Shopify Planet
Free to install and easy to switch on, but heavy or bulky shippers get billed far above the per-order figure they expected, and the customer-pays $0.50 offset line item attracts card-testing bots the developer says it cannot block.
Should you install it?
Planet is free to install and genuinely quick to switch on, and the funding transparency and badge customisation that merchants complained about in 2022 were built. The cost is the thing to check before you install: charges scale with package weight and dimensions, and merchants shipping rugs and grills report $10 and $82 per order against a quoted $0.35 — if you ship anything heavy or bulky, model your own numbers and set a billing cap first. The live unresolved problem is that the customer-pays $0.50 offset is a standalone purchasable item, so card-testing bots order it in bulk; in June 2026 the developer said restricting this 'isn't something we can do,' and one merchant went back to a rival offset app over it. If you sell in person as well as online, check your POS orders are excluded — one store was billed for 907 orders against 640 sales and got a refund only after a public review. Expect to reach support by email at the Planet address rather than through Shopify support, which several merchants found knew nothing about the app.
Fair evidence. 71 of 76 reviews carry text and the negatives are specific and checkable, with dated developer replies that confirm or dispute each claim — so the historical picture is solid. But only 4 reviews fall in the last 12 months (two negative, one with no text), so current-state claims rest on very thin evidence: the billing complaints could be fixed or merely unreported. 54% of reviews come from stores using the app under a month and several 5-star ones were written within minutes of install, so the positive signal is weak on anything beyond setup.
Right for
- Stores shipping light, low-weight parcels where a few cents an order is immaterial — 0748 'pennies on each order', 8593 'Very affordable'
- Merchants who want the carbon-neutral claim itself and will accept a fairly generic badge; most 5-star reviews praise the concept rather than the tooling
- Stores whose customers ask for proof — 5439 and 3756 both single out the visible list of funded projects, credits delivered and timelines
- Standard Shopify 2.0 themes where the badge renders without hand-edited code
- Merchants prepared to set a billing cap and watch it rather than trust the headline per-order price
Wrong for
- Anyone shipping heavy or bulky goods — rugs billed at $10/item against $0.35 quoted (3138), a 70-pound grill at $82/order (0588)
- Stores with significant in-person or POS sales — 1073 was billed for 907 'orders' against 640 sales, roughly 370 of which required no shipping
- Stores exposed to card-testing bots, or without bot protection: the offset is buyable as a standalone line item (7717, 0095, 2426)
- Headless or custom storefronts and non-2.0 themes — 3756 could not reach checkout, 3928 rendered the badge but nothing happened at checkout
- Merchants who need the offset presented at checkout rather than only in the cart or on the product page (3756, 5000, 6837)
- Non-US, non-English stores wanting localised assets — 1845 (£ vs $ video), 7998 (untranslatable badge copy), 0939 (imperial-only front end)
What will annoy you
Badge not customisable and does not match the store's look — sizing, fonts, colour, the 'Powered by Shopify Planet' line: 20 reviews, fading, last seen 2024-09.
How the developer behaves when it breaks
Replies to 84% of reviews overall and 91% of negatives, usually within days, but the outcome splits three ways. Confirmed software bugs do get fixed and are acknowledged: the vanishing badge (8996, 'we identified a bug in our app that was causing the badge to disappear. This has been fixed'), the blank dashboard (8259, 2170, 8878, 9469), and the POS overbilling, where they offered a refund (1073). Billing disputes get contradicted rather than investigated in public — 'This isn't accurate' (6617), 'Planet users are never charged a flat fee of $0.25 USD per order' (6837), 'But you CAN display your results!' (3835) — leaving the reader unable to tell who is right. Theme-level and fraud problems get redirected elsewhere: to the theme developer (5013), to Shopify's bot protection (7717, 0095). Throughout 2022 the team promised badge customisation with no date; that promise was eventually kept, per 5439's 2024 edit. Note 2426 says the promised help never arrived: 'I haven't received any help on this matter, yet my customers are still being charged.'
