Employees identified the need for Shopify Plus before store owners. This project explored how employee advocacy could drive upgrades while preserving owner-only billing controls.
COMPANY
Shopify
ROLE
Product Designer
Team
PM · Engineers · Content · Data
· Lifecycle Marketing
Timeline
2 Months
TL;DR
Designed a new Shopify Plus upgrade experience that enabled employees to advocate for plan upgrades while preserving owner-only purchasing controls. Led the end-to-end experience across multiple touchpoints, contributing to a +4% directional lift in upgrades and an estimated $1.6M business impact.
THE CHALLENGE
How might we help employees influence upgrade decisions without allowing them to purchase Shopify Plus themselves?
Only store owners could upgrade to Shopify Plus, but employees were often the first to recognize when their business had outgrown its current plan. Across multiple upgrade surfaces, employees encountered dead ends, generic information pages, or disabled actions with no meaningful way to act on that insight.
We saw an opportunity to help employees influence upgrade decisions while preserving Shopify's owner-only billing controls.
01 — UNDERSTANDING THE OPPORTUNITY
We identified a gap between product interest and purchase authority
A growth review identified employee-driven Shopify Plus upgrades as a promising opportunity. Once prioritized, I led the experience design, partnering with Product, Lifecycle Marketing, Content Design, and Engineering to create a scalable way for employees to influence upgrade decisions while preserving Shopify's owner-only billing controls.
An audit of the existing upgrade journey revealed a consistent pattern: employees were often the first to recognize when their business could benefit from Shopify Plus, yet every upgrade path was designed exclusively for owners. Across three separate surfaces, employees encountered dead ends with no meaningful way to act on that interest.
02 — FINAL SOLUTION
Turning employee interest into owner action.
Rather than changing Shopify's permission model, we focused on creating a reusable pattern that transformed upgrade blockers into actionable next steps.
1
Explain the constraint and provide a next step
Existing upgrade experiences explained that owner approval was required, but offered no meaningful path forward. We replaced those dead ends with contextual guidance and clear next steps.
2
Turn employee interest into owner advocacy
Employees could send a pre-populated recommendation directly to the store owner while adding their own business context and rationale.
Provide an alternative path through sales
For employees unable to contact the owner directly, we introduced a secondary path that connected interested businesses with Shopify's Plus team.
03 — Impact & Reflection
Results
+$1.6M
Estimated annual revenue impact
Impact
Expanded Shopify's upgrade funnel
Created a new upgrade pathway for staff accounts while preserving owner-only billing controls.
Validated employee advocacy as a growth lever
Owners opened 60% of employee-generated recommendations, demonstrating that employees could effectively champion Plus adoption within their organizations.
Informed future Plus growth initiatives
The experiment was rolled out globally and informed future Shopify Plus marketing and upgrade strategies.
Reflections
Employees can be champions
We initially viewed staff accounts as a permission constraint. The results showed that employees could become effective advocates when given tools to influence upgrade decisions.
Designing around constraints can unlock new opportunities
Rather than removing owner-only billing controls, we designed around them. Preserving the permission model while creating new paths to action ultimately unlocked a previously unsupported upgrade journey.
What’s next?
Scaling Migration Guidance with AI