You can run a free size chart app on Shopify indefinitely. All four leading apps have a free plan, and for a lot of stores that is genuinely the right answer. But the free tiers share a particular kind of ceiling, and hitting it after you have built everything out is how you end up redoing work.
This article sets out what the free plans actually include — read off the official listings on 27 July 2026 — and which limit bites which kind of store, and when. It also covers how Shopify's app billing itself works: what happens when you uninstall, and whether you can drop from annual to monthly. That part is documented, rarely explained, and costs people money.
What a free Shopify size chart app actually gives you
The free tiers of the four leading apps, as listed on 27 July 2026:
| Aspect | Across the four leading apps |
|---|---|
| Charts on the free plan | Two or three — all four, without exception |
| Watermark (the app's own name) | Two of the four apply one. One does not; one does not state it on the listing |
| First paid tier | $4.99–$9, which buys either 10 charts or unlimited charts |
| Usage caps on the free tier | Where an app offers automatic recommendations, the free tier is capped at roughly 10 requests a month |
The shared shape is two or three charts. Whether that is enough for you is the whole question, and it is answerable in about five minutes.
Don't work out "is two enough?" from your product count
This is where most people misjudge it. The number of charts you need is set by how many groups can share one measurement table — not how many products you sell.
A store selling thirty t-shirt designs off the same block needs exactly one chart. A store with fifteen products spanning tops, bottoms, dresses and outerwear, in menswear and womenswear, from two suppliers, is at five to ten almost immediately.
Count it now. Open your product list and sort by "could these two show the same measurements without misleading anyone?". The number of groups is the number of charts you need. Three or fewer and a free plan will carry you.
How to think about the watermark
Two of the four leading apps put their own name on charts on the free plan. That is not a functional limit, but your product page is part of your brand. Whether you want another company's name inside your size chart is a presentation decision more than a pricing one.
Worth noting in the other direction: not every free plan carries one. If two charts is enough and the branding is your only objection, moving between free plans may solve it faster than paying.
Three signals that it is time to pay
You will not reach this decision by reading feature lists. It arrives when one of these happens.
1.You start copying the same thing by hand
Past the free ceiling, most people either merge everything into one chart or start pasting tables into product descriptions. The first makes the information less accurate; the second grows with every new product. By the second time you hand-copy the same content, the subscription is probably already cheaper than your time.
2."Didn't fit" starts showing up in your return reasons
This is the real test. A size chart is not decoration; it is spend aimed at returns. Work out what one return actually costs you — return shipping, inspection, repackaging, the time — and put it next to the monthly fee. For most small stores, preventing one or two returns a month covers it.
3.You start shipping internationally
Centimetres alongside inches, and local size runs converted to international ones, are frequently not in the free tier. Whether you need this is answerable from your order destinations, not from guesswork.
How Shopify's app billing works (worth knowing before you pay)
This part is not app-specific — it applies to every paid Shopify app, and it is set out in Shopify's own documentation.
Uninstalling cancels the subscription — with no refund, but no immediate loss either
Uninstall an app and Shopify cancels the subscription automatically. No credit is applied for the rest of the billing period — and if you reinstall, you can use it for the remainder of that period.
In practice: charged at the start of the month, uninstalled mid-month because it wasn't working out, you can put it back and keep using it until the period ends. There is no need to rush a migration on the day you decide to leave.
Dropping from annual to monthly does not take effect immediately
Moving from an annual plan down to a monthly one is deferred until the annual billing cycle finishes. Deciding "this is too expensive, I'll switch to monthly" does not lower this month's bill.
So choose annual only once you have decided to stay a year. The discount (typically 17–20%) is real, and so is what you trade for it.
A frozen billing account freezes your apps
If the store's billing account freezes, the app subscriptions attached to it freeze too. An expired card can mean size charts quietly disappearing from your product pages without anyone touching anything.
The case for simply staying free
Plainly: if you need three charts or fewer and sell in one market, the free plan is fine. Paying would buy you nothing.
And with around ten products on a simple size run, not installing an app at all is a perfectly rational position — Shopify's native metafields and a table in the product description will do the job. A hand-written HTML table beats an empty product page by a wide margin.
Free tiers exist because they are enough for a lot of stores. Pay when it stops being enough — that is the correct order.
What Mitasu for Apparel put on the free plan
The free tiers above are all fair, and enough for a lot of stores. Here is where we drew the free/paid line, and why.
The line is not chart count
The free plan has no limit on the number of size charts, and no watermark. As this article argued, the number you need is set by groups rather than products, and a store can need five to ten regardless of how small it is. We did not want smaller stores to be the ones hitting a ceiling.
The trade: we gave up the most natural reason anyone upgrades — needing more charts.
Data export sits on the free side
CSV export is included on the free plan, and the data is stored in your store's own metafields regardless, so it survives uninstall.
This article covered the rule that uninstalling still leaves you the rest of the period. Before that ever comes up, though, we did not want to build a situation where you have to keep paying to retrieve your own work. Not charging for the exit is the one line we have not moved.
The trade: leaving is easy, and we have no mechanism to prevent it.
What is on the paid side
Pro holds the things that start mattering once a store has grown: fit feedback from actual buyers and its aggregation, matching it against return data, bulk assignment, CSV import, model-worn details and outfit suggestions.
The rule was simple — if you would not use it at ten products but could not do it by hand at a hundred, it went behind Pro. That maps deliberately onto the three signals described earlier in this article.
Pricing is flat: chart count, order volume and response count do not change it. Growing does not increase your bill.
Staying free is fine
The same conclusion, stated from the supplier's side: if you need few charts and sell in one market, the free plan is the right place to be. Ours includes size charts, the fit finder, product Q&A and CSV export. Until you can name what you would be paying for, don't pay.
It is available now on the Shopify App Store; the details are on the Mitasu for Apparel page.
In short
- Count charts by group, not by product. Three or fewer and you can start free.
- Treat the watermark as a branding question. Another free plan may answer it.
- Pay when hand-copying starts, when fit shows up in returns, or when international orders arrive. Real events, not feature lists.
- Only go annual once you have committed to a year. Dropping to monthly is deferred to the end of the cycle.
- Uninstalling doesn't cost you the rest of the period. You can reinstall and keep using it.
Apply these tests to our app as you would to any other. Until you can name what you would be paying for, free is the right answer.
Sources: Shopify — About subscription billing (cancellation, deferral, frozen accounts). Free tiers, watermarks and first paid tiers were read directly from the official listings of the four leading size chart apps on the Shopify App Store on 27 July 2026 (individual apps are not named in this article). All of it moves — check again yourself when you decide.
