We're a Select Partner ourselves, so I'll try to be fair about both sides.

The five tiers, as Shopify runs them now

Shopify's own tiering guide for the partner programme (the Q4 2026 version) lists five levels:

  • Registered: the starting point. Anyone who signs up as a partner.
  • Select: "consistently bringing new merchants to Shopify and supporting early success."
  • Plus: delivering impact across more complex merchant needs.
  • Premier: consistent, high-impact work for larger and more complex merchants.
  • Platinum: operating at scale with enterprise merchants.

Everything above Registered is earned. You can't buy a tier, and Shopify reassesses everyone four times a year (1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October), so a badge can go down as well as up.

What it takes to be Select

This is the bit most articles skip, and it tells you a lot about what the badge means. Shopify looks at three things.

Revenue. A Select Partner needs either at least $100,000 of revenue from merchants they've brought to Shopify (referrals, co-selling with Shopify's sales team, or stores they've built and handed over), or at least $500,000 from merchants they actively support. Shopify takes whichever of the two is stronger, measured over the last five years.

New merchants. On top of that, they need to have brought at least one Plus or Enterprise merchant to Shopify, or at least ten on the standard plans (Basic, Grow, Advanced), again over five years. Only brand new Shopify merchants count.

Staying in line. Partners have to stick to Shopify's partner agreement, API terms and acceptable use policy. If they don't, Shopify can suspend their benefits or remove them from the programme.

The higher tiers use the same three measures with bigger numbers. Plus needs $500,000 or $2.5 million and two Plus/Enterprise merchants (or forty standard ones). Premier and Platinum go up to $2 million to $25 million and four to six Plus/Enterprise merchants.

What the badge tells you

Quite a lot, actually. A Select Partner has a track record of real Shopify stores going live and real merchants trading on them. They're not someone who set up a partner account last week. They've been around long enough, and done enough work, for Shopify's numbers to notice.

It also means they're listed in Shopify's Partner Directory with their tier showing, and they're accountable to Shopify. If a partner behaves badly, you can report them through Shopify's own "Report a Partner violation" form, and that has teeth.

What it doesn't tell you

Notice what's missing from the criteria above. Every measure is commercial: revenue and merchant numbers. Shopify's guide also says that for 2026, skills credentials are waived and "only commercial activity is evaluated".

So the badge doesn't tell you:

  • whether the code they write is any good, or whether anyone else could pick it up later
  • whether they've done your kind of project (a theme tweak and a migration with 20,000 redirects are very different jobs)
  • who will actually do the work, and whether that's the person you met
  • what happens after launch, when something breaks on a Saturday
  • whether they know your other systems: your ERP, your warehouse, your accounts package

A higher tier mostly means more volume and bigger merchants. It doesn't automatically mean a better fit for a UK business turning over a few million. Sometimes a smaller partner who's done exactly your job three times is the better call.

How to check a partner properly

Start in the Shopify Partner Directory. You can filter by location, services, price and tier, and Shopify suggests checking each partner's reviews, work samples and certifications there. That's a quick way to confirm a badge is real and current, because the directory shows what Shopify has on record, not what's on the agency's own website.

Then look at the work itself. Visit two or three live stores they've built. Are they quick on a phone? Does search work? Is checkout clean? You don't need to be technical to notice a slow, clunky store.

Finally, ask them some proper questions.

Questions worth asking any Shopify agency

  • "Can I see a project like mine?" Same platform move, same catalogue size, same kind of integration. Ask what went wrong on it, too. Everyone has a story.
  • "Who will be doing the work?" Names, and whether they're in-house or subcontracted.
  • "How do you get into my store?" The right answer is a collaborator account, where you choose which parts of the store they can see. Not your own login.
  • "Who owns the code and the store?" It should be you, with no strings.
  • "What does support look like after launch?" Response times, costs, and what's included.
  • "What would you tell me not to do?" A good partner will happily talk you out of things you don't need.

If the answers are vague, the badge won't make up for it.

Where we fit

We're a Shopify Select Partner, and the badge reflects real stores we've built and migrated. But I'd much rather you judged us on the work. Our UKDJ case study walks through a Visualsoft to Shopify move with around 3,000 products and 7,500 redirects, and our comparison of UK Shopify partners names other agencies too, including ones that might suit you better than we would.

If you're weighing up a build, a migration or an integration, have a look at what we do on Shopify and drop us a line. You'll talk to me or Jason, the people who'd actually do the work, and we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right fit.

Cheers, Rob