Can headless Shopify handle high traffic?

Headless Shopify stores should – in general – have no problems with performance volume.

Providing that the storefront has been built with performance and scalability in mind, it's uncommon to see issues arise in relation to traffic volume. Especially in the case of statically-generated sites, backend requests are not typically going to made after the build process, save for stock checks, at the point of purchase, or for account-related requests.

The main thing to consider is Shopify's API rate limits.

Fortunately, Shopify doesn't impose any rate limits on the Storefront API; which is the primary API that will be used for a headless storefront. That's good news, and means that brands should generally be unconcerned with high traffic volume or unexpected spikes in traffic to their headless store.

Other APIs do enforce a points-based rate limiting system when using GraphQL (non-points for the deprecated REST APIs), but these aren't typically going to be used for the storefront itself (note that Payments Apps API and Customer Account API do both come with rate limiting based on points-based query cost as of 2025). If the majority of end-user experiences rely on the Storefront API, rate limiting isn't something of a concern. It's worth noting that non-Storefront APIs generally sport a tiered rate limiting system, whereby the higher the plan, the higher the limit. Shopify Plus and Enterprise customers receive the most generous querying resources.

Having said that, Shopify's rate limits are pretty generous across the board – there isn't much to worry about for the average headless storefront, even if you're doing a healthy volume of sales and receive strong traffic.

Are static/pre-rendered headless Shopify stores faster?

Where headless Shopify storefronts use pre-rendering techniques (static site generation), your backend APIs are only going to be called in certain scenarios. These include:

• During the build process (when data is sourced from Shopify, your headless CMS, and any other additional platforms or data sources)
• For stock checks (if your products track inventory, then the product page will need to fetch live stock levels from Shopify - or an external inventory management system).  This is to ensure that customers can only purchase products that have available inventory.  
• To initiate checkout, or any account-related or purchase-related areas of the headless store.

This means that - by and large - headless Shopify stores which heavily utilize pre-rendering techniques won't be be calling Shopify on every page load, or for large quantities of data. Where they are calling Shopify (or other APIs), fetches that involve supplementary data such as stock levels can be initiated only upon successful load, rather than blocking page load – which results in a faster and more fluid user experience.

We're the experts in Headless Shopify.

Your search for answers ends here. Discover our services.

Explore Headless Shopify Services

What about builds which use other APIs?

The Storefront API is usually the recommended API for a headless storefront build. However, there are definitely cases where Shopify’s other API libraries are more fitting. This primarily relates to backend augmentation, such as the development of bespoke functionality and custom/private apps. 

Such functionality is usually targeted at modifying Shopify’s native behavior in some way, or communicating with the Shopify store from a backend process which is separate from the storefront. You shouldn't be calling APIs other than the Storefront API directly from the frontend or client-side anyway; this would be insecure. If these non-Storefront APIs are called as part of backend workflows, rate limiting or throttling can be applied within your own environment so as not to exceed Shopify's own rate limits.

Given that the Shopify storefront API isn’t rate limited, performance and traffic volume concerns are really limited to the capability of your headless storefront itself. In other words — the technology it’s built on, the way it’s been implemented, and how it’s hosted and served.

Since headless builds are often hosted on content delivery networks or specialist cloud platforms, there shouldn’t be any concern with regard to traffic volume or scaling. The majority of modern cloud platforms are geared strongly toward modular scalability, and as for static hosting via a CDN — there’s not much to consider beyond bandwidth. 

Is there an “upper limit” to Headless Shopify's ability to handle traffic volume?

OK, great – so we've established that Headless Shopify builds are well-equipped to handle volatile traffic spikes and large volumes of concurrent users in most scenarios.

But is there an "upper-limit" to this? At what point could things start to experience trouble?

With a well-implemented build, there isn't an upper-limit to your headless builds' ability to handle high volumes of traffic. Because today's CDNs and specialist cloud platforms are easy and cost-efficient to scale, reliability of the storefront won't be a concern. 

If your agency partner has implemented appropriate auto-scaling into your cloud infrastructure, and is utilizing primarily Storefront APIs for any dynamic/real-time queries from the headless storefront, you're not likely to experience an upper limit to platform stability during periods of high or volatile traffic. Coupled with an efficient SSG approach, scalable headless Shopify storefronts will reliably beat the volatility once and for all.

Can headless handle traffic better than a traditional Shopify setup?

Yes, headless Shopify stores are generally more capable of handling high traffic than traditional Shopify stores. However, this is a complex question that involves many variables, and so there isn’t a straightforward answer. Here’s the long-winded, thorough answer to the question:

Firstly, Shopify is a managed platform. Unlike many other managed platforms, Shopify doesn’t openly restrict or throttle sites during periods of high traffic; the platform is engineered to take care of this on its own. In theory, this should mean that non-headless Shopify stores in general should respond reliably even when traffic volume is high. 

However, there’s a catch. 

Many Shopify stores implement custom and third party modifications (that includes apps) into their Shopify store—which is something that the Shopify platform doesn’t manage, by and large. It’s these additions and complexities that can begin to cause trouble for non-headless stores as traffic volume grows, if these implementations haven’t been specifically optimized and validated for higher than usual loads.

For non-headless (themed / hosted) Shopify stores that use a copious number of frontend apps, you’ll need to consult with each individual app provider as to performance limitations and the effects of traffic volume and volatility. For extensive theme customizations, you would need to ensure ultra-optimization of the theme and any additional assets loaded. Custom apps will also need to be aggressively optimized if expected to tolerate high periods of traffic.

Informal chat? Works for us. 🤘

Contact Cocoon for a no-cost, no-obligation consultation.

Let's talk Shopify

This is where headless Shopify implementations really shine. Headless Shopify storefronts have potentially infinite resources at their disposal, in the form of hyper-scalable cloud hosting and distribution infrastructure, the ability to replace throttled apps with custom logic and performant custom code, and additional measures such as Static Site Generation. Together, these measures will ensure:

1. Less overall burden on your Shopify backend / the Shopify platform
2. Heavily reduced queries to Shopify APIs if using SSG techniques or hybrid rendering, which can be engineered in a way to ensure low potential for rate limiting
3. Optimized custom storefront hosted on purpose-fit cloud infrastructure or a CDN, able to handle high volumes of traffic with high scalability potential, but likely minimal scalability requirement
4. Selective replacement (with custom code) of any specific Shopify apps that are known to cause latency under high pressure or otherwise slam you with "fair use policies" or overly-inflated bills.

Key takeaway: For most purposes, Shopify's rate limiting won't normally impact a headless storefront that has been well-implemented and follows a performance-first architecture. Shopify's primary API for the development of headless storefronts - Storefront API isn't rate limited. Other Shopify APIs do have rate limitations, but they're quite generous and probably not something likely to cause any issues when well-implemented.