As Shopify evolves, so does its approach to user experience on your website — which usually starts from the customer accounts. The introduction of the new Shopify customer accounts only made things more confusing.
It left you wondering whether you should migrate to a modern, more flexible and optimised option or stick with the old Shopify login model.
In this guide, we'll break down the difference between new Shopify customer accounts and legacy accounts. You'll learn about the key features, benefits and how each option influences customer experience, integrations and long-term performance.
So if you've been hesitating between these two, the struggle ends today.
Understanding Shopify Customer Accounts
Shopify customer accounts, same as on other eCommerce platforms, give customers a place to manage their orders, addresses, subscriptions and other information. For merchants, it's a tool that builds trust and encourages repeat purchases. It's also a great way to place orders on behalf of customers to improve their experience.
While optional, custom accounts offer plenty of marketing opportunities. But not all of the customer accounts are the same.
Types of customer accounts in Shopify
Shopify offers two types of customer accounts:
- Legacy accounts — based on traditional logins (email/password)
- New customer accounts — offer passwordless access, improved UX and compatibility with multiple tools
Shopify customer account options
Simple enough, right? But to understand how these two work — and which one is right for your business — you should look at their purpose.
Why customer account matter?
Each account type not only makes shopping at your store more personal and convenient, but also plays a bigger role in your store's growth. They help you:
- Increase retention: saving customers' information makes repeat purchases much easier for returning customers. Besides, enabling customer accounts offers you a place to connect subscriptions, loyalty programs and other personalised offers.
- Improve convenience: you give your customers a place to monitor orders, manage shipping and billing information and check previous orders. They don't need to contact support for all that, which means fewer support tickets for you.
- Unlock app integrations: many rewards, subscriptions and customer support apps in Shopify require a customer to be logged in.
Shopify customer accounts are more than just a login. It's a direct link for building relationships with your customers. That's why Shopify has introduced new accounts that support all the newest features.
Pro tip: if you want to integrate custom support tools, loyalty programs or subscription dashboards, you need new customer accounts — only they support Shopify apps.
However, before you jump to any conclusion, let's look at both options in more detail.
Legacy Customer Accounts
Shopify legacy accounts are a well-known email/password system that's been around from the very beginning. However, unfortunately, it's now considered outdated by Shopify standards and is no longer improved or updated.
Key features of legacy accounts
The reason why the transfer to modern Shopify accounts is so confusing is that most users are familiar with the basic Legacy login. It offers:
- Traditional email and password login — customers just create an account using these.
- Standard account pages — order history, addresses, contact info, etc.
- Password reset — customers can change their password through Shopify email links.
As a store owner, you can enable or disable these accounts, make them optional or required at checkout. But that's basically it.
Legacy account login
Note: additionally you can use this model to log in to customer accounts in Shopify and assist them from there.
Limitations of legacy accounts
Although they work just fine, legacy accounts are a bit limited. Especially when it comes to customisations and integrations. Staying on this system, you get:
- No updates — since Shopify shifted its focus to the new customer account, there won't be any improvements.
- Limited design control — you need a developer to customise the legacy accounts or add some features.
- Limited login experience — there is no multi-device authentication, login codes or passwordless login here.
- No app extensions — you can't embed any new features like loyalty dashboards or support widgets in the customer accounts area.
It might not seem like a problem just now. But using Shopify legacy accounts slows down your growth. And since Shopify encourages you to move to new accounts for long-term benefits, it's worth considering.
New Customer Accounts
The limitations of the traditional legacy accounts make new customer accounts a major step forward in terms of user experience. They are designed with the mobile-first approach, compatible with different apps and built to scale.
Key features of new customer accounts
New Shopify customer accounts are a complete shift in how your customers interact with you and how you, as a merchant, influence their experience. They offer:
- Passwordless login — people don't have to remember yet another password. They log in using a one-time 6-digit login code sent to them via email.
- Modern interface — the design of the new accounts feels native to your brand storefront, and you can easily integrate apps, customise components and add new features there.
