key Features:
- Built to scale: Adds a dynamic, modern feel to your homepage.
- Multi-column menu: Helps organize content neatly.
- 40+ sections: Give you a ton of customization with over 40 sections to choice from.
- Product filtering: Improves product discovery with swatch filters and enhanced search.
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#4 EMPIRE
Empire is inspired by the layouts of large marketplaces like Amazon, making it super efficient for stores with a huge number of products. It’s built to handle big inventories smoothly.
Type: Premium (Official Shopify Theme, Developed by Pixel Union)
Price: $340 USD
Best for:
- Large catalogs/high-volume stores: If you have many products (e.g., electronics, auto parts, extensive apparel lines) then this is a great option.
- Businesses needing powerful merchandising tools: Helps you display and organize many items.
- Stores who want an intuitive, Amazon-like shopping experience.
Key Features:
- Includes advanced product filtering. Essential for large stores, allowing customers to filter by many different options.
- Predictive search: Quickly guides customers to what they’re looking for.
- Quick shop/quick buy: This allows customers to add to cart or view details without leaving the collection page.
- Customizable promotion tiles: Great for highlighting sales or new arrivals.
#5 IMPULSE
Impulse is a highly popular theme known for its clean, dynamic design and robust marketing and conversion features.
Type: Premium (Official Shopify Theme, Developed by Archetype Themes)
Price: $400 USD
Best for:
- High-volume stores: Designed to handle lots of transactions and traffic.
- Brands with dynamic promotions: If you frequently run sales or new product launches.
- Visual storytelling: Great for showcasing products with images and videos.
Key Features:
- Promotional banners & tiles which makes it easy to highlight sales, offers, or important info.
- Product tabs: Organize product descriptions neatly (e.g., description, specs, reviews).
- Mega menu & enhanced search: For smooth navigation.
- Age verifier & stock counter: Useful for specific product types or creating urgency.
#6 BOOSTER
Booster is all about one thing: turning visitors into buyers. It’s packed with built-in marketing tools that would normally cost you extra in separate apps.
Type: Premium (Third-party theme, Developed by Booster)
Price: $197 USD
Best for:
- Dropshippers: Often favored for its marketing features that help drive quick sales.
- New entrepreneurs: Provides many features out-of-the-box, reducing the need for multiple apps.
- Anyone focused on boosting sales.
Key Features:
- 60+ Presets: Select a starting design based on your niche and launch your store faster.
- Built-in upsell features encourage customers to “buy more” and cross-sell features which inform customers of items “often purchased with”.
- Countdown timers: Creates urgency for sales or limited-time offers.
- Currency converter: Automatically shows prices in the customer’s local currency.
- Optimized for speed and mobile devices: This is crucial for conversions.
#7 Palo Alto
Palo Alto is a visually rich theme that excels at editorial content and storytelling. It helps brands present their products in a sophisticated way, with a clean, modern aesthetic.
Type: Premium (Official Shopify Theme, Developed by Presidio)
Price: $390 USD
Best for:
- Brands with a strong story: Great for businesses that want to connect with customers through content.
- High-end or luxury products: Its polished design elevates the perceived value of your items.
- Stores that use lots of strong imagery and longer text sections.
Key Features:
- Optimized for editorial content: Easily integrate blog posts, brand stories, and detailed product information.
- Shop the look/product upselling: Helps customers discover more products.
- Quick buy: Streamlines the purchasing process.
- Clean and spacious layouts: Puts focus on your visuals and text.
#8 RETINA
Retina is high-quality theme from Out of the Sandbox (a developer known for excellent themes!). This developer is my personal go-to for most of my client’s sites. This theme makes your products look absolutely stunning with crisp, high-resolution imagery.
Type: Premium (Official Shopify Theme, Developed by Out of the Sandbox)
Price: $220 USD
Best for:
- High-end retailers: Especially good for luxury goods, fashion, jewelry, and art.
- Visually-driven brands: If your products are beautiful and benefit from detailed photos.
- Businesses that value elegant design and user experience.
Key Features:
- Media-forward product pages: Designed to make your images and videos pop.
- Custom promotion designer: Create eye-catching banners and pop-ups.
- Advanced product filtering: Improves navigation for larger inventories.
- Masonry layout option: A unique grid style for displaying products and content beautifully.
#9 EURUS
Eurus is a fast and flexible theme designed to maximize sales. It’s particularly noted for its features that help with flash sales and cater to dropshippers.
Type: Premium (Official Shopify Theme, Developed by BSS Commerce)
Price: $320 USD
Best for:
- Dropshippers: Built with features that are often helpful for this business model.
- Stores running frequent flash sales or promotions.
- Businesses prioritizing speed and conversion-focused features.
Key Features:
- Optimized for speed: Essential for keeping customers engaged.
- Flash sales features: Tools for running time-based promotions (e.g., countdowns).
- Cross-selling & promo tiles: To encourage more purchases.
- Quick order list: For easier bulk ordering.
- Mobile responsiveness with Light/Dark modes: Adapts well to different devices and preferences.
#10 DEBUTIFY
Debutify is huge in the dropshipping world because it’s built specifically to convert visitors into buyers. Plus, it has a free plan so it’s perfect for testing the waters. They also have a large library of resources for it’s users.
Type: Freemium (Third-party theme, Developed by Debutify)
Price: Free plan available with basic features. Paid plans start at $14.50/month for more features/widgets.
Best for:
- Startups and dropshippers: Its free plan is a great entry point.
- Businesses wanting built-in marketing tools: Aims to replace many paid apps.
- Anyone looking for a mobile-first, high-converting design.
Key Features:
- “Widgets”: These are extra conversion-focused features that you can toggle on or off, like sticky add-to-cart, sales pop-ups, trust badges, urgency timers, and more. The number of widgets depends on your plan.
- One-product store preset: Optimized for selling a single item.
- Mobile-first design: Looks great and performs well on phones.
- Academy & support: Offers learning resources and support, especially on higher-paid plans.
So there are the 10 top themes used on Shopify in the last year. There really IS a theme for every type of shop out there. The trick is knowing what questions to ask yourself:
- What are you actually selling? (Is it all about the visuals, or do you have tons of products to organize?)
- What vibe do you want your brand to give off? (Clean and minimal? Bold and energetic? Story-driven?)
- What’s your budget looking like?
- Which features do you actually NEED? (Not just the ones that sound cool 😉)
Once you are clear on the answers, pick a theme and go with it. I’ve seen people get stuck in theme-picking limbo for weeks, and honestly, that’s just time you could use making sales.
Picking the right theme upfront can save you serious time and money down the road.
But sometimes you just need to make a decision to get unstuck and move forward, easier said than done, trust me I know.
That’s exactly why I put together this list of the most popular themes. At the very least, you know you’re making a solid choice. The perfect theme won’t magically make your business successful, but the RIGHT theme will definitely make your life easier.
Still feeling stuck? Check out my post on Premium vs. Free Shopify Themes: The Beginner’s Guide to Making the Right Choice it’ll help you figure out whether you should start with a free theme or invest in a premium one right off the bat.
Go build that beautiful store! 💪
