How to choose a shoppable video app: 12 questions and a scoring sheet

The twelve questions below sit in five groups. Each one says what a good answer sounds like. The scoring sheet after them turns the answers into one number per app.

Speed: what the video does to your page

Video is the heaviest thing you can add to a product page. These three questions find out how the app handles that weight.

1. How many kilobytes does the app load before the first frame shows?

Ask for the gzipped size of the script and styles. Ask how it was measured. A good vendor gives you a number and a date. Then check it yourself in your browser's network tab.

2. Do off-screen videos download on page load?

They should not. A carousel of ten clips should fetch the visible one and wait on the rest. Open the network tab, load the page and scroll nothing. Count the video files that arrive.

3. What does it do to your Largest Contentful Paint on mobile?

Run PageSpeed Insights on one product page before install and after. Use the mobile result. Run each test three times, as single runs vary. Our widget speed tool can help, and the Core Web Vitals guide explains the metrics.

Rights: who said you could use the clip

A customer's video belongs to the customer. Showing it on a product page, or in an ad, needs their permission.

4. How does the app ask for permission, and where is the yes stored?

A good answer names the channel, such as a comment or a message. It also says the reply is saved with a date against the clip. Ask to see one stored record in the demo.

5. Can you see which clips are cleared for ads and which are only for your site?

Site use and paid ad use are different permissions. The app should label each clip so nobody runs an on-site clip as an ad. The UGC rights guide covers the difference.

Attribution: how a sale gets credited

Every app reports views. Fewer can tell you which orders came after a shopper used a video.

6. What counts as a sale from video?

Ask for the exact rule. A tight rule needs an add to cart from the video before the order. A loose rule counts any order from anyone who saw a video. Both have uses, but they should never share one number.

7. Does it read orders from your store, or only from a browser pixel?

Browser pixels miss orders when shoppers block tracking or decline cookies. An app that matches orders from your store's own order records sees more of them. Order-anchored attribution explains how that matching works.

8. Can you run a test with video on half your traffic?

A split test is the cleanest way to see what video adds. Ask if the app can hold back video from a share of visitors. Ask how it reports the gap between the two groups.

Platforms: where the video can live

9. Does add to cart work on your platform without leaving the page?

Many apps add to cart on Shopify only. On other platforms they send the shopper to the product page instead. Ask for a live store on your platform and try the button yourself.

10. Can the same clip run on product pages, email and ads?

Ask whether you can export the clip with its rights record attached. If a clip lives only inside the widget, you will pay for it twice.

Price: what the bill counts

11. What does the bill count, and what happens in your best month?

Apps bill by video views, widget impressions, video count or a share of sales. Price each one against your busiest month. A view-based bill can jump in November when traffic does. What UGC and shoppable video software costs compares the meters.

12. What do you keep if you leave?

Ask whether you can export your clips, product tags and permission records. Ask in what format. If the answer is a support ticket, treat that as a no.

The scoring sheet

Score each question 0, 1 or 2 for each app on your shortlist. Zero means no answer or a bad one. Two means a clear answer you checked yourself. Then multiply each group total by its weight.

Work out each group as raw score divided by max, times the weight. Add the five groups for a score out of 100. Here is a worked example for one made-up app.

A total says less than the weakest group. A zero in speed or rights should end the shortlist for that app. Then score the rest.

Red flags in a demo

• The vendor will not test on your store, only on theirs.
• No size figure for the script, or a size with no date or method.
• Every video on the page starts loading at once.
• "Revenue influenced" with no rule for what counts.
• Permissions handled "by you" with nowhere in the app to record them.
• Add to cart that only works on Shopify when you sell elsewhere.
• A price that counts views with no cap or overage rate in writing.
• No export of clips, tags and permission records.

How Idukki answers these questions (ours)

We make Idukki, so check these answers like any other vendor's. Idukki's core widget weighs 79 KB gzipped, measured October 2026. That is above the 37 KB we are working towards. In a carousel, only the visible clip and its neighbours preload.

Rights requests go out from the dashboard and each approval is saved with a date. Orders are matched from your store's order records as well as the pixel. In-gallery add to cart works on Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop, BigCommerce and Salesforce Commerce Cloud. A sale counts as proven only after a widget add to cart. Shoppable video and rights management start on Starter ($45/mo), billed by widget impressions.

Where it falls short: Idukki does not stream live video today. If a live show is the main job, look at a live-first tool. The best shoppable video apps for Shopify compares five vendors on the same criteria.

Choosing a photo gallery too? How to choose a UGC gallery app asks ten questions in the same way.