- Security and compliance — new customer accounts come with the OAuth2 authentication for better security and an enhanced experience.
New customer account login page
New customer accounts seem like a huge step forward in user experience when compared to the legacy model. And it is since it offers plenty of benefits for merchants:
- Reduced support load — there are no password reset requests
- High login rates — people are more likely to log in if it's simple and frictionless
- Improved retention and re-order behaviour — new customer accounts offer more value because of the simpler login
- Scalability — this new account model is required for many upcoming Shopify apps and integrations, offering more opportunities.
All of these make new customer accounts not just another upgrade, but a strategic move for better customer engagement and marketing opportunities.
Pro tip: although this mode doesn't have a password, you can still log into new customer accounts to place orders or prepare shopping carts for them.
Legacy Accounts vs New Customer Accounts: Key Differences
At this point, you might already see that new customer accounts are a better investment. However, let's quickly sum up all the differences between new Shopify customer account and legacy accounts based on different categories.
Login experience and accessibility
The traditional legacy model required customers to manually create an account and remember the login credentials. This often results in unnecessary friction, account abandonment and multiple reset password requests.
New Shopify customer accounts, on the other hand, uses passwordless login. The entire experience is faster and smoother. All it takes to access their account is one click (via a secure 6-digit code sent to their email).
Customization
The design and content of the Shopify legacy accounts are very generic and limited. They rely on default Shopify account templates, hard to edit without a developer.
The new model is built on Shopify customer account extensions. This system allows you to embed customer components and apps, modify layouts and the entire page structure.
Integration with apps
Being outdated, legacy accounts don't support any of the modern apps for customer support and post-purchase experience.
In fact, many Shopify apps now require you to switch to new customer accounts to use features like memberships, subscriptions, etc.
Security and privacy
As it's already been said, legacy accounts are prone to security issues like shared logins, weak passwords and poor credentials.
The authentication system used in new customer accounts is more secure and complies with modern privacy standards.
Switch from Legacy to New Accounts: Best Practices
With all those benefits, switching to new Shopify customer accounts seems like the only logical step. However, remember that you can unlock all these benefits only if you do the switch carefully.
You need a clear plan, testing and proper communication. You don't want to disrupt all your current integrations and confuse customers.
How to switch from legacy to new accounts?
To enable new customer accounts in Shopify, navigate to Settings (gear icon) > Customer accounts > New customer accounts. That's it.
Switching to new customer accounts in Shopify
However, what you do next is the most important part. Shopify will start using a new login flow as soon as you enable the corresponding option. So, you have to take the time to check it before going live.
- Check your theme — it should be updated to Online Store 2.0 and compatible with the new Shopify customer accounts, especially if you use a custom one (theme).
- Check your apps — you might need to update or remove some third-party apps that rely on the customer login behaviour e.g. loyalty programs, support portals, etc.
- Test login flow — go through all login steps and check how the login code is delivered, how the login works on multiple devices, and how it behaves after checkout or logout.
Proper testing at this stage will save you time and effort as you go on. However, there are still some things to consider.
Tips for a smooth transition
New customer accounts are meant to improve the user experience. So, you shouldn't just cover the technical part, but take care of the customer experience too.
Announce the switch through emails, banners or popups before rolling out the new model. Make sure customers know about the switch and the benefits it offers beforehand. It helps to avoid confusion in the future.
Update your email flows so that all automatic account-related emails regarding account creation, login, password resets, etc. should reflect the new login process.
Finally, test the new login with different customer segments to see how it works on different order volumes or international traffic. Taking all these steps ensures a seamless transition.
What to Choose: Legacy or New Customer Accounts?
Even though new Shopify customer accounts seem like a better option, you shouldn't switch to it just because. Everything depends on your current store setup, priorities and your long-term strategy.
In case of older themes or heavily customised customer accounts, the switch might just take unreasonable resources and time. If current flow works for you and you don't plan to scale soon, just stick with legacy.
However, make a transition if your goals are retention, personalisation and long-term scalability with the help of different . That's what new Shopify customer accounts were introduced for in the first place.
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