It starts innocently enough. You need a specific feature, and there’s an app that does exactly that. Installation takes five minutes. Problem solved.
Fast forward two years, and you have fifteen apps running on your store. Each one seemed like a good decision at the time. But collectively, they’ve created a web of dependencies that’s starting to constrain what you can do.
This is app sprawl, and it’s one of the most common patterns we see in established BigCommerce stores.
The Hidden Costs
The obvious costs are easy to track: monthly fees, processing charges, the occasional support ticket. Most stores know exactly what they’re paying for apps. But the hidden costs are what really add up.
Performance overhead. Every app that touches your storefront adds JavaScript. Every integration adds latency to your checkout. One app adding 200ms to your page load is invisible. Fifteen apps adding 200ms each means your store is three seconds slower than it needs to be.
We’ve audited stores where removing unused apps cut page load time in half. Not through any clever optimization—just by eliminating code that was running on every page for features nobody used anymore.
Maintenance complexity. Apps need updates. Apps have bugs. Apps sometimes conflict with each other in subtle ways that only surface during peak traffic. The more apps you have, the more time you spend managing them—and the harder it becomes to isolate problems when something goes wrong.
When an app updates and breaks something, how long does it take you to figure out which one? If the answer is “hours” or “we’re not sure,” you’ve felt this cost firsthand.
Vendor lock-in. Once your operations depend on an app, switching costs go up. Your team learns its workflows. Your data lives in its systems. Your integrations connect through its APIs.
Then the app’s pricing changes. Or they get acquired and the roadmap shifts. Or they sunset a feature you rely on. You’re stuck choosing between painful migration and accepting whatever terms they set.
Data fragmentation. Each app becomes its own silo. Customer data lives in your reviews app, your loyalty app, your email app, and your support app—but none of them talk to each other well. You end up with partial views of customer behavior and no single source of truth.
Upgrade friction. When BigCommerce releases new features or you want to adopt new capabilities, each app becomes a potential blocker. Will this app work with the new checkout? Does it support the latest API version? Some apps move fast. Others don’t. Your upgrade path becomes limited by your slowest dependency.
The App Audit
If you suspect you have an app sprawl problem, start with an honest audit. For each app currently installed, answer these questions:
Is anyone actually using this? Check usage logs if the app provides them. Ask your team. You might be surprised how many apps were installed for a project that ended, or by an employee who left, or for a feature you tried and abandoned.
What would happen if this disappeared tomorrow? Some apps are genuinely critical—your shipping integration, your ERP connector, your payment processor. Others are nice-to-haves that you’d adapt to losing. Know the difference.
Could this be done natively? BigCommerce has added significant functionality over the years. Features that required apps in 2019 might be built into the platform now. Review what’s native before assuming you need a third-party solution.
Is the value worth the cost? And we mean all the costs—not just the monthly fee, but the performance impact, the maintenance overhead, the vendor dependency. Some apps easily clear this bar. Others don’t when you account for everything.
Does this app do one thing, or many? All-in-one apps that promise to handle reviews, loyalty, referrals, and social proof often do none of them well. They also create massive switching costs because everything is bundled. Focused apps that do one thing well are usually better long-term choices.
What Good App Hygiene Looks Like
Stores that manage app sprawl well tend to follow similar patterns:
Regular audits. At least annually, someone reviews every installed app and asks whether it’s still earning its place. This isn’t about being stingy—it’s about maintaining clarity.
Clear ownership. Every app has someone accountable for it. They know why it was installed, what it does, and whether it’s still needed. When that person leaves, ownership transfers explicitly.
Performance budgets. The store has limits on how much performance impact from third-party scripts is acceptable. When apps push past that budget, something gets cut.
Preference for native solutions. Before installing an app, the team checks whether BigCommerce can do it natively. Native features are faster, more reliable, and don’t add vendor dependencies.
Consolidation over accumulation. Rather than adding new apps, the team looks for ways to consolidate functionality. Can one app replace two? Can custom code replace an app entirely?
When Apps Are Worth It
We’re not anti-app. The BigCommerce ecosystem exists for good reasons, and many apps provide genuine value that would be expensive or impractical to build yourself.
Apps are usually worth it when:
- They solve a complex problem that’s not your core competency (shipping rate calculation, tax compliance, fraud detection)
- They integrate with external systems you need (ERPs, PIMs, marketing platforms)
- They provide functionality that would take significant custom development
- They’re actively maintained by a reputable vendor with aligned incentives
The goal isn’t zero apps. It’s intentional apps—each one chosen deliberately, providing clear value, and regularly validated as still necessary.
Making Changes
If your audit reveals apps that should go, move carefully. Removing an app that’s integrated into your operations can break things in unexpected ways.
Start with apps that have no dependencies—they’re installed but not actually connected to anything. These are safe to remove immediately.
For apps that are integrated, document what they do first. Understand every touchpoint before you start disconnecting. Plan the migration, test in staging if possible, and have a rollback plan.
And be realistic about the effort involved. Sometimes the cost of removing a problematic app exceeds the cost of keeping it, at least in the short term. That’s okay. Add it to your technical debt inventory and address it when you have capacity.
The Long Game
App sprawl is a symptom, not a root cause. It happens because it’s easy to add apps and hard to remove them, because short-term solutions become long-term fixtures, and because nobody is explicitly accountable for the overall architecture.
The solution isn’t just removing apps—it’s changing the pattern that led to sprawl in the first place. That means clearer decision-making about what gets installed, regular reviews of what’s running, and a bias toward simplicity over features.
A store with five well-chosen apps will almost always outperform a store with twenty mediocre ones. The discipline is in choosing well and maintaining that discipline over time.