What goes wrong 8 recurring themes
- Bots and card-testers buy the $0.50 carbon-offset item on its own, flooding the order list with fraudulent micro-transactions; the developer has said it cannot restrict this 3 reviews steady, last seen 2026-06
“lately my shop has been receiving an influx of fraudulent 50 cent transactions using the Planet app item as the sole item purchased” review 7717
- Badge silently stops rendering, disappears after a day, or breaks the theme 6 reviews steady, last seen 2026-05
“de badge die ik op mijn product page plaats verdwijnt constant na een dag. Heb het nu al een paar dagen handmatig hersteld maar als ik dan dag later weer kijk is het weg.” review 8996
- Weight-based billing lands far above the advertised per-order price, and the billing cap does not behave as merchants expect 7 reviews fading, last seen 2025-05
“We are being charged at a rate of $10 per item. Initial pricing displayed was $0.35 per item.” review 3138
- Charged for POS and other non-shipping orders; order counts inflated versus actual deliveries 2 reviews resolved, last seen 2024-08
“I made 640 sales in the last 30 days, and was charged for 907 orders.” review 1073
- Dashboard stuck at zero / impact data not loading 5 reviews resolved, last seen 2024-07
“The planet dashboard on my site still says 0 .... which makes it look like 1. I'm disingenuous. 2. I don't have sales.” review 8259
- Badge not customisable and does not match the store's look — sizing, fonts, colour, the 'Powered by Shopify Planet' line 20 reviews fading, last seen 2024-09
“We have no option to easily change the size of the badge, and the font size are way too big to fit our product page, cart drawer and so forth.” review 3638
- Only shows in cart or on product page, not at checkout; Buy It Now bypasses it entirely 5 reviews fading, last seen 2024-07
“I can still use it in cart as a workaround, but customers very rarely view their cart that way.” review 3756
- No way to export or download your impact data; Shopify support does not know the app 3 reviews fading, last seen 2025-04
“There is no support or a way to download results. Just a dash board with an image.” review 3835
What it does well 4 themes
- Fast, low-effort setup — install and it starts calculating 12 reviews
“Super easy to install and use and great real time updates” review 3786
- Visible detail on which carbon-removal projects your money funds (added after the 2022 complaints) 4 reviews
“You can see the exact projects being funded, the credits delivered, and the timeline for each.” review 5439
- Badge customisation and placement improved over 2023-24 after two years of complaints 3 reviews
“The badge is now highly customizable to closely match your branding and theme, with more placement options.” review 5439
- Cheap per order for light parcels, and a customer-pays option that shifts the cost off the merchant 4 reviews
“it's amazing the impact being delivered for pennies on each order” review 0748
Red flags
- The customer-pays offset is a standalone purchasable item, so card-testing bots order it repeatedly. The developer's June 2026 reply states the fix merchants asked for is not possible: 'your suggestion to restrict this item from being purchased isn't something we can do.' One store left for a rival offset app over this. 7717 0095 2426
- Per-order charges can be an order of magnitude above the figure shown at signup for heavy or bulky items ($10/item vs $0.35; $82/order). Emissions are estimated from product weight and dimensions, which is a poor proxy for goods shipped rolled or flat-packed. 3138 0588
- One merchant reports the monthly spending cap does not stop the spend, only defers it: 'they will withhold and charge the remaining to next month.' The developer disputes the framing but has not publicly reconciled it. 0588 3138
- Billing for POS and other non-shipping orders — the developer conceded this was wrong and offered a refund: 'You definitely shouldn't be getting billed on POS orders and we will gladly refund you all of those charges.' 1073
- Silent breakage: badge vanishes without warning (dev-confirmed bug, May 2026), and one store reports layout-shift damage that persisted after uninstalling. 8996 8659
- Support is hard to reach. Shopify's own support has told merchants it does not know the app, or to hire an expert; several reviewers could not find a contact route at all. 1456 8996 9597 1221 6614
Trend
Review volume has collapsed: 19 reviews in the prior 12 months against 4 in the last 12 (roughly 0.3/month), and half of those 4 are negative. The themes have also changed. The 2022 wave was almost entirely about badge appearance and customisation, and 5439's August 2024 edit confirms that was fixed. The 2024-25 wave was about cost — weight-based charges far above the quoted rate, billing caps, POS overbilling — and that has gone quiet since May 2025, though nothing in the reviews shows the pricing logic changed. What is live now is bot abuse of the $0.50 offset item (Apr 2025, Jun 2025, Jun 2026, with the developer saying in June 2026 that it cannot be blocked) and the badge failing to stay rendered (May 2026, dev-confirmed and fixed). With only four recent reviews there is not enough current evidence to call the billing problems solved — only to say no one has reported them lately.
Want this checked against your store?
Get this write-up by email with every review link, then reply with your volumes, carriers and countries for the three apps that fit your store. No charge; it is how I meet merchants who later need a shipping engineer.