PersoScan and Shopify Search and Discovery, side by side
These two get compared a lot, usually by someone hoping one of them can be dropped. They cover different parts of the funnel, and the free one should come first.
Published September 16, 2026 3 min read
Let us get the useful part out of the way first: if you are on Shopify and you have not installed Search and Discovery, install it. It is free and first-party, and it covers several things no third-party app should be charging you for.
Then read on, because it does not do the thing people usually come to us for.
What Shopify Search and Discovery covers
Shopify’s own app handles the classic discovery toolkit. Faceted filters on collection pages, with control over which product attributes become facets. Search synonyms, so “brace” also matches “support”. Search result boosting, product recommendations on product pages, and a report on what people are searching for inside your store.
That last report is genuinely useful and most merchants never open it. It is also the fastest way to find out whether a body map would help you at all.
What it does not cover
There is no visual entry point. Discovery starts with either the search box or a collection page, and the filters appear once you are already inside a collection.
For a catalogue organised by product type, that is fine. For one where the shopper’s first thought is a body part, the entry point is the exact step that is missing. The shopper still has to pick Supports or Compression before any of Shopify’s tooling gets a chance to help.
Side by side
| Search and Discovery | PersoScan | |
|---|---|---|
| Price Shopify installs bill through Shopify | Free | From EUR 9.99 per month |
| Faceted filters on collections | Yes | No |
| Search synonyms and boosting | Yes | No |
| Product recommendations | Yes | No |
| Internal search analytics PersoScan reports zone clicks | Yes | Partly |
| Visual body-area entry point | No | Yes |
| 3D anatomical model | No | Yes |
| Works outside Shopify PersoScan embeds anywhere | No | Yes |
| Clinic and intake use cases | No | Yes |
| Setup time | Minutes | Minutes, plus the zone mapping |
Do they conflict
No. They sit at different steps and do not compete for the same surface.
The body map lives on the homepage, a collection page or a dedicated “shop by body area” page, and it decides which collection the shopper opens. Shopify’s filters live on the collection page and narrow what is already there. A visitor can use both in one session without noticing there are two apps involved.
Install Search and Discovery, leave it a month, then open the search report. If body-part terms dominate the top 50 and return weak results, you have a measured case for a body-area entry point. If they do not, you have saved yourself a subscription.
Where PersoScan is the wrong choice
Your catalogue is unrelated to the body. Nothing to map.
You are under roughly twenty products. Shopify’s own filters already handle a catalogue that small, and the 3D model becomes something people look at once.
You want better search results. That is squarely Shopify’s app, plus a dedicated search product if you outgrow it. A body map does not improve search relevance.
Your budget is zero. Shopify’s app is free and covers the majority of the standard discovery work. Start there without apology.
Where Shopify’s app is not enough on its own
Your shoppers know the body area and not your product vocabulary. This is the whole case, and it is common in orthopedic, recovery, physiotherapy and ergonomic catalogues.
Most of your traffic is mobile, where a filter sidebar collapses into a button and a tappable graphic does not.
You need the same discovery pattern outside Shopify too, on a clinic site, an intake form or a second storefront on another platform. Shopify’s app stops at the Shopify boundary.
PersoScan runs on Shopify through the App Store, and on WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop, OpenCart, Wix, Squarespace, Cafe24, EC-CUBE and custom storefronts through an iframe. The integration guides have the per-platform details.
The honest summary
Shopify Search and Discovery is the better first install for almost every store, and it is free, so there is no reason to delay it.
PersoScan solves a narrower problem that Shopify’s app does not touch, and whether you have that problem is an empirical question you can answer from your own search report rather than from a comparison page.
Go read the report.