Home / Reports / The DTC stack 2026

The DTC stack in numbers

Living report — updated with every scan · last scan 2026-09-08

3,797

storefronts scanned

3,145

with a detected stack

110

tools tracked

11

verticals

5

median tools per store

49%

run 6+ tools

Adoption by layer — all 15 categories

LayerCoverageLeaderRunners-up
Ecommerce platforms 3,060 (97%) Shopify — 2,878 (92%) WooCommerce 93 · Adobe Commerce (Magento) 38 · Webflow Ecommerce 38
Shopify review apps 2,487 (79%) Yotpo — 2,028 (64%) Okendo 1,871 · Judge.me 652 · Junip 291
Email & SMS marketing 2,666 (85%) Klaviyo — 2,474 (79%) Attentive 482 · Postscript 257 · Omnisend 198
Subscription apps 491 (16%) Recharge — 119 (4%) Skio 100 · Stay AI 99 · Appstle Subscriptions 85
Loyalty & referral apps 369 (12%) Rivo — 124 (4%) Social Snowball 117 · LoyaltyLion 104 · Smile.io 52
Helpdesk & CX apps 812 (26%) Gorgias — 771 (25%) Tidio 42
Analytics & attribution 859 (27%) Triple Whale — 648 (21%) Northbeam 231 · Littledata 61
Upsell & checkout apps 647 (21%) Rebuy — 508 (16%) AfterSell 102 · Zipify OneClickUpsell 76
Page builder apps 401 (13%) PageFly — 215 (7%) Replo 111 · GemPages 101 · Shogun 16
Post-purchase & shipping 258 (8%) Loop Returns — 148 (5%) AfterShip 64 · Parcel Panel 32 · Loop Tracking (formerly Wonderment) 20
Popups & CRO 263 (8%) Octane AI — 163 (5%) Justuno 32 · OptiMonk 30 · Wisepops 29
Site search & merchandising 155 (5%) Boost AI Search — 131 (4%) Klevu 16 · Algolia 9
Translation apps 61 (2%) Weglot — 60 (2%) Transcy 1
Mobile app builders 36 (1%) Tapcart — 36 (1%)
Retention extras 498 (16%) Back in Stock — 276 (9%) Swym Wishlist Plus 168 · Rise.ai 143

Coverage = storefronts with at least one detected tool in the layer. Presence is strong evidence; absence proves nothing — server-side and custom-built tools are invisible to storefront detection.

What moved in the last cycle

ToolPlanChangeBetween
Loop Returns Advanced $272 → $340 2026-08-08 → 2026-08-29
Loop Tracking (formerly Wonderment) Advanced $272 → $340 2026-08-08 → 2026-08-29
Littledata Scale $159 → $219 2026-07-16 → 2026-08-29
Sellfy Starter $39 → $29 2026-08-08 → 2026-08-29
Littledata Flex $0.35 → $0 2026-07-16 → 2026-08-29

Same-named-plan price changes between each tool's two most recent captures of the vendor's own pricing page.

Findings, dated

Email: the moat that doesn’t move

Klaviyo runs 79% of detected storefronts — measured four times across independently-built samples (76%, 82%, 81%, 79%). The dip located the edge: below the directory-indexed tier, the layer is genuinely contested.

Reviews: the App Store and the storefronts disagree

Judge.me owns the App Store’s best listing; Yotpo and Okendo own the deployed base (64% and 59%). Two real markets, one paradox — and the boundary between them is visible in our data.

Helpdesk: concentration without affection

Gorgias holds ~96% of detected helpdesk installs at a 4.2★ rating — the only layer where the near-monopolist is also the least-liked widely-adopted tool. Switching cost, quantified.

Loved is not the same as well-run

Joined against Newsweek’s Most Loved Pet Brands: correlation between consumer affection and stack depth is −0.05. The most-loved tier is the least tooled — its household names run brochure sites.

How to cite this

Cite as: "DTC Proof storefront detection, 2026-09-08, n=3,145 detected of 3,797 scanned." Section anchors are stable: #layers · #movement · #findings. Method and limits: methodology. The scan re-runs weekly; this page always shows the latest cycle. No vendor pays for placement, and rankings are computed from data.