Shopify Academy is closing on October 29, 2026. Where to learn Shopify development now

If you opened Shopify Academy this week, you saw the banner at the top of the page: Shopify Academy will sunset on October 29, 2026. That is less than a month away. Shopify's free, structured place to learn the platform, including its developer path and the Verified Skills credentials, is going away.

This post covers two things. First, what actually happens to what you already have: refunds, badges, credentials and your Partner tier, all straight from Shopify's own FAQ. Second, where to keep learning Shopify development once it is gone, with the free options first.

What happens to what you already have

Shopify answered the practical questions in a short FAQ on the Help Center. Here it is in one place:

So if you already hold an Academy credential, nothing breaks right away. You have until the start of 2028 before the links stop working, which is plenty of time to make sure your portfolio shows your work in other ways too.

What actually goes away

Shopify's documentation is not going anywhere. What goes away is the order: a free starting point like Developing on Shopify, a Shopify Developer path from setup to merchant handover, and a credential at the end that said you had been through it.

For resources, Shopify's FAQ points to three places: the Dev Docs, the Partner Help Center, and the Dev Community Forums. All three are genuinely good. But they are reference material and a place to ask questions. They tell you how a thing works once you know you need it. They do not tell a beginner what to learn first, what to build next, or whether the code they just wrote is how a professional would write it.

That gap is the real problem for anyone who was halfway through an Academy path, or who was about to start one.

Where to learn Shopify development now

Free options first. You can learn Shopify development without paying anyone, and you should use most of these whatever else you choose.

1. shopify.dev, the official docs (free)

The source of truth for Liquid, theme architecture, the Admin API, Functions and everything else. Every filter, tag and object you will ever use is documented here, and if something is not in the docs, it does not exist in Shopify, whatever a tutorial or an AI tool tells you. Use it as your reference from day one. Its limit is that it is organised by topic, not by what you should learn next.

2. The Shopify Dev Community forums (free)

Where you go when you are stuck on something specific. Search before you post: most beginner questions have been answered there already, often by people at Shopify.

3. Read Shopify's own themes (free)

Horizon and Dawn are Shopify's reference themes, and the source is public. Reading how a production theme structures its sections, blocks and snippets teaches you more about real theme architecture than any number of isolated examples. It works best once you know enough Liquid to follow along.

4. A free development store (free)

Development stores cost nothing, and they are where you practise for real: install a theme, break it, fix it, add metafields, wire up a product page. Everything you learn should end up being tried on one.

5. learnshopify.dev (Module 1 free)

This one is mine, so take this section with that in mind. I built learnshopify.dev because the gap above is exactly the gap I kept seeing: docs that explain everything and a path that explains nothing.

It is a structured, hands-on course in your browser. You join a fictional coffee company as a junior developer, and every lesson is a real task: you write Liquid in an editor and watch a realistic storefront change next to it, with no setup. Five modules take you from Liquid fundamentals through the Shopify object model, theme architecture and production theme features to apps and the Admin API. Some lessons walk you through the Shopify admin itself, like setting up metafields, metaobjects and variant options before you render them. Over 150 lessons in total.

The focus is the part AI tools cannot do for you: knowing which approach is right, debugging, reviewing generated code and spotting what it gets wrong. Module 1 is free, no card needed. Pro is €29 a month or €290 a year, and includes the Shopify App Development path we are building now.

A learning order that works

Whatever you use, this is the order I would follow if I were starting over today. Each step depends on the one before it.

1. Where things live. The folders of a theme and what each file does. You cannot write good Liquid if you do not know which file it goes in.
2. Liquid basics. Output, filters, conditions and loops. Small, but everything else is built from them.
3. The object model. Products, variants, collections, metafields: the data Shopify hands every template, and how to read it safely when it is missing.
4. Theme architecture. Sections, blocks, schemas and settings, so merchants can change the store without calling you.
5. Real features. Cart drawers, filtering, search, the things clients actually pay for.
6. Apps and custom data. When a theme edit is the wrong tool, and what to reach for instead.

What about credentials?

Academy credentials stay valid until January 1, 2028, so keep showing them until then. After that, what proves you can do the work is the work: themes and stores you built, code people can read, and clients who can vouch for you.

learnshopify.dev gives you a certificate for each module you finish, with a verification code you can add to LinkedIn. To be clear: it is our certificate, not a Shopify credential, and nothing replaces Shopify's own. Treat it as proof that you did the work, alongside the stores you build.