Set up Shopify Markets and you get hreflang, canonicals, and sitemaps handled for you. That's accurate as far as it goes.

What it skips is the condition. Shopify's help center is explicit: hreflang tags are generated only for markets that have a distinct domain, subdomain, or subfolder. If all your markets sit on the same URL with no language or region distinction, there are no alternate versions to reference — and no tags get written.

Which puts the whole question upstream, at URL structure. And there are two constraints buried there that catch people out: international domains require the Basic plan or higher, and language-only subfolders like /fr can only exist on your primary market. Secondary markets must combine a language code with a country code — /fr-ca, /en-eu.

Below: exactly what Markets automates, where the native Translate & Adapt app stops, and which of eight translation and international SEO apps actually earn their monthly fee. Research date: September 1, 2026. All prices are USD as listed on the Shopify App Store.

The short version

One or two languages, a single store, on Basic or higher? You don't need an app. Markets plus the free Translate & Adapt gives you hreflang, self-referencing canonicals, and a multilingual sitemap. Adding a translation app buys nothing here.

Moving to a third language is where the native ceiling shows up. Translate & Adapt machine-translates a maximum of two languages. Beyond that you're doing manual translation (unlimited) or CSV imports — or reaching for an app. T Lab (from $11.99/mo), LangShop (from $10/mo), and Transcy (from $14.90/mo) are the practical candidates.

Need a country or language selector? There's no native option anymore. Shopify's own Geolocation app stopped accepting installs February 1, 2025 and was shut down and uninstalled from stores on March 24, 2025. GLC Geolocation & GEO Currency is a free replacement.

Selling into the EU? That's not a preference, it's a requirement. EU customers are excluded from automatic redirection for legal compliance, and Shopify's help center states you need a compatible third-party app to offer them country and region recommendations.

On Starter? Fix that first. No international domains means no split URLs, which means no hreflang.

What Markets actually automates

Hreflang tags. Assign a domain, subdomain, or subfolder to a market with a language, and the appropriate tags are added to every page. x-default points at your primary domain. Tags update automatically when you change market domains or languages. This is on by default for all stores and can be switched off under Online Store > Preferences, in the "Social sharing image and SEO" section — do that only if a theme or app is already emitting hreflang and you're avoiding duplicates.

Canonicals. Every page gets a self-referencing canonical. yourstore.com/products/shirt and yourstore.com/fr/products/shirt each point to themselves and are linked by hreflang. If you've read advice about consolidating canonicals to avoid duplicate content, that advice is wrong in an international context. Self-referencing canonical plus hreflang is the correct pattern.

Sitemaps. Generated automatically with all market-specific URLs and hreflang annotations. Add a market, the sitemap follows.

Crawler handling. Automatic redirection applies to customers; known search engine crawlers are excluded and receive the content for the URL they requested. So the common worry — "geo-redirects will stop Google indexing my other language versions" — doesn't apply to Shopify's own redirection.

All free, all essentially zero-config. The work is one step earlier.

Choosing a URL structure

Shopify's own comparison, condensed:

Option	Example	Domain authority	Setup effort
Subfolders	yourstore.com/fr-fr/	Shared with primary domain	Lowest
Subdomains	fr.yourstore.com	Independent	Medium
Top-level domains	yourstore.fr	Independent, strongest local signal	Highest

Subfolders are recommended for most stores because new markets inherit the authority your primary domain has already accumulated. ccTLDs make sense only with an established presence in a specific country and the resources to manage multiple domains — and note that some ccTLDs, .ca and .fr among them, carry residency or business registration requirements you must meet to buy them through Shopify.

Then the rule that reshapes your URLs:

Language-only subfolders (/fr, /en) can only exist on your primary market. On secondary markets, subfolders must combine a language code with a country code — /fr-ca, /en-eu, /fr-fr.

If your store's primary market is the US on example.com and you add French as an additional language there, /fr works. If instead you stand up Canada as its own market, the URL becomes /en-ca and /fr-ca. Same language, different structure, driven entirely by whether it's a language on the primary market or a separate market. Decide this before launch, because changing it later means redirects.

