Layer 1: Storefront
Price and content are hidden in the theme through a single Online Store 2.0 app embed. No Liquid is written into your theme.
Cosmetic. Necessary but not sufficient.
Free forever · unlimited locks
Decide who gets
to see your store.
Hide prices, lock pages and gate wholesale access, then let Prime Lock enforce it at checkout, so a direct cart link can't get through. Free, unlimited locks, forever.
- Free forever
- Unlimited locks
- No theme code
- Built to Shopify standards
Habano Robusto · Box of 20
Vista Alegre Tobacco Co. · SKU VA-HAB-ROB-B20
Log in to see trade price
The product page is still indexable by Google, only the price is withheld.
Live demo: this is exactly what your customers see.
4 lock types
Price, content, passcode, hide completely
Unlimited active locks
On the free plan, with no watermark
100% enforced at checkout
Shopify Function, every plan
Mechanism
How enforcement actually works
Two layers. Most apps ship only the first one.
Layer 2: Checkout
Every lock also compiles into a Shopify Function that validates cart and checkout server-side.
A buyer without access cannot complete an order, even from a direct cart permalink.
Always on. Every plan. Including free.
Lock types
What you can lock
Pick what to lock, where it applies and who gets through.
Hide price & add to cart
Replace the price with your own text and remove add to cart. The page stays indexable.
Applies to
- Collection
- Products
- Whole store
Who unlocks
- Logged in
- Customer tag
- Secret link
Lock content
Redirect to login, show a message, or return 404: page, collection, URL pattern or the whole store.
Applies to
- Page
- Product
- Collection
- URL pattern
- Whole store
Who unlocks
- Logged in
- Customer tag
- No one
Passcode gate
A shared code opens the content. Expiry and usage caps on Pro.
Applies to
- Page
- Collection
- URL pattern
Who unlocks
- Passcode
- Secret link
Hide completely
Remove the item from listings and search entirely. Coming soon.
Applies to
- Products
- Collection
Who unlocks
- Customer tag
Wholesale onboarding
Registration and approval, without touching Shopify's login
Approval, not account creation, is what opens the locks.
- 1
Guest hits a lock
The price is replaced and add to cart is gone. The page still loads and still ranks.
- 2
Applies on our form
Prime Lock's own form via app proxy: custom fields, EU VAT, business license upload on Pro.
- 3
Pending
Customer created and tagged pending-approval, extra fields stored as metafields. Locks stay closed.
- 4
Approved
One click applies the tag, sends the welcome email and opens every lock tied to that tag.
Why we don't touch Shopify's login form
New customer accounts are hosted by Shopify and cannot be modified by apps. Classic register forms only accept note fields: no validation, no file uploads, no approval step. So Prime Lock renders its own registration form through the app proxy and stores the extra fields as metafields. Because enforcement is tag-based, the flow works identically on classic and new customer accounts.
Use cases
What merchants use it for
Six setups, each one built out of the same lock types.
Wholesale catalog
Show retail to everyone, wholesale only to buyers carrying your approved tag, enforced at checkout.
Read the setupLogin to see price
Replace price and add to cart with your own text until a customer signs in. The product page stays indexable.
Read the setupPassword protect a page
Gate a page, product, collection or URL pattern behind a passcode without touching theme code.
Read the setupB2B registration & approval
Your own application form with custom fields, VAT validation and a one-click approval queue.
Read the setupVIP early access & drops
Open a drop to tagged customers or a secret link first, then to everyone on a schedule.
Read the setupHide store before launch
Full-store blackout with a custom message, opened automatically by a date window.
Read the setupSame team
You locked it. Now price it.
Discount Prime adds volume and B2B pricing for the same customer tags your locks already use. Made by the same team.
See Discount PrimeComplete the B2B stack
Selling in packs or with minimums? Prime MOQ adds order rules with the same always-on enforcement. Free, unlimited.
