Validation slots & plan limits

Restrictions and product limiters run inside Shopify's cart validation system, and that system has a hard ceiling on how many validations a store can hold. On top of Shopify's ceiling, Llama Upsell applies its own caps and a per-plan limit. This page pulls all of those numbers into one place, explains how slots are counted, and walks through exactly what happens when you reach a limit — including the edge cases that can leave a restriction "active but not enforced."

Two separate ceilings

There are two different maximums in play, and they are not the same number. Understanding which one you're hitting tells you what to do about it.

The Shopify platform limit (25)

Shopify allows a maximum of 25 cart validations per store, store-wide. This is a platform limit, not an app setting — it is the same number for every store and you cannot raise it.

The important part: this pool is shared across every app that registers cart validations, not just Llama Upsell. If you also run another checkout-validation or "cart rules" app, its validations count against the same 25. Your effective room for Llama Upsell restrictions is 25 minus whatever other apps have already registered.

The app restriction cap (20)

Llama Upsell deliberately caps its own restrictions at 20, even though Shopify would technically allow 25. The reason is the shared pool above: by stopping at 20, the app always leaves headroom so it never collides with — or crowds out — validations registered by other apps on your store.

Per-plan limits

Your plan sets how many restrictions and limiters you can keep active at once. Inactive (draft) items never count.

Active restriction limits

Active product-limiter limits

Restrictions vs. limiters: how slots are consumed

This is the single most important concept on the page. Restrictions and product limiters both run on cart validation, but they consume Shopify slots very differently.

• Each active restriction is its own validation. One restriction = one Shopify validation slot. Ten active restrictions occupy ten of your 25 slots.
• All your limiters share a single validation. No matter how many product limiters you create, they are enforced through one Shopify validation. Many limiters, one slot.

That asymmetry is why limiter limits can be 100 or Unlimited while restrictions are capped at 20: limiters never each consume a slot, so they don't threaten the 25-validation ceiling. Restrictions do, so they're held to a tighter cap.

Slot lifecycle

A Shopify validation slot is tied to a restriction through a validation ID. The slot is acquired, updated, and released automatically as you work — you never manage it by hand.

Approaching-limit warnings

You don't have to track these numbers yourself. The admin surfaces a warning as you get close to a ceiling, and it watches both ceilings independently:

• Plan limit — a warning when your active restrictions approach the cap for your current plan (for example, nearing 10 on Growth).
• Platform limit — a warning when the store's total cart validations approach Shopify's 25, which can happen sooner than your plan limit if another app is also using the pool.

Screenshot: The restrictions list in the admin showing an approaching-limit warning banner with the current active count and the plan ceilingAdd a real image by setting the `src` prop.

What happens at the ceiling

Activations are refused

If you try to activate a restriction that would put you over your plan limit (or over the platform's 25), the activation is refused. The restriction is kept — it stays saved as a draft rather than going live — and you'll see a notification explaining why. Nothing is lost; you simply need to free a slot or upgrade.

The empty-validation edge case

There is one failure mode worth knowing about, because it leaves a restriction in a misleading state.

How to spot it: a restriction shows as active, but the behavior you expect at checkout simply doesn't happen — carts that should be blocked go through. The store's active-validation count (shown in the admin) will also be lower than your active-restriction count, because the slot was never claimed.

How to fix it: re-save the restriction. Saving an active restriction with no validation ID makes the app create a fresh validation and store the new ID, which restores enforcement. If your admin offers a sync action for restrictions, running that has the same effect — it reconciles each active restriction with a real Shopify validation. Toggling the restriction to draft and back to active also forces a fresh create.

Plan downgrade behavior

Downgrading does not automatically switch off restrictions or limiters — and this is different from how campaigns behave.

• Campaigns over the new limit are deactivated automatically on a downgrade, newest first.
• Restrictions and product limiters are not auto-deactivated. They keep running exactly as they were.

The consequence: after downgrading, you can be over your new plan's restriction limit and still enforcing all of them. The app won't let you activate new restrictions while you're over, but it also won't pull the existing ones down for you.

Recipes

Troubleshooting

Key takeaways

• Shopify allows 25 cart validations per store, shared across all apps; Llama Upsell caps its own restrictions at 20 to leave headroom.
• Each active restriction = one slot. All limiters together = one slot. That's why limiter limits can reach 100 or Unlimited.
• Per-plan active-restriction limits: Free 1, Starter 5, Growth 10, Pro 15, Enterprise 20.
• A slot is claimed on first activation, updated on edit, and released the instant a restriction goes to draft or is deleted.
• A transient Shopify failure can leave a restriction active with no validation — re-save or sync to restore enforcement.
• Downgrades don't auto-deactivate restrictions or limiters; you must manually draft the extras to get back under your new limit.

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