Insider Club is a Shopify app that installs a discussion forum inside a store's own theme, so signed-in customers can publish posts, comment, react and vote in polls without ever leaving the shop.
What is Insider Club?
Insider Club is a community forum app for Shopify stores, made by an independent two-person team (co-founders Théo and Anaïs) who previously worked six years in e-commerce. A merchant installs it from the Shopify App Store and it renders a forum inside the existing theme using the store's own logo, banner, fonts, colors and rounded corners. The inputs are Shopify customer accounts plus member-written posts (text, photos, video links, polls); the output is a moderated, searchable discussion space with categories, and a dashboard inside the Shopify admin reporting members, posts, comments, reactions and top contributors.
What makes Insider Club stand out?
- Renders inside your Shopify theme — the forum inherits the store's fonts, colors, logo and banner and needs zero lines of code; there is no external site and no second login.
- Automatic membership — anyone logged into a Shopify customer account, or signing in with Shop (Shopify's login system), is already a member; no signup form, no new password.
- Categories and subcategories with access rules — each category gets its own color and description, and posting can be limited to all members, admins only, or a specific role.
- Moderation toolset — spam filter that blocks suspicious messages before publication, banned-word lists, posting limits (the admin example shows 10 comments per hour, 20 per day, 2 posts per day), member reports, bans and a filterable moderation history.
- Roles and badges — members can be labelled Owner, Admin, Fan or a custom role to mark ambassadors, loyal customers and staff.
- Analytics and email alerts — the Shopify admin dashboard reports forum views, unique visitors, average time per visitor, new members, top contributors, top posts and a posts/comments/reactions breakdown across 7-day, 30-day, 6-month, 12-month or all-time windows, and emails you when a new post goes live.
- Polls, photos and product cards — posts on the Growth plan accept photos, YouTube video links and polls, and the team can attach a product preview card showing name, price and size range.
- Forum pages that can be indexed — customer questions become pages on the store's own domain that Google can crawl and rank.
Who should use Insider Club?
- Shopify merchants fighting churn: move customers from one-off purchases into a recurring discussion space on their own domain, with no external platform owning the data.
- Community and social managers: run polls (a Pattes & Co example asks members to vote a sweater colorway before production), pin announcements and highlight top contributors with badges.
- Support and CX teams: offload recurring sizing, shipping and usage questions to a Help category where existing customers answer each other.
- Brand teams without developers: ship a themed forum in about 10 minutes from the Shopify App Store and customize it entirely from the admin.
What can you do with Insider Club?
- Product co-creation: post a poll asking members to vote on the next colorway or model, attach the product card, and let the winning option drive production.
- Peer support: customers post sizing questions and before/after photos; the most-liked answers surface, reducing repeat support tickets.
- User-generated content and SEO: member threads become indexed pages on the store domain, capturing long-tail searches like "which model is best for everyday use".
- Ambassador programs: assign roles and badges to loyal customers and give them access to private categories.
How does Insider Club work?
- Install the app from the Shopify App Store in one click and let it render inside your theme.
- Create the categories and sub-categories that match your brand (help, before/after photos, new arrivals) and set who may post in each.
- Invite customers with a link in your menu or an email to your list; they sign in with their existing Shopify account or with Shop.
- Moderate and measure from the Shopify admin. A free simulator on the Insider Club site draws a preview forum from a store URL in about ten seconds before you install.
Pricing
Insider Club is freemium. The Free plan costs $0 with no time limit and includes unlimited members, admins and posts, categories, search, custom banner/fonts/colors, Shop login, moderation and bans, statistics, email alerts and a latest-posts block for any page. The Growth plan is $19.99 per month or $199 per year (a 17% saving) with a 14-day free trial, adding photos and video links, product cards, polls and subcategories, a password-protected forum, roles, badges and private categories, banned words and daily post limits, plus social links and custom texts.
FAQ
Do I need to know how to code to set up Insider Club?
No. The app installs from the Shopify App Store and is configured from the Shopify admin; the forum renders inside your existing theme, and the product page states there are zero lines of code to write.
Do my customers need to create a new account?
No. Insider Club uses existing Shopify customer accounts — a logged-in customer is automatically a member — and visitors can sign in with Shop, Shopify's login system, with no password to create. A profile shows photo, first and last name and username.
Can I make the forum private?
Yes, on the Growth plan: the whole forum can be protected with a password, and individual categories can be reserved for certain members or for admins only.
What happens to my community if I uninstall the app?
The subscription stops immediately from Shopify. Before uninstalling you can export your data; after that it is deleted from Insider Club's servers within 30 days.
Is there a free plan?
Yes — the Free plan costs $0 with no time limit and covers unlimited members, admins and posts, categories, search, custom branding, moderation, statistics and email alerts. Photos, video links, polls, private categories and roles require the Growth plan.
