Does Navi+ slow down your store?

Navi+ doesn’t hold up your page when shoppers open your store: the page content appears first, and the menu is drawn after. Of course, the browser still has to load Navi+’s code, so the menu takes a brief moment to appear. Below are real measurements on a live store running Navi+, and how you can check your own store.

How does Navi+ load on the page?

When you turn on the app embed, the theme adds a small startup script to the top of the page. This script runs in async mode, meaning the browser loads it while building the page’s text and images at the same time, instead of stopping to wait.

Then the script pulls the menu drawing code and menu data from the Navi+ CDN servers to show on screen. This whole process is separate: Navi+ doesn’t write anything extra into your theme files.

For eligible menus, Navi+ also embeds an HTML snapshot of the menu right in the page: Tab Bar, Floating Button, Mobile Menu, Icon Menu and Desktop Mega Menu. So the menu appears together with the page instead of waiting for the script to finish loading, and shoppers don’t see a jump when the live menu replaces it. This only turns on when the snapshot can match the live menu exactly, so not every store gets it.

Below are measurements from Nov 3, 2026 on a live store running Navi+, comparing menus with and without the pre-rendered snapshot. To see how Navi+ compares with Globo and Qikify, read Speed, security, SEO.

The 3G here is a simulated slow network, used to make the difference clear. Your numbers depend on your theme, the number of apps and the image sizes in your menu.

What to do when your PageSpeed score drops

PageSpeed scores change constantly: run the test twice in a row on the same page and you’ll get two different results. Before you blame any app, check these three rules:

• Test 3 times in a row and take the middle result. Don’t rely on a single test.
• Compare the same page and the same device type. You can’t compare the home page score with a product page score, or a desktop score with a mobile score.
• Think about what you’ve changed on your store recently. Installing a new app, updating your theme or swapping in a large banner image usually drops the score more than a menu does.

To measure Navi+’s impact on its own, follow these 3 steps:

What really makes the page and menu heavy?

Most of the delay comes from content inside the menu or other elements on the page:

• Images uploaded to menu items are too large: A 2 MB banner in a Desktop Mega Menu makes the page heavier every time the menu opens. Compress and resize images before you upload them. See Icons, images, and badges for menu items.
• Many apps running on the page: The browser always loads Shopify’s parts first, then the theme, then the apps, in no fixed order. The more apps your store installs, the more likely the Navi+ menu appears later than you expect.
• Too many items in one menu: A menu with hundreds of items takes longer to draw on screen. Split it into more levels or into several tabs.
• Using many icon sets and fonts: Use one icon set and one font style across the whole menu.

What Navi+ does to make the menu load faster

• The startup script always loads asynchronously with async, so it doesn’t block your page.
• The browser saves the menu file after the first visit, so shoppers don’t have to download it again when they move to the next page.
• The app embed settings include a BunnyCDN backup network, so the menu still loads if the main network has a problem. This option is off by default.
• You can turn on more options that make the menu appear sooner and flicker less. See Settings that keep your menu loading fast and flicker-free.

Can Google read the menu for SEO?

Links in the menu help Google understand your store’s structure. With Navi+, the Elite plan adds real links (with alt and title) to every menu item that has a URL, so Google can read them. The Starter and Business plans don’t have this SEO optimization yet. For details and how to check, see Speed, security, SEO.

Add your important pages, such as main categories or collections, to the menu so search engines can see your store’s full list of pages. See each plan’s details at Plans and billing.