Speaking of which: delete a market that used subfolders and those URLs return 404. Getting customers back to your primary domain requires importing URL redirects via CSV. Spinning up a market to "see how it goes" has a cleanup cost.

Two more prerequisites. Selling in multiple currencies requires Shopify Payments. And international domains need the Basic plan or higher plus a custom domain — you cannot create them on a myshopify.com URL.

Where Translate & Adapt stops

The free native app (4.5 stars, 1,397 reviews) is the starting point. It's genuinely capable, and it has hard edges.

Machine translation caps at two languages. This is the big one. Manual translation and CSV import have no language limit, but automatic translation does. Several App Store reviews complain that this cap isn't surfaced clearly before you commit to a language strategy.

Some things can't be translated at all. Policies are manual-only, excluded from machine translation. Collection filters, forms built with Shopify Forms, manual payment method descriptions, product images, and tags can't be translated.

SEO meta fields have a condition. If your meta title and description are left at their defaults — auto-derived from the product title and description — they can't be translated. Set custom values and they become translatable. If you're planning to go multilingual, fill in SEO meta explicitly on the pages that matter, before you translate.

Changing your default language deletes existing translations in the new default language. Treat a primary-language switch on a live store as a migration, not a setting.

Separately: multi-language support itself covers up to 20 languages on all plans except Lite. "Sell in 20 languages" and "machine-translate 2 languages for free" are different statements, and they're easy to conflate.

Eight translation and international SEO apps

Same axes throughout, as listed on the Shopify App Store on September 1, 2026. BFS = Built for Shopify badge.

App	Developer	From	Free plan	Rating (count)	BFS	Primary use
Shopify Translate & Adapt	Shopify	Free	Fully free	4.5 (1,397)	Native	Translation foundation
T Lab ‑ AI Language Translate	Sherpas Design	$11.99/mo	Free to install	4.9 (952)	Yes	AI translation at scale
Transcy: AI Language Translate	FireGroup	$14.90/mo	Yes	4.5 (2,488)	Yes	Translation + currency + geo
Weglot: AI Translation & SEO	Weglot	$17/mo	Yes (1 lang, 2,000 words)	4.5 (788)	No	Multilingual SEO
LangShop AI Language Translate	Aheadworks	$10/mo	Yes	4.5 (442)	Yes	Translation + checkout
langify ‑ translate your store	langify GmbH & Co. KG	$17.50/mo	Yes	4.7 (680)	No	Long-standing translation app
GLC Geolocation & GEO Currency	GLC	Free	Fully free	4.6 (283)	Yes	Country/language selector
GWA: Hreflang Manager	GenovaWebArt	$9.99/mo per store	Dev stores only	4.9 (16)	Yes	Manual hreflang control

Three observations.

The pricing denominators don't match. T Lab, Transcy, LangShop, and langify charge a monthly fee tiered by languages and features. Weglot charges by translated word count — the free tier is one language and 2,000 words, and even the $32 Business plan covers three languages and 50,000 words. For a catalog of any size, two apps with similar headline prices can differ by an order of magnitude in practice. Reading across the "from $X" column is more misleading here than in almost any other app category.

Very few apps address hreflang directly. Only Weglot, Transcy, and GWA: Hreflang Manager mention it in their listings. On a single store using Markets, that's fine — Shopify emits hreflang for you and a dedicated app is redundant. GWA: Hreflang Manager earns its place in a specific scenario: multiple separate Shopify stores that need to be linked together with hreflang. Its 16 reviews are a thin evidence base.

Free is a real option twice. Translate & Adapt and GLC Geolocation & GEO Currency are both free, and GLC carries a Built for Shopify badge. A one-or-two-language store with a country selector can be fully served at zero app spend.

Notes on the main apps

Shopify Translate & Adapt (free, 4.5, 1,397 reviews) Unlimited manual translation, market-specific adapted content, URL handle translation (with automatic redirects from the old handle), and localization of theme images and logos. The two-language machine translation cap is the boundary. For one or two languages, nothing else is needed.

