Top 7 Shopify Newsletters for Agency Owners in 2026

Running a Shopify agency in 2026 means keeping up with platform updates, new apps, and shifts in how people shop online.

Whether you manage two client accounts or twenty, staying on top of this is part of the job.

The problem is that there's too much to track. Shopify sends its own updates, dozens of blogs cover the same platform, and everyone online seems to have a “must-know” tip. Multiply that across every client's niche, and it's a lot to filter through on your own.

Newsletters help solve that problem: someone else does the filtering, and you only get what's relevant sent straight to your inbox.

Below are seven newsletters worth knowing about if you run a Shopify agency, covering everything from Liquid coding tips to industry-wide trends your clients will ask you about.

1. Liquid Weekly

Liquid Weekly is a weekly newsletter covering Shopify apps, themes, and ecosystem news, with a companion podcast that comes out every other week.

It was founded by Karl Meisterheim, a full-stack developer with over 20 years of experience building Shopify apps and themes; Taylor Page later joined as co-host of the podcast.

Each issue typically includes:

• New app and theme launches from across the ecosystem
• Shopify API and changelog updates
• Developer and merchant interviews from people actively building on the platform
• Practical tutorials, like Liquid coding tips or workarounds for common store issues
• Community picks: tools, articles, and resources the Shopify dev community is talking about that week

This newsletter is a good fit if your agency builds or maintains custom themes and apps for clients.

Developers on your team, technical account managers, and anyone advising clients on new apps or theme updates are likely to find it especially useful.

The deeper your team understands the app and theme landscape, the smarter recommendations you'll make to clients about which tools are worth the investment.

2. Shopifreaks

Shopifreaks is a weekly ecommerce newsletter written by Paul Drecksler since 2021 and read by over 20,000 merchants, agency owners, developers, and execs across Shopify, Amazon, and beyond.

It's long-form by design: fewer hot takes, more context on why a story actually matters.

Ecommerce trends often move across platforms before they hit Shopify specifically, so this is where your agency catches shifts early. That comes in handy when clients ask why a competitor is suddenly doing something different.

You’ll usually find:

• Cross-platform industry news, from major players like Amazon, Walmart, TikTok, and Temu, not just Shopify
• Regulatory and policy updates that affect merchants, like price changes or new marketplace rules
• Paul's own commentary on each story, not just a summary of what happened
• Case studies and company deep-dives, like how a specific brand or platform handled a major shift
• An annual predictions report, crowdsourced from readers and published every January

3. Shop Haul

Shop Haul is a newsletter covering Shopify stores, tools, and ecommerce trends, aimed squarely at agency owners, developers, and designers.

Expect to see:

• Shopify store reviews, breaking down what makes a specific store's design or UX work
• Tool and product recommendations, from apps to general productivity tools
• Shopify news and hacks in a shorter, more scannable format than research-heavy newsletters
• A more personal and less corporate tone than official Shopify communications

Since it's written with agencies in mind from the start, this is one of the easier newsletters on this list to justify sharing across your whole team, not just the technical folks.

4. Shopify's official newsletter (In Stock)

Shopify runs its own Substack newsletter called In Stock, described as “the biggest news in commerce from the company that powers your favorite brands.” It comes out monthly and is written by the Shopify team, with occasional guest contributors.

Typical content covers:

• Product announcements and platform updates, straight from Shopify HQ
• Data-driven trend reports, like which product categories are growing based on Shopify's own sales data
• Founder interviews and brand stories, covering how merchants on the platform built and scaled their businesses
• Event recaps, like highlights from industry conferences Shopify participates in

This is the one newsletter on this list that comes directly from the platform itself, which makes it useful for a specific reason: it's the fastest way to hear about new features and priorities before they get filtered through third-party commentary.

It's less technical than Liquid Weekly or I Only Speak Liquid and less information-dense than Shopifreaks. Instead, it leans toward brand storytelling and data.

That makes it a good monthly pulse on where Shopify is headed and how other merchants on the platform are growing. It's also an easy one to recommend to clients since it doesn't take deep technical or strategic context to get value from.

