Best Shopify Menu Apps [2023]
Which Shopify menu apps provide the best navigation and user experience for customers?
The menus in your Shopify store get a lot of attention. Whether for mobile or desktop stores, the menus are like maps for finding your way around, helping shoppers find what they need and not getting lost in the changing rooms 😊.
Apps help you get the job done easier and more creatively. The best menu apps provide multiple menu options that help customers filter and select the right products and also help store owners place ads and promotions in the main menus and sub-menus to boost sales.
Ultimately, when stores make it easier for their customers to shop, their sales go up. Good menus increase engagement, improve the user experience, encourage customers to stay longer and boost conversions.
Store owners looking for Shopify menu apps to help them with designing this crucial element of their stores have plenty of choices. We’ve checked a few of them out for you and these are the six best ones we could find…
Smart Mega Menu & Navigation
Smart Mega Menu & Navigation is an app by qikify, a developer that specializes in making life easier for Shopify store owners, with eight or nine apps in its range.
This one offers a free way to set up menus for new and smaller stores, as well as two affordable paid versions with additional features.
It’s another of the best-reviewed and most-installed menu apps for Shopify so you should feel confident about trying it.
Price: Free plan available. Basic plan at $3.99/month. Premium Plan at $7.99/month.
Free Trial? Yes — 7-day free trial
Average Shopify Rating (out of 5 stars): 4.8 (566 reviews)
Main pros:
- Create clear, flexible navigation menus for customers
- Add product, collection, pages and custom links in menu items
- Add text only and search bar into navigation
- Create menus with block items, contact form, Google map and custom HTML
- Add image and image swap with flexible widgets
- Add labels, badges, and icons to attract customer attention (deals/special offers)
- Add multiple menu items at a time (bulk add)
- Flyout menu (tree menu), products menu, tabs menu, and contact form
- Promote featured products and collections with banners and flexible widgets
- Pre-designed templates make it is easy to create menus quickly
- Different templates available for desktop and mobile menus
- Horizontal and vertical menus are available
- Menus compatible with all Shopify themes except Narrative and Pop
- Customized designs available (custom width, font, colors, etc.)
- Affordable pricing
Any cons?
- Short free trial (only 7 days)
- The free version has a watermark
Mega Menu & Navigation
Mega Menu & Navigation by Buddha Apps is probably the best-reviewed menu app in the Shopify app store — from the sheer volume of positive reviews. It is certainly the most-installed app of its kind.
That says a lot. For startups and smaller stores watching the pennies, the free option is very welcome and you can upgrade at any point to the paid plan for more menu options.
Price: Free plan available. Paid Mega Zen plan with many more features at $9.95/month.
Free Trial? Yes — 14-day free trial
Average Shopify Rating (out of 5 stars): 4.8 (1075 reviews)
Main pros:
- Add products, collections, blogs, pages or any URLs in menu items
- Highlight promotions from menus
- Design submenus and preview how they look on desktop, tablet and mobile
- Four menu types: tree and simple menus (free version) and tabbed and contact menus (paid)
- Create link lists with/without images for easy navigation
- Add to cart buttons on featured products
- Featured collections /blogs/banners to aid navigation and promotions
- Labels, countdowns, live icons, and sale banners to help attract attention
- Add any link and picture to custom widgets
- Video widgets available
- Automated best-selling and newest-products collections
- Regularly upgraded with new features
- Customizable design options
- Compatible with all Shopify themesGood free version
Any cons?
- Occasional pricing issues
Categories Uncomplicated
Categories Uncomplicated by Zoom Buzz maintains a full five-star rating from over 40 reviews on the app store, which says something for a paid app.
Usually, for paid apps, there are a few customers who can’t wait to put the boot in with a poor review — but this one has none!
If you’re looking to simplify your product categories, and organize them into a structure that helps your customers understand your products at a glance, this one does it.
Price: $10/month
Free Trial? Yes — 10-day free trial
Average Shopify Rating (out of 5 stars): 5.0 (43 reviews)
Main pros:
- Makes categorizing products easy
- Organizes collections into a structure that helps customers understand products at a glance
- Narrows searches to specific sub-categories to make it easy for shoppers to find groups of products
- Includes category list for your left-hand sidebar
- A full breadcrumb to show on collections or product pages
- Sub-category icons to show in each parent collection
- Show product counts against each category so customers can quickly see where a catalogue is fullest
- Drag-and-drop category breadcrumbs/icons into your theme using Shopify Theme Editor (newer themes)
- Embed category list on your site using liquid (older themes)
- Helps improve SEO performance – unique hierarchical URLs allow search engines to index groups of products in context
- Works alongside the existing Shopify navigation system
Any cons?