Comparison
Prime Lock vs typical accounts-and-login apps
The differences that show up after install, not in the listing screenshots.
| Prime Lock | Typical accounts & login apps | |
|---|---|---|
| Enforced at checkout | Yes, Shopify Function, every plan | None of the 12 on every plan. Two publish it, both only on Shopify Plus. |
| Free plan limits | Unlimited locks, no watermark | 8 of 12 list a free plan, several conditional |
| Theme code after uninstall | None: single app embed | 0 of 12 publish a clean uninstall |
| SEO / indexability preserved | Yes, only the price is withheld | 4 of 12 publish SEO-safe hiding |
| Registration + approval built in | Own form, metafields, approval queue | 2 of 12 publish an approval queue |
| EU VAT validation (VIES) | Live validation on Pro | 0 of 12 publish VAT validation |
| Storefront text translations | Per language, in-app | 2 of 12 publish per-language text |
| Price | $0 forever · Pro $9.99 · Plus $19.99 | $9 to $200 / month across the paid tiers |
What it costs
Nearly everything the others charge for is free here.
We read 12 apps in this category and tracked 20 capabilities. Prime Lock ships 16 of them on the free plan. The most any of those apps publishes, counting every paid tier it sells, is 10.
16 of 20
Capabilities on the Prime Lock free plan, checkout enforcement included
10
The highest capability count any tracked app publishes across all of its tiers
7 of 12
Apps whose entire published feature set is covered by our free plan
Free, and staying free
Unlimited locks on every content type, tag, login and passcode access, secret links, scheduling, the registration form, the approval queue, auto-tagging, per-language text, SEO-safe hiding, and checkout enforcement on every Shopify plan.
The four things on Pro
EU VAT validation, file upload on the form, the age verification gate and country rules sit on the $9.99 tier, because each one carries a running cost. That is the whole list.
This is not an introductory price. Whatever is free on the day you install stays free for your store.
The obvious objection
Why trust an app that launched this year?
We have no review count and no Built for Shopify badge. Both are earned over time and we have not earned them yet. Here is what we can point at instead, all of it checkable in about five minutes.
The promise is in the contract
Whatever is free on the day you install stays free for your store. That is a clause in our terms of service, not a line on a landing page, and the clause states what it survives: price rises, plan restructures and new paid tiers.
Read the clauseSupport answers in 24 hours, on the free plan
Not a paid add-on and not a tier. If a wholesale customer is stuck behind a gate, you write to a real address and a person replies within a day, whether you pay us anything or not.
Contact the teamAspedan runs two other Shopify apps
Discount Prime for volume and B2B pricing, and Prime MOQ for order rules. Same team, same conventions, both in production. Open them and judge the work for yourself.
Leaving costs you nothing
One app embed, with no Liquid written into your theme. Uninstall and your theme is exactly as it was, and your customer tags stay on the customer records, because they belong to Shopify rather than to us.
How the app embed worksIn a year we would rather you judged us on the review count. Today, judge us on the terms.
Pricing
Free forever, and we mean it.
Paid tiers add compliance and automation. They never take anything away.
Free
Current plan$0forever
Everything needed to lock a store and enforce it.
- Unlimited locks, all content types
- Hide price and add to cart, SEO kept
- Tag, login and passcode access
- Secret links and scheduling
Pro
Most popular$9.99/ month
Compliance, proof and automation on top of the free plan.
- Age verification gate (18+/21+, per country)
- EU VAT validation + auto tax exemption
- Blocked-checkout log + weekly proof email
- Real-time blocked-attempt alerts
14-day trial.
Plus
$19.99/ month
For agencies and multi-store brands.
- Multi-store rule sync
- Company and location rules on native B2B
- Priority SLA support
For agencies and multi-store brands.
Whatever is free on the day you install stays free for your store, forever. Paid tiers only ever add new powers: nothing that was ever free becomes paid.
Full pricingFAQ
Questions merchants ask first
Decide who gets to see your store.
Early access opens with the free plan. Unlimited locks, enforced at checkout.
No newsletter. One email when Prime Lock is live.