Choosing a Shopify giveaway app: sweepstakes or skill contest

What the search shows

On September 30, 2026, Google Autocomplete (suggestqueries.google.com, client=firefox, hl=en) returned four suggestions for “shopify giveaway app”, in this order: [1]

1. shopify giveaway app
2. shopify sweepstakes app
3. shopify contest app
4. does shopify have an app

The same day, the first three suggestions for “shopify giveaway” were shopify giveaway, shopify giveaway app and shopify giveaway plugin. [2] On October 2, 2026, Autocomplete for “shopify sweepstakes” (client=firefox) returned “shopify sweepstakes app” as a suggestion. [3]

That is Autocomplete, not search volume. Google says its predictions reflect real searches, but that Autocomplete doesn’t simply display the most common queries, so these lists say nothing about how many people search any of these words. [4] What they do show is “sweepstakes app” and “contest app” offered right after “giveaway app”. Search treats the three as neighbors. The law does not, and the difference decides which rules you have to follow.

1. Prize, chance and consideration decide what an app runs

States usually define a lottery by three elements: a prize, chance, and consideration, meaning something of value an entrant gives up to enter. A promotion with all three is likely an illegal lottery unless an exception applies. [5] Every giveaway has a prize, so a lawful one takes out one of the other two. A sweepstakes keeps chance and removes consideration; the Postal Inspection Service describes it as prizes awarded by chance with no purchase or entry fee required to win. [6] A contest asks entrants to do something and removes chance instead: whoever performs best wins. [5] An app that draws a name, spins a wheel or picks a random entry is running a sweepstakes, whatever its listing calls it.

Ask the app: Is the winner drawn at random, spun on a wheel, or ranked by a score, and what does someone have to do to enter?

2. A random draw cannot require a purchase

The FTC says sweepstakes-type promotions that require a purchase by participants are illegal in the United States. It adds that the U.S. Postal Service and the FCC also enforce federal law on contests and prize promotions, and that state laws may require disclosures, a license or a bond. [7] The Postal Inspection Service puts it as “No Purchase Necessary — It’s the Law!” [6] So a giveaway app that draws its winner and turns every order into an entry needs a free way in that works just as well.

Ask the app: Can someone enter without buying anything, and where on my store does that free entry live?

3. Free entrants get the same odds

Holland & Knight calls the free path an alternative method of entry, or AMOE, and says free entrants must get the same odds of winning as everyone else. A free path that is hidden, slower or worth fewer entries puts the consideration problem back. Consideration is not only money, either: the same alert takes the conservative view that a required like, comment or share is likely consideration. [5] RIT’s legal office lists “a purchase will not improve the chances of winning” among the items a sweepstakes’ official rules should state. [8] No purchase necessary and AMOE covers the free entry path in more depth.

Ask the app: Does a free entry go into the same draw, on the same clock, with the same odds as an entry that came with an order or a share?

4. Draw rules and state filings stay with you

Some states regulate chance promotions directly. New York’s General Business Law § 369-e covers games of chance used in selling goods, with prizes determined by chance and without consideration. [9] Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services runs a filing program for game promotions and says it will not certify that any particular promotion is legal. [10] An app can run the draw, but the rules it publishes have to match how the winner is actually picked, and any filing is the sponsor’s. The Official Rules checklist covers what your rules should say, whichever kind of giveaway you run.

Ask the app: Do you write official rules that match how the winner is actually picked, and do you file anything with a state, or is that left to me?

5. A skill contest keeps chance out, including the tie

A contest removes chance instead: whoever performs best wins. Holland & Knight says the winner should be chosen by concrete, clear and objective criteria, or the contest risks being treated as a sweepstakes. [5] The Rochester Institute of Technology’s legal office lists what a skill contest needs: chance cannot be injected anywhere, a tie cannot be settled by pulling a name from a hat, the tiebreaker must itself be skill-based, judging must be objective and disclosed, every entry must be judged, and official rules must be posted. [8] States also use different tests to decide whether a game is one of skill or of chance, so being a skill contest does not make a promotion lawful everywhere. [5] Skill contest vs sweepstakes for Shopify brands compares the two in more depth.