- Fewer merchant reviews than other apps reviewed here
- No free version
- Requires some technical expertise for older Shopify themes
Mobile Menu & Navigation
This is another app by qikify, who also developed the Smart Mega Menu & Navigation app reviewed above.
As you might guess from the name, this one is designed to make mobile navigation quick and easy for users.
It seems to be doing a great job of it too, maintaining a full five-star rating from its Shopify merchants.
Price: Free plan available with unlimited menu items. Premium plan at $6.99/month.
Free Trial? Yes — 7-day free trial
Average Shopify Rating (out of 5 stars): 5.0 (60 reviews)
Main pros:
- Easy to build a better mobile menu — no coding required
- Replace the existing Shopify menu options with a more sophisticated mobile menu
- A second, floating menu can be added separately to your store, without affecting the main menu
- Promote products and campaigns on the menu with promotional banners
- Add many types of menu items like links list, product, image in a single click
- Drag and drop an unlimited number of menu items, including links list, collections lists, products list, logos, images, etc.
- Contact form and Google maps are available
- Customizable font, color, image size, badge/label, etc.
- Customize the location of the menu
- Edit menu with real-time preview
- Free plan available
Any cons?
- Short free trial (7 days)
- The free plan has a watermark
Mega Menu
Globo’s Mega Menu is another app by a well-established developer, with over 10 other apps available in the Shopify app store.
This one is similarly excellently reviewed, with many merchants using the app to easily create menus that enhance the navigation and overall usability of their stores.
The free plan allows you to check out most of the features before upgrading to the affordable professional plan without any branding.
Price: Free plan available. Professional plan at $9.90/month (with no branding and more features)
Free Trial? No free trial advertised
Average Shopify Rating (out of 5 stars): 4.8 (414 reviews)
Main pros:
- Create a Shopify main menu in minutes with live edit/drag and drop
- User-friendly interface
- Add multiple drop-down menu items at the same time
- Pre-customized styles available for the popular themes
- Auto-installation — no technical expertise required
- Fully mobile responsive menus
- Embed ads in each submenu to increase sales
- Add badges to menus to increase conversions
- Compatible with all Shopify themes
- Multi-level dropdowns, tab menus, links list/block links, featured products, and contact form available
- Customizable hover effect, background color, text color, font size, font family, border color, etc.
- Vertical and horizontal menus are available
- New products, featured blog posts, new blog post menus (paid version)
- Multi-language and multi-currency options (paid version)
Any cons?
- No free trial advertised
- The free plan is limited to 3 published mega menus
Filter Menu by Power Tools
Filter Menu by Power Tools facilitates more sales for Shopify stores by streamlining the shopping experience with filter menus in the sidebar.
Power Tools is another Shopify developer with a suite of apps available. The stated purpose of this one is to help make the shopping experience as “frictionless” as possible and, according to merchant reviews, this app is doing a great job — with a near-perfect rating from over 100 users.
There’s no free version but there is a 14-day free trial to check out the app before committing.
Price: $14.99/month
Free Trial? Yes — 14-day free trial
Average Shopify Rating (out of 5 stars): 4.9 (155 reviews)
Main pros:
- Quickly create, modify and maintain filter menus in the sidebar of your store
- The one-click installer makes it easy to install — no developer is required
- Its design is based on leading retailers like Amazon and eBay
- Create filters based on price, brand, type, variants such as color or size, etc.
- Automated filter maintenance — an in-built ‘tag sync’ feature automatically maintains and sorts filter menus
- The support team helps tailor the app to your Shopify theme
- Friendly, responsive customer support
- No ads or branding
Any cons?
- No free version
- More expensive than other apps reviewed here.
Boost UX and sales with a new approach to menus
Don’t underestimate the power of great menus.
By upgrading your store’s main menus and sub-menus — and maybe even adding floating menus — using the Shopify menu apps reviewed above, you improve organization and navigation in your store, which enhances the overall customer experience.
That ultimately leads to more conversions and sales…and who doesn’t want that?
