If you searched for "Hextom free shipping bar" and landed here, you've probably already discovered the problem: the app is gone. As of September 7, 2026, the Hextom: Free Shipping Bar listing on the Shopify App Store displays "This app is not currently available on the Shopify App Store. If you have support questions, contact Hextom directly." Hextom was, for years, one of the most widely installed apps in this category, so a lot of merchants are now looking for a replacement, sometimes without realizing that a dynamic free shipping progress bar was never a native Shopify feature to begin with.

This article covers two separate questions. First, what can you actually do with Shopify's built-in announcement bar, and where does it stop short of a "free shipping progress bar"? Second, assuming you need more than the native tool offers, which real apps on the Shopify App Store today can replace what Hextom used to do?

What Shopify's native announcement bar actually does

Many Shopify themes ship with a built-in announcement bar or banner section that you can configure directly in the theme editor. According to Shopify's own documentation on adding an announcement banner, a theme can include one announcement bar section, and that section can hold up to 12 blocks. Within that section you can typically adjust the color scheme, toggle a divider line, show social icons on desktop, rotate between multiple announcements automatically, and add a country or language selector.

Shopify also documents that its AI admin assistant, Sidekick, can help you add a static announcement — for example, a prompt like "Add an announcement that says free shipping over $50" will generate text and a link for you. That's useful for getting a banner live quickly, but it's worth being precise about what it produces: static text. Sidekick doesn't calculate a customer's live cart total and doesn't update the message as items are added or removed.

If your theme doesn't include an announcement bar section at all, Shopify's guidance is to search the App Store for a "banner message" or "announcement bar" app — which is itself an acknowledgment that not every theme covers this out of the box.

One more detail that trips people up: removing an announcement bar block. Shopify's documentation distinguishes between "Hide," which keeps the block available and lets you bring it back later, and "Remove block," which deletes it permanently. If you're testing different messaging, hiding rather than removing will save you from having to rebuild the block from scratch.

Where the native tool stops short: the "progress bar" problem

Here's the gap that sends most merchants looking for an app. A static announcement bar can say "Free shipping on orders over $50." What it generally cannot do — based on the consistent description across multiple sources documenting Shopify's theme architecture — is read a customer's current cart total in real time and dynamically update the message to something like "You're $12.40 away from free shipping" or swap to "You've unlocked free shipping!" once the threshold is crossed.

That kind of dynamic, cart-aware messaging requires either a custom-built Liquid section paired with JavaScript that polls the /cart.js endpoint, or a third-party app that already handles that logic. Building it yourself is a legitimate option if you have a developer on staff or on retainer, but for most small and mid-sized merchants, it's the reason a dedicated app enters the picture. To be clear about the limits of this claim: we did not independently inspect the announcement-bar section source code of a specific theme like Dawn for this article, so this is presented as the consistent, converging view found across the sources we reviewed rather than a claim verified against a single theme's codebase.

If your business genuinely just needs a static "free shipping over $X" message with no live cart calculation, the native announcement bar (or Shopify Sidekick, if your theme supports it) may be all you need — and it costs nothing extra. The rest of this article is for merchants who specifically want the dynamic progress-bar experience.

Real apps that replace what Hextom did

Every app below was checked directly on the Shopify App Store on September 7, 2026. Pricing, ratings, and review counts are subject to change — always confirm current details on the listing page before installing.

Hextom: Free Shipping Bar — no longer installable

We're listing Hextom: Free Shipping Bar first because so many merchants are searching for it directly. As of this writing, the listing page shows only the removal notice and a link to contact Hextom directly for support. We were not able to confirm when or why the app was pulled from the store, and we did not find that information stated anywhere on the current listing, so we're not going to speculate about the reason. If you're an existing Hextom user, note that "not currently available on the Shopify App Store" typically means new installs are blocked, though it doesn't necessarily tell you whether the app will continue running for stores that already have it installed — that's a question worth directing to Hextom support rather than guessing.

Free Shipping Bear (Conversion Bear)

Free Shipping Bear, built by Conversion Bear, is a free app with no paid tiers. It holds a 4.5 out of 5 rating from 46 reviews. The app displays a sticky progress bar showing how close a shopper is to a free shipping threshold, and it supports setting different cart goals by country, which is useful if you ship internationally and your shipping costs differ by region.

The trade-offs: the app is English-only, with no stated support for other storefront languages, and some merchants have reported theme integration issues. Since it launched in August 2020, it has a longer track record than several of the newer entrants on this list, but the smaller review count relative to Hextom's former scale is worth keeping in mind.

GP Free Shipping Bar (GroPulse)

GP Free Shipping Bar from GroPulse carries Shopify's "Built for Shopify" badge and holds a 4.6 out of 5 rating from 15 reviews. Its free plan includes a real-time progress bar, color and font customization, geographic and device targeting, and mobile support. A Pro plan at $4.99/month (or $39/year) adds bars on product pages, the cart page, and the cart drawer. A Growth plan at $9.99/month (or $83.88/year) layers on scheduling, a countdown timer, and performance tracking.

GP Free Shipping Bar supports 15 languages, which makes it a reasonable option if you run a multi-language storefront. On the constraint side, there's a reported bug from November 2025 where the amount shown in the cart drawer can be inconsistent with what's shown on the home or product pages; as of our research the developer was reportedly still working on a fix. The app's permissions include access to customer location and IP data and order-editing rights covering the past 60 days, plus theme access — worth reviewing in the app's permission screen before installing.