T Lab ‑ AI Language Translate (from $11.99/mo, 4.9, 952 reviews, Built for Shopify) The free tier covers AI translation of up to 500 products and adding 20 languages. Premium ($59.99/mo) lets you bring your own DeepL, Google, or ChatGPT API key for unlimited translation. Autopilot translates new content as it's created — a good fit when both SKU count and language count are high.

Transcy: AI Language Translate (from $14.90/mo, 4.5, 2,488 reviews, Built for Shopify) The largest review base in this category. 147 languages and 169 currencies, with geolocation switching bundled in — though geolocation requires the $69/mo Continental plan. AI translation runs on a token allowance that constrains the lower tiers. Suits mid-to-large stores wanting translation and country experience in one app.

Weglot: AI Translation & SEO (from $17/mo, 4.5, 788 reviews) One of the few listings that explicitly names hreflang, clean URLs, and multilingual indexing. 110+ languages. The word-count model makes it best suited to sites with a bounded content volume and a high bar for SEO quality; it fits general ecommerce catalogs poorly.

LangShop AI Language Translate (from $10/mo, 4.5, 442 reviews, Built for Shopify) The cheapest entry point of the eight. Full Shopify Markets integration is stated, covering metafields, URLs, and Shopify checkout. No hreflang claim, which is fine on a Markets setup where Shopify handles it.

GLC Geolocation & GEO Currency (free, 4.6, 283 reviews, Built for Shopify) Country selector, language selector, geolocation popup, market domain redirection, and automatic 404 redirection — free, with a Built for Shopify badge. The first thing to evaluate as a replacement for the discontinued Shopify Geolocation app.

Choosing by situation

One or two languages. Markets plus Translate & Adapt. Confirm you're on Basic or higher, using a custom domain, with custom SEO meta values in place.

Three or more languages, machine-translated. T Lab for scale, LangShop for price, Transcy if you also need currency switching.

Country/language recommendation popup. GLC, free. Effectively mandatory if you sell into the EU, since automatic redirection is legally unavailable there.

Bounded page count, SEO quality above all. Weglot — after you've estimated your total word count.

Multiple separate Shopify stores to link. GWA: Hreflang Manager. Not needed on a single store with Markets.

Before you install

1. Are you on Basic or higher? (Starter can't use international domains, so URLs don't split and hreflang doesn't fire)
2. Do you have a custom domain? (myshopify.com can't host international domains)
3. Is Shopify Payments enabled, if you're selling in multiple currencies?
4. Do your secondary-market subfolders combine language and country codes?
5. Have you set custom SEO meta values rather than leaving them at defaults?
6. Have you asked the app developer whether their tags will duplicate Shopify's automatic hreflang?
7. If you're considering a word-count-priced app, have you estimated your total translatable words?
8. If you might delete a market, do you have a redirect plan for the resulting 404s?
9. Have you registered every domain and subdomain in Google Search Console and submitted sitemaps?
10. For EU customers, do you have a consent-based localization method in place?

The bottom line

1. Hreflang only appears for markets with their own URL. Configuring Markets isn't sufficient on its own
2. Decide URL structure first. Secondary-market subfolders require language plus country, and changing it later means managing redirects
3. One or two languages is a solved problem natively. The reason to buy an app starts at the third language
4. Country and language selection has no native answer anymore. The Geolocation app was shut down March 24, 2025, and EU selling makes a replacement effectively mandatory
5. Don't compare word-count pricing against flat monthly pricing in the same column. Weglot in particular scales with catalog size

Prices, ratings, and specs were verified September 1, 2026. Re-check before you commit.

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Primary sources

• International SEO for markets — Shopify Help Center
• International domains — Shopify Help Center
• Localization and translation — Shopify Help Center
• Translate & Adapt app — Shopify Help Center
• Shopify Translate & Adapt — Shopify App Store
• T Lab ‑ AI Language Translate — Shopify App Store
• Transcy: AI Language Translate — Shopify App Store
• Weglot: AI Translation & SEO — Shopify App Store
• LangShop AI Language Translate — Shopify App Store
• langify ‑ translate your store — Shopify App Store
• GLC Geolocation & GEO Currency — Shopify App Store
• GWA: Hreflang Manager — Shopify App Store