Ask the app: What decides the ranking, how is a tie broken, and is there a random step anywhere, even among the top scorers?

6. Theme app blocks don’t edit theme code

Shopify’s theme app extensions add blocks you place yourself in the theme editor. Shopify says apps built this way don’t edit theme code, which lowers the risk of breaking your theme. They work with Online Store 2.0 themes. [11]

Ask the app: Do you add a theme app block, or do you change my theme’s code?

7. An app can only see what its permissions allow

Apps ask for access scopes when you install them. Shopify tells developers to request only the data their app needs, and notes that any scope that writes a resource also grants read access to it. [12] So an app that asks to write your customers can also read them. A giveaway rarely needs your orders; if an app asks for them, find out whether it ties entries to purchases.

Ask the app: Which scopes do you request, and what will you read with each one, including the ones that only say “write”?

8. An entrant’s email is protected data, not a marketing opt-in

Most giveaway apps exist to collect emails. Shopify treats customer data as protected, and a customer’s name, address, email and phone as protected fields that an app requests one by one. A public app that uses those fields needs Shopify’s review and has to meet both levels of Shopify’s data-protection requirements; a custom app has that access without review. [13] The requirements include processing only the minimum data the app needs, telling merchants what it processes and why, and respecting customers’ consent decisions. Fields an app is not approved for come back redacted. [13] When an app creates a Shopify customer, marketing consent is its own input, separate from the email address. [14] An entrant who agreed to your giveaway rules has not, by that alone, agreed to your marketing email.

Ask the app: Which customer fields do you use, has Shopify approved your access to them, and do you ever mark entrants as subscribed to my marketing?

9. How an app is distributed decides who bills you

Shopify requires every app published on the Shopify App Store to use a Shopify-provided billing solution. One-time charges are supported. [15] An app on custom distribution can’t charge merchants through Shopify’s app billing system at all, so it bills you some other way. [16] So two apps that look alike in your admin can bill you in different ways.

Ask the app: Are you on the Shopify App Store, who bills me, and do I pay monthly or once per giveaway?

Whichever app you choose

Shopify’s Acceptable Use Policy puts it plainly: you’re responsible for following the rules of your platform, your partners and the law. [17] Picking an app does not hand that responsibility to it. No app becomes the sponsor: you supply the prize, you are named in the Official Rules, and any state registration or bond is yours.

Ask the app: Which parts of running this promotion do you leave to me?

Sweepstakes or skill contest: which one you need

How Contest.Zone answers

Contest.Zone is a skill contest. It is not a sweepstakes app, a raffle, a random draw, a comment picker or a spin-to-win wheel, and it never picks a winner by chance. These answers describe the product as it works today. They do not say whether your promotion is lawful.

You are the sponsor either way. You supply and ship the prize, and the Official Rules name you.

What Contest.Zone costs

• Publishing a contest is free, at contest.zone and in the Shopify app.
• Each contest’s first 25 leads are free.
• More leads unlock once per contest: Starter up to 1,000, Growth up to 10,000, Scale up to 100,000. An upgrade charges only the difference.
• There is no subscription.
• Players are never turned away, and the winner is chosen from every entry, whatever you have paid.
• A contest with no unlock still plays from its link and embed, but it is not listed on the public Contest.Zone contest board, and its page asks search engines not to index it.

Current amounts are on the pricing page.

Two ways to start

Sign up at contest.zone. Your account opens a starter contest draft on its Review & launch step, where you can publish it free and copy its public link. Before you publish, you can change the game (trivia, Word Guess or Scramble) and the prize, and review the Official Rules generated from your contest.

Install on Shopify. Pick a product from your catalog as the prize, publish, and add the theme block. That creates a 30-day skill contest with three starter trivia questions. A shop runs one Shopify contest at a time, and shops installed this way do not get a contest.zone studio login, so the two routes are separate accounts. What installing the Shopify app does, step by step.