Shopify DTC Brand Discovery — Tech Stack + Opportunity Score

Find Shopify stores by niche, see what apps they run (Klaviyo, ReCharge, Postscript, Yotpo, Gorgias and 25 more), score the opportunity, surface pitch angles based on which app categories are missing. Single-endpoint API on Apify Standby. Pay per result, no monthly seat license.

Why this exists

Trendtrack at $99-$299/mo. Store Leads at subscription. The closest Apify alternative has 47 monthly users and a "under maintenance" banner. DTC agencies don't need another database subscription. They need a query that returns 200 brands with the missing app slot already identified, ready for a Klaviyo or Postscript outbound list.

How It Works

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
                    │      Shopify DTC Brand Discovery API        │
                    └──────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
                                       │
                    ┌──────────────────▼──────────────────────────┐
                    │  Step 1: DISCOVERY                          │
                    │  site:myshopify.com search + /products.json │
                    │  validation. Returns store URL + niche      │
                    │  + product count. Charge: $0.02/store       │
                    └──────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
                                       │
                    ┌──────────────────▼──────────────────────────┐
                    │  Step 2: TECH STACK DETECTION (30 apps)     │
                    │  Email: Klaviyo, Omnisend, Drip, Mailchimp  │
                    │  SMS: Postscript, Attentive, SMSBump        │
                    │  Reviews: Judge.me, Yotpo, Loox, Stamped    │
                    │  Subscriptions: ReCharge, Bold, Skio        │
                    │  Helpdesk: Gorgias, Zendesk, Tidio          │
                    │  Page builder, Upsell, Loyalty, Analytics   │
                    └──────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
                                       │
                    ┌──────────────────▼──────────────────────────┐
                    │  Step 3: CONTACT + SOCIALS                  │
                    │  Email + phone from /contact and footer     │
                    │  6 social platforms via regex on HTML       │
                    └──────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
                                       │
                    ┌──────────────────▼──────────────────────────┐
                    │  Step 4: OPPORTUNITY SCORE 0-100            │
                    │  Higher = more open app slots = warmer lead │
                    │  Plus pitch angles ready for outbound       │
                    │  Charge: $0.05 per fully-enriched record    │
                    └──────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
                                       │
                    ┌──────────────────▼──────────────────────────┐
                    │  Output: structured JSON                    │
                    └─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Endpoints

Method	Path	Purpose	Charge
GET	/	Service info	none
GET	/health	Health probe	none
GET	/discover?keyword=skincare&limit=25	Discover stores by niche	$0.02 / store
GET	/enrich?store_url=https://allbirds.com	Full enrichment for one store	$0.05 / store
POST	/enrich/bulk	Up to 50 stores in one call	$0.05 / store

Quick start

TOKEN="<your-apify-token>"
BASE="https://george-the-developer--shopify-dtc-brand-discovery.apify.actor"

# Discover 10 skincare brands
curl "$BASE/discover?keyword=skincare&limit=10" -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

# Enrich one specific store
curl "$BASE/enrich?store_url=https://allbirds.com" -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

Sample response (enriched)

{
  "store_url": "https://allbirds.com",
  "brand_name": "Allbirds",
  "country": "US",
  "shopify": { "product_count": "250+", "currency": "USD", "locales": ["en-US"] },
  "tech_stack": {
    "email": ["Klaviyo"],
    "sms": [],
    "reviews": ["Yotpo"],
    "subscriptions": [],
    "helpdesk": ["Gorgias"],
    "payments": ["Shop Pay", "Shopify Payments"]
  },
  "missing_categories": ["sms", "subscriptions", "loyalty", "page_builder"],
  "contact": { "email": "help@allbirds.com", "phone": "1-628-300-1003" },
  "socials": {
    "instagram": "https://instagram.com/allbirds",
    "tiktok": "https://tiktok.com/@weareallbirds"
  },
  "opportunity_score": 78,
  "pitch_angles": [
    "No SMS app installed - abandoned-cart recovery is leaking",
    "No subscriptions app - recurring revenue untapped",
    "No loyalty program - repeat-purchase rate likely below 25 percent"
  ]
}

Pricing

Event	Price	What it covers
discovery-completed	$0.02	One Shopify store found and validated against /products.json
brand-enriched	$0.05	Full tech stack, contact, socials, opportunity score, pitch angles

Apify free tier covers around $5/mo of usage out of the gate. No subscription, no minimum, no seat license.

Use cases

1. Klaviyo agencies — find Shopify stores doing $1M+ that do not run Klaviyo. Pre-qualified Klaviyo retainer outbound.
2. Postscript / Attentive resellers — find brands with no SMS app installed.
3. Shopify app developers — find stores that lack your category. Outbound for product-led growth.
4. DTC consultants — score 500 stores in your niche, work the top 50 by opportunity score.
5. Agency vertical scouts — qualify brands by tech stack signals before adding them to the pipeline.

Tech stack detector (v1)

30 most common DTC apps across 10 categories. v2 expands to 80+ patterns including more loyalty, returns, post-purchase, and reviews tools. Coverage is best on standard Shopify themes — Plus tenants on headless setups have lower coverage.

Honest tradeoffs

• Cold-start latency on first call after idle (10-30s while Apify wakes the Standby actor)
• Tech stack detection misses headless and Shopify Plus tenants where apps load via custom domains
• Opportunity score is a heuristic (more apps installed = more saturated = lower score). Tune to your buyer profile
• /discover uses search-engine results to find candidate stores; results vary by region

Docs and examples

Full curl, Node, and Python examples at github.com/the-ai-entrepreneur-ai-hub/shopify-dtc-brand-discovery-docs.

More from this developer

Other lead-gen actors built for the same value-driven, pay-per-result model:

• ATS Hire-Trigger Intent Scraper — Greenhouse + Lever + Ashby + SmartRecruiters jobs in one API. Tech-keyword extraction, hiring-surge flags, first-in-function detection. $0.005 / $0.015 per job. For SDR teams running buying-intent outreach.
• Funded Startup Tracker — TechCrunch + SEC EDGAR funding events with parsed amount, round, investors, founders, hiring signals. $0.04 / $0.10 per record. Pay-per-result alternative to Crunchbase Pro seat licenses.
• Email Validator API — SMTP probe, MX record check, disposable detection. $0.002 per email. Pairs with this actor for verifying contacts you discover.
• Domain WHOIS Lookup — Age, expiry, registrar, DNS. $0.005 per domain. Pairs for owner-info enrichment on stores you find.

Full portfolio: apify.com/george.the.developer.

License

MIT.