Setting up Atlas is short. You start your free trial, and you land on the dashboard with a setup guide showing what to do first. There is no long questionnaire to get through and nothing to configure before you can build.
In this article:
Before you start
You need a Shopify store with Atlas installed, and a theme. You do not need products in your catalog yet, because Atlas can import a product from a URL.
ℹ️ You do not need to prepare a theme. Atlas does not create or import one. It generates pages and publishes them into the Shopify theme you already have.
Starting your free trial
Atlas shows the trial screen, which lays out three stages:
When | What happens |
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Your $39 base includes: 10 published pages · $1,000 bundle revenue · 250 cart orders each month.
Select Start 7-day free trial. Shopify then asks you to approve the subscription charge.
💡 Approving the charge does not charge you today. It authorises the charge that begins when the trial ends, which is how Shopify handles every paid app. Under the button: No charge today. Cancel anytime during the trial and you won't be billed.
If you have a discount code
Select I have a discount code before starting the trial, enter it, and select Apply.
A valid code confirms with its percentage, for example 15% off applied. Your free trial is unchanged. for a 15% code, and the button becomes Start trial with 15% off.
Message | What it means |
| The field is empty |
| Check the spelling. Codes are exact. |
| One use per store |
| The code is past its end date |
| A temporary failure, not a problem with your code |
ℹ️ A discount does not shorten or lengthen your trial, and it does not change your usage allowances. It reduces the base plan price once billing starts. See Applying a discount code to your subscription.
What happens after the trial starts
You land on the dashboard. A Setup guide card is waiting: a personalized guide to get you started, with four steps and a running count of how many you have completed.
The guide is a set of shortcuts, not a wizard. Nothing depends on it, nothing is locked until you finish it, and you can dismiss it. See Using the Atlas setup guide.
Building your first thing
Two sensible starting points, and the guide offers the first one.
A full store, which builds a home page and product pages together. Best if your store is new, or you want everything to match.
A single product page, which is faster and easier to judge. Best if you have a store already and want to see what Atlas does before committing to more.
Either is reachable from Create new on the dashboard, or from the shortcuts under Create with Atlas.
If you are unsure, start with one product page. See How to create your first page with Atlas.
💡 Publish that first page rather than leaving it as a draft. A live page produces real numbers, and it surfaces any theme problem while you have time to fix it rather than in the middle of a campaign.
Messages you may see
Message | What it means |
| The Atlas Page Builder app embed is off for that theme, so |
| Atlas could not read that product page, and |
| Cosmetic. The card does not block anything. |