1. The options at a glance
Ratings in the Shopify App Store on 14 November 2026: Shopify Search & Discovery 2.6 from 514 reviews, Boost AI Search & Filter 4.7 from 1,628 reviews, Searchanise Search & Filter 4.7 from 1,267 reviews. Search & Discovery is free and keeps Shopify's built in search. Boost and Searchanise replace the search results and filters with their own service and charge a monthly fee.
Ratings show how happy other merchants are with an app and its support, not whether it finds the right products in your shop. Test every candidate with your own queries, see section 4.
2. What each app offers and what it costs
Shopify Search & Discovery is developed by Shopify and listed as free. The listing names filters, synonym groups, product boosts, related and complementary products and analytics. The search itself stays Shopify's built in search, so the app tunes it but does not replace it. Our guide to Search & Discovery shows its settings and limits.
Boost AI Search & Filter lists “Real-time search results, even with typos or unclear search terms” and filters by tag, metafield and variant. Prices depend on your online revenue: the Launch plan starts at $29 per month, “Up to $159/ month for stores under $50K monthly GMV”, the next plans start at $299 and $699 per month. Each plan has a 21-day free trial.
Searchanise has a free plan for “Dev stores and stores <25 products”. The paid plans are priced by catalogue size: Basic $19 per month for up to 1,500 products, Essential $39 per month for up to 7,500 products, each with a 14-day free trial. Shopify Plus stores have separate plans starting at $49 per month.
3. Hosted search without an app: Grumeria
Grumeria has no Shopify app. It reads your store's public product data via https://grumeria.com/api/shopify-feed?shop=your-shop.com, so no feed app is needed, and a small widget connects to your theme's existing search field. Typo tolerance, synonyms, filters, ranking rules and search statistics with a list of searches without results are part of every plan. Prices depend on the number of products, not on your revenue: plans start at €29 per month excl. VAT for 2,000 products, with a 14-day trial without a payment method. The index runs in Frankfurt and the search works without cookies.
Without an app there is no install button in the Shopify admin: you paste the widget script into your theme once. To remove Grumeria, you delete the script again.
4. How to choose: test with your own catalogue
A small catalogue where shoppers search by product name is often fine with Shopify's own search and Search & Discovery. If you see many searches without results, check them first: typos, plural forms and words your product titles do not use are the usual causes. If you need filters by metafield or variant, compare which plan includes them. For revenue based pricing, calculate what the app will cost when your store grows.
Install each candidate on a development store with a copy of your products, run the same queries and note whether the expected product is among the first results.
- Take ten real queries from your shop, including two with typos, one SKU and one with a colour or size.
- Run them with the default search, then with each app.
- Check variants: does the SKU of a single variant lead to the right product?
- Check the price at your current revenue and catalogue size, and one year from now.
- Check the list of searches without results after a week of real traffic.
Example test set
“linnen shirt” (typo) · “shirt” (part of a longer name) · “LS-200-WHT” (SKU) · “shirt white” (name and colour).
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free Shopify search app?
Yes. Shopify Search & Discovery is free and developed by Shopify; it tunes the built in search with synonyms, boosts and filters. Searchanise also has a free plan, according to its listing for development stores and stores with fewer than 25 products.
Which Shopify search apps handle typos?
Boost lists real time results “even with typos or unclear search terms”. Hosted services such as Grumeria include typo tolerance in every plan. Test your own misspelled queries, because typo handling differs by language and product names.
Why do Shopify search app prices differ so much?
They use different bases. Boost prices by online revenue (GMV), Searchanise by number of products, and Grumeria by number of products as well. Compare the price at your current size and after a year of growth.