Web Performance dashboard and reports

Optimizing your online store's performance can enhance your customers' shopping experience, increase your store's discoverability, and increase conversion rates. Your Web Performance dashboard can help you understand how your store performs across industry standards for loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability, known as Core Web Vitals.

Your online store's performance can be influenced by several factors, such as the following areas:

  • apps
  • third-party libraries and services
  • analytic libraries
  • theme code
  • the quantity and size of images and videos

By making strategic adjustments to your online store, you can improve your performance metrics and ranking.

Learn more about the importance of your online store's performance.

View your store's Web Performance dashboard

To view your store's Web Performance dashboard, you need to have the Reports staff permission. To get a dashboard populated with Real User Metrics (RUM), you must remove your online store's password protection.

The report displays how your storefront performs across Core Web Vitals: loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. The report contains information about desktop and mobile experiences, the distribution of experiences within given performance rankings, and displays how any changes you’ve made impact your storefront experience, such as app installs, theme updates, and new code.

Steps:

Desktop
  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.
  2. Click Loading speed, Interactivity or Visual stability in the banner at the top of the screen.
iPhone
  1. From your Shopify admin, tap the ... button, and then tap Online Store.
  2. Tap Manage all themes.
  3. Tap Loading speed, Interactivity or Visual stability in the banner at the top of the screen.
Android
  1. From your Shopify admin, tap the ... button, and then tap Online Store.
  2. Tap Manage all themes.
  3. Tap Loading speed, Interactivity or Visual stability in the banner at the top of the screen.

Web Performance metrics

The Web Performance dashboard gives you insights into the performance of your online store, based on real user data from the past 28 days. It evaluates your store against the three Core Web Vitals, and assigns a ranking of "good", "moderate", or "poor" to each metric. This ranking reflects the top 75% of user experiences.

You can view data for different devices using the drop-down menu at the top of the page. Choose from "mobile", "desktop", or "all" (the default option) to customize your view.

Due to the way the metrics are calculated, your metrics might not change immediately after you make changes to your online store. If your store is new or password-protected, then you might not have metrics.

Loading Speed

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures loading speed, based on how fast the largest element on the screen becomes visible.

The following are the available rankings for LCP:

LCP rankings and metrics
RankingTarget metricDescription
GoodLess than or equal to 2500msMost users experience a fast page load.
ModerateGreater than 2500ms and less than 4000msSome users experience a fast page load, there is room for improvement here.
PoorGreater than 4000msMost users experience a slow page load, this should be improved.

Interactivity

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) measures the amount of time it takes for the browser to paint the next frame or display a change on screen after a user interaction, such as clicking a link or button.

The following are the available rankings for INP:

INP rankings and metrics
RankingTarget metricDescription
GoodLess than or equal to 200msMost users experience good responsiveness on pages.
ModerateGreater than 200ms and less than 500msSome users experience good responsiveness on pages, there is room for improvement here.
PoorGreater than 500msMost users experience slow responsiveness on pages, which will be frustrating and should be improved.

Visual Stability

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures visual stability, based on how much the content shifts around unexpectedly during loading.

The following are the available rankings for CLS:

CLS rankings and metrics
RankingTarget metricDescription
GoodLess than or equal to 0.1Most users experience a stable layout as the page loads.
ModerateGreater than 0.1 and less than 0.25Some users experience a stable layout as the page loads, there is room for improvement here.
PoorGreater than or equal to 0.25Most users experience an unstable layout as the page loads, this can annoy users and should be improved.

Your Web Performance over time

You can view your site's Web Performance over time for the three Core Web Vitals from your Web Performance dashboard.

The line chart displays how changes made to your online store—such as app installations, theme updates, and new code—have impacted each Core Web Vital. You can adjust various filters such as time range, date grouping, and device type to best reflect the traffic to your site.

The following filters are available:

  • Device Type: Mobile, Desktop, or Both (default)
  • Date Range: Last 30 days (default), Last 60 days, Last 90 days
  • Time Frame Grouping: Daily, Weekly (default), Monthly

If your site has less traffic, then there might be larger fluctuations displayed. If you notice significant fluctuations, then consider switching to a weekly or monthly filter.

The bar chart displays how many page visits fall into each performance category: good, moderate, or poor. Keep in mind that certain factors are beyond your control, such as a customer's device, network, and location. Customers around the world visit your store using different devices and internet connections, which means your store might load faster or slower for them depending on these factors. As long as the overall metric is good, don't worry too much if some customers fall into the moderate or poor categories.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Shopify remove the Google Lighthouse speed score?

Google Lighthouse uses simulated environments for speed scores. It's good for a quick snapshot but doesn't reflect real user experiences. Google now prioritizes Core Web Vitals for SEO rankings. Learn more from Google.

Why don't I have scores yet?

The following are some reasons why you might not have a score for your core web vitals yet:

  • Your store is password protected: If your online store is password protected, then you won’t have the real-user traffic necessary to generate Core Web Vitals. You need to remove the password page to allow users to visit your site.
  • You don’t have traffic yet: You might not have had any page views to your online store to generate real-user metrics. If you don’t have a traffic yet, then you can use a free performance analysis using synthetic data, such as PageSpeed Insights.

Why do I have traffic but no Core Web Vital scores?

Core Web Vitals are a Google product and currently only available on Chromium-based browsers. Modern browsers, such as Safari and Safari iOS, are built upon similar technologies and so the Core Web Vitals still represent an accurate representation of how your users experience the website.

Why do I have scores for some metrics but not others?

Each metric measures a different aspect of performance and user interactions. For example, Largest Contentful Paint measures page load, whereas First Input Delay measures interactions with buttons or links. If there are no interactions with buttons or links, then the FID metric might not have a score.

Why did one of my scores change?

Scores can fluctuate due to traffic amount or changes made to your online store. If there are big fluctuations due to low traffic, then try changing to a weekly or monthly filter.

Your scores can also change when you make changes to your online store. For example, you might have imported several new products, created several new collections, changed your theme, or introduced a new app. Learn about the factors that can impact your online store performance.

How can I improve my score or ranking?

To learn how to improve online store performance, visit Improving your online store performance.

Why are the scores on my Web Performance dashboard different from other tools?

The scores on your Web Performance dashboard might differ from other tools due to the following factors:

  • The data in the Web Performance dashboard is based on the UTC standard, which might differ from other platforms' timezones.
  • The Web Performance dashboard collects data differently by gathering a broader data set from all Chromium browsers (Chrome, Opera, Edge, Samsung Internet) and Firefox. Whereas tools such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights use the CrUX report for opted-in Chrome browsers. Learn more about CrUX data.

What happened to First Input Delay (FID)?

In 2023, Google announced that Interaction to Next Paint (INP), replaced First Input Delay (FID) in the Core Web Vitals. FID measures only the first user interaction. INP measures more interactions and is a better representation of how the user experiences a delay in interactivity. To learn more, refer to Announcing INP as the next Core Web Vital.

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