Shopify localization (localisation, in our spelling) is largely built in. Markets gives you market-specific catalogues and pricing, up to 20 published languages on every plan except Lite, and a checkout already professionally translated into 33 languages. What it does not give you is complete coverage, and Shopify documents the gaps precisely enough that you can plan around them.
The gaps are the useful part, because most guides list what Markets does and stop. Here is what its own documentation says it does not reach.
Shopify's Translate & Adapt documentation is explicit. It cannot translate collection filters, content created with the Shopify Forms app, manual payment method instructions, product images, or tags. Metafields are conditional — supported when added as file metafields to a resource, while metafield is simultaneously listed among the unsupported resource types for search.
Two more that catch people out. URL handles can be localised per language, but the word products inside them cannot be translated. And the language selector is not part of the app at all: Shopify states plainly that language selectors are part of your theme. If you were expecting the translation app to give you a switcher, it does not — that is a theme job, covered in Shopify language switcher options.
Translate & Adapt auto-translates a maximum of two languages. Beyond that you add translations manually or bring another tool. That single number, not any feature list, is what decides whether a store outgrows the native tooling — and it is why a merchant testing one market pays nothing and a merchant selling into eight cannot.
One thing the native tooling gets right, and competing guides get wrong: automatic translation “will not change any translations that you have added, or edited, manually”. Your corrections survive.
Structure and coverage are the easy half. The half that persists is upkeep: every new product, collection and page needs to exist in every language you sell in, and on a manual workflow that is a recurring job nobody owns. With continuous localisation it disappears — add a product on your source store and it is live in every language without anyone touching it.
Quality is the other half. Automatic translation of a new product description is instant; automatic translation that carries your brand's voice is not. Our own position is unlimited machine translation as the baseline, with human review where the market matters — and nearly all our merchants choose the proofreading tier, because brand voice is the point. Sabre Paris went live in five markets in two weeks and lifted German revenue by 100% on that model; Mac Duggal took international DTC from 8% to 16% of revenue across 28 markets. Across 40+ merchants, translated stores lifted conversion by an average of 40% at launch.
If you are still choosing tooling, the best Shopify translation apps guide compares the three architectures honestly, including when the free native option is the right answer. And if the structural question is still open — one store or several — start with selling on Shopify in multiple countries.
Partly. Translate & Adapt auto-translates a maximum of two languages at no cost. Beyond two you add translations manually or use an app or service.
Does Shopify translate tags?No. Shopify's documentation lists tags among the content Translate & Adapt cannot translate, along with collection filters, Shopify Forms content, manual payment instructions and product images.
Can I translate metafields?Conditionally. Shopify supports translating metafields added as file metafields to a resource, while listing metafield among unsupported resource types for search. Check your specific metafield before assuming coverage.
How many languages can one Shopify store have?Up to 20 published languages on every plan except Lite.