Progressify: Free Shipping Bar (Markeri Apps)

Progressify: Free Shipping Bar runs a single paid plan at $5/month with a 5-day free trial. It's rated 4.0 out of 5 from 42 reviews, with 83% five-star and 7% one-star — a wider spread than the other apps here. Its distinguishing feature is a stacked progress bar supporting up to three tiers (for example, free shipping at one threshold and a gift-with-purchase at a higher one), along with cart upsells and country-specific offers.

Recent reviews are mixed on reliability: both June and September 2026 reviews mention the bar disappearing from the cart drawer after a theme update, along with one report of an eight-week wait for support. Other reviews, including one from April 2026, describe fast support responses, so experiences appear inconsistent rather than uniformly poor. If you choose Progressify, it's worth testing behavior after any theme update before assuming it's still displaying correctly.

Attrac Popup, Announcement Bar (AppHero)

Attrac Popup, Announcement Bar is built by AppHero, carries the "Built for Shopify" badge, and lists a U.S. base of operations. It's the most heavily reviewed app in this comparison by a wide margin: 5.0 out of 5 across 1,115 reviews. Its free plan covers up to 1,500 monthly impressions and includes the announcement bar, upsell and cross-sell messaging, email/SMS popups, free shipping offers, and a countdown timer. Paid tiers scale by impression volume: Plus at $8.99/month (or $95.88/year) for 10,000 impressions with multi-message support, Pro at $14.99/month (or $143.88/year) for 50,000 impressions with targeting, and Max at $29.99/month (or $239.88/year) for 150,000-plus impressions with scheduling and advanced analytics.

Attrac is broader than a single-purpose free shipping bar — it's an announcement-and-popup platform that happens to include free shipping messaging — and it integrates with Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Omnisend, PageFly, and Seguno. That breadth comes with a wider permissions footprint than the more narrowly scoped apps on this list: it requests access to customer name, email, phone, and address, order history access (last 60 days), and theme-editing access. If you only need a free shipping bar and nothing else, this may be more app than you need; if you're also shopping for popups and cross-sell tools, it consolidates several jobs into one install.

EA - Free Shipping Bar & Upsell (EasyApps)

EA - Free Shipping Bar & Upsell, from Canada-based EasyApps, is completely free and supports more than 60 languages. It's the newest app on this list, released January 16, 2026, and currently holds a 5.0 out of 5 rating — but from only 3 reviews, which is too small a sample to draw conclusions from. Its extensive language support stands out if you're running a storefront in multiple markets, but given how recently it launched, merchants should weigh the limited review history against that appeal.

Two more worth a look

Two additional apps came up in our research but weren't part of the detailed comparison above: Free Shipping Bar & Cross Sell by Hoppy, which carries the "Built for Shopify" badge, is free, and holds a 4.7 out of 5 rating from 224 reviews; and XB: Free Shipping Bar Upsell, also "Built for Shopify," free, and rated 4.9 out of 5 from 34 reviews. Both are reasonable candidates to shortlist if the five apps above don't fit your setup, though we haven't reviewed their feature sets or constraints in the same depth.

How to choose

Start by confirming you actually need an app. If a static "free shipping over $X" message is enough — no live cart calculation, no per-region thresholds — your theme's built-in announcement bar (or a Sidekick-generated one, if supported) costs nothing and adds no extra app to maintain.

If you need a dynamic, cart-aware progress bar, the right app depends on what else matters to your store:

• Budget-conscious, English-only store: Free Shipping Bear or EA - Free Shipping Bar & Upsell are both completely free. Weigh Free Shipping Bear's longer track record (46 reviews since 2020) against EA's newer feature set and much thinner review history (3 reviews since January 2026).
• Multi-language storefront: GP Free Shipping Bar (15 languages) or EA - Free Shipping Bar & Upsell (60+ languages) cover more ground than Free Shipping Bear's English-only interface.
• Multiple thresholds or tiered offers (e.g., free shipping plus a gift at a higher spend): Progressify's stacked progress bar is the only app here built specifically for that, though you should test its cart-drawer display after theme updates given the reliability reports noted above.
• Already shopping for popups, cross-sell, or email/SMS capture tools: Attrac Popup, Announcement Bar consolidates a free shipping bar into a broader marketing toolkit, at the cost of broader data permissions.
• Want the most-reviewed option: Attrac's 1,115 reviews at a 5.0 rating is the largest sample size in this category by a significant margin.

Whichever you choose, treat the free plan or trial period as a real test: check how the bar renders in your cart drawer specifically, since that's where more than one app in this list has run into display bugs after theme updates. And if you were a Hextom customer, reach out to Hextom support directly before assuming your existing setup will keep working indefinitely — the App Store listing doesn't say either way.

Sources

• Shopify Help Center: Add an announcement banner (accessed September 7, 2026)
• Hextom: Free Shipping Bar — Shopify App Store listing (accessed September 7, 2026)
• Free Shipping Bear — Shopify App Store listing (accessed September 7, 2026)
• GP Free Shipping Bar — Shopify App Store listing (accessed September 7, 2026)
• Progressify: Free Shipping Bar — Shopify App Store listing (accessed September 7, 2026)
• Attrac Popup, Announcement Bar — Shopify App Store listing (accessed September 7, 2026)
• EA - Free Shipping Bar & Upsell — Shopify App Store listing (accessed September 7, 2026)
• Free Shipping Bar & Cross Sell — Shopify App Store listing (accessed September 7, 2026)
• XB: Free Shipping Bar Upsell — Shopify App Store listing (accessed September 7, 2026)