5. 2PM

2PM is a weekly newsletter sent every Monday, analyzing where media and commerce intersect.

It was founded by Web Smith in 2016 and has since grown into a media company with a free weekly letter plus a paid membership tier for additional briefs and reports.

Issues often feature:

• Original essays on how media, brand, and commerce strategies connect, published as the newsletter's core weekly piece
• Curated news roundups, summarizing the stories from across retail, media, and ecommerce that matter that week
• Brand and retailer case studies, breaking down how specific companies are approaching customer acquisition and storytelling
• Creator economy and emerging platform coverage, including social commerce and livestream selling trends

Since 2PM covers the industry broadly rather than platform by platform, it's useful if you want to bring clients a strategic perspective on where commerce and media are converging, not just execute on Shopify tickets.

6. Offcuts Media

Offcuts is a podcast and newsletter about AI and commerce, hosted by Tim Richardson, CEO of ROIROI and formerly a senior leader at We Make Websites.

It's read and listened to by people at companies like Stripe, Shopify, Dr. Martens, Loewe, H&M, and Mercedes-AMG F1.

Look for:

• Practitioner interviews, with founders, operators, and technologists talking about what's actually changing in AI and commerce
• Real brand case studies, covering specific decisions brands have made around AI tools and customer experience
• Grounded takes on AI hype, focused on what the technology can and can't currently do for a consumer brand
• Weekly ecommerce news roundups, covering platform updates and industry shifts beyond just AI

Offcuts Media is best for agencies fielding client questions about AI's actual impact on their business, from customer service to product recommendations to content creation.

Since the content comes from people actively building brands rather than theorizing about trends, it's a good fit if you want practical grounding to give clients honest, credible answers instead of AI hype.

7. I Only Speak Liquid

I Only Speak Liquid is a newsletter created by Storetasker, sent every other week and featuring a rotating group of vetted freelance Shopify developers from their network.

Contributors typically write a handful of editions before handing off to the next writer, so the perspective shifts regularly instead of coming from a single voice.

Each edition offers:

• Hands-on Liquid coding tutorials, often with actual code snippets you can use
• Tool and framework reviews, like comparisons between Shopify theme development approaches
• Developer perspectives on new platform features, covering things like style settings or app performance
• Practical setup guides, such as font implementation or version control workflows for Shopify themes

This newsletter is best for the developers on your team who want practical, code-level content rather than high-level industry commentary.

Because the newsletter rotates between different Shopify builders, your team gets a range of technical approaches and opinions rather than one person's fixed viewpoint.

How to maximize these newsletters for your agency

Subscribing to a handful of newsletters is easy. Actually getting value from them takes a bit of a system. Here's how to make that work:

1. Filter by priority. Create folders or labels so newsletters don't pile up in your main inbox. For example, one for newsletters you read the same week, one for longer industry analysis you browse when you have time, and one for developer/technical content.
2. Assign owners. Introduce technical newsletters like Liquid Weekly or I Only Speak Liquid to your dev team, and strategy-focused ones like 2PM or Shopifreaks to account managers and leadership.
3. Set a fixed review time. Block 30 minutes once a week to scan what's come in. Skim headlines, save what's worth a deeper read, and flag anything actionable.
4. Skim; don't read cover to cover. Most of these newsletters are built to be scanned, not consumed end to end. Read the intro and jump to the sections that are relevant to you or your clients.
5. Apply what you read. The value isn't in reading; it's in acting on it. If you read about a new app, test it. If you learn about a trend, think through which clients it applies to. If you spot a competitor tactic, check whether it fits your clients' business models.

Choosing the right Shopify newsletters

The Shopify landscape shifts constantly. New features roll out, competitors adapt, and market trends change.

Staying informed about these shifts is one of the easiest ways to keep pace, since it costs time, not budget.

A good starting point is Shopify's own newsletter, since it comes straight from the platform, plus two or three others based on what your agency needs most, whether that's development, strategy, or general industry awareness.

Give them a few weeks before deciding which ones earn a permanent spot in your inbox.