Everything you need to run AdaptiveIQ
Guides for connecting your store, building templates, applying your brand, and getting the most out of every plan.
Connecting your Shopify store and keeping it in sync
AdaptiveIQ connects to Shopify over OAuth and stays in sync automatically through webhooks. There's no polling involved and nothing to re-import manually - once you're connected, your store and AdaptiveIQ stay in lockstep on their own.
Connecting your store
From Settings → Store Connection, you'll be redirected to Shopify to authorize AdaptiveIQ. This grants read/write access to products, images, and collections - read access so we can analyse your catalogue, write access so optimized images and metadata can be pushed back to your live store.
- Step 1 - you click "Connect Store" and are redirected to Shopify's OAuth consent screen
- Step 2 - Shopify redirects back with an authorization code, which is exchanged for an access token
- Step 3 - webhooks are registered automatically and the first catalogue sync is queued
What gets pulled in on first sync
The initial catalogue sync pulls in everything needed to start scoring and optimizing your products in one pass - there's nothing partial about it.
- Product title, description, tags, product type, and Shopify's standardised category (when set)
- Every product image - URL, position, width, and height
- Variants - title, SKU, price, inventory quantity, and option values (e.g. colour/size)
- SEO fields - URL handle, page title, and meta description
- Collection membership, so products stay grouped the way they are in Shopify
Real-time webhooks
Once connected, six webhook topics keep your catalogue current without you lifting a finger. Each one is verified with an HMAC signature before AdaptiveIQ trusts it.
- products/create - a new product appears, gets categorised, and its images are queued for scoring
- products/update - changed fields are re-synced; only genuinely new or changed images are re-analysed
- products/delete - the product is soft-deleted; analysis history is kept for 30 days
- collections/update - collection membership is refreshed
- shop/update - store name, currency, and timezone stay current
- app/uninstalled - triggers cleanup if you remove the app from Shopify
Manual re-sync
Webhooks handle most changes automatically, but if you've made a large batch of edits directly in Shopify (or just want to be certain everything's current), you can trigger a full catalogue re-sync at any time from Settings. Progress is shown live while it runs.
Disconnecting a store
Removing a store from Settings → Store Connection revokes AdaptiveIQ's access immediately. Your analysis history, scores, and recommendations are retained for 30 days in case you reconnect - after that, they're permanently deleted.
Good to know
Webhook payloads are verified against Shopify's HMAC signature before they're trusted - if a request doesn't match, it's rejected outright. This is also why re-installing the app after a disconnect re-registers webhooks rather than assuming the old ones still work.
Templates & slots the structure behind every product
A template is a named set of "slots" - hero shot, lifestyle shot, detail shot, on-model shot, and so on - that defines what a complete, well-photographed product in a given category should actually look like. Everything AdaptiveIQ scores and recommends is measured against the slots in a product's active template.
How a product gets its template
Every product is assigned a template automatically, based on its detected category. Category detection itself runs as a waterfall, trying each signal in order until one is confident enough to use:
- 1. Shopify's standardised product taxonomy, if you've set it (highest confidence)
- 2. Shopify's product_type field
- 3. Keyword matching against the product title, tags, and description
- 4. An AI text classifier as a last resort, for anything the keyword pass can't confidently place
Ready-made templates
AdaptiveIQ ships with templates already tuned per product category - apparel, footwear, electronics, beauty, home goods, and more - each with slots and scoring criteria specific to what actually matters for that category.
Custom templates
Build your own template from the Templates page with custom slots, your own generation prompts per slot, and a mix of required vs optional slots. While writing a slot's generation prompt, an AI suggestion button can draft one for you based on the slot type and template category.
Switching templates on a product
You can change a product's active template at any time from its detail page. Existing images aren't deleted when you switch - they're archived into that product's template history, tied to the template they were generated under.
Restoring a previous template
If you switch back to a template you've used before, AdaptiveIQ restores the archived images from that template's history automatically instead of making you regenerate everything from scratch.
Per-product overrides
Need one product to use a different template than the rest of its category? You can override the template for an individual product without affecting the category default for everything else.
Brand Kit your visual identity, applied consistently
Brand Kit lives inside the image editor and lets you apply your brand's colors, fonts, logo, and saved style templates to any product image you're working on - so everything you generate or touch up looks like it came from the same brand.
Brand colors
Save your palette once, then apply any saved colour directly to text, backgrounds, or canvas accents while editing an image - no need to re-enter a hex code every time.
Brand fonts
Pick from a curated list of fonts (including Google Fonts like DM Sans, Poppins, Montserrat, and Playfair Display) and apply them to any text layer on the canvas in one click.
Logo placement
Upload your logo once and drop it onto the canvas whenever you need it - position and scale carry over per edit, so you're not repositioning it from scratch every time.
Built-in style templates
Eight ready-made backdrop styles are available as a starting point for on-brand generations, each pairing a background, accent colour, and font:
- Studio Dark - charcoal gradient with a lime accent
- Clean White - pure white with black text
- Coral Burst - bold coral background, white text
- Ocean Blue - saturated blue, white text
- Electric - lime gradient with black text
- Minimal - soft grey, ink text
- Midnight - near-black with white text
- Warm Ivory - cream background with warm brown text
Where to find it
Open any product → Edit on an image → Brand Kit panel in the right-hand toolbar of the editor.
What's manual today vs. what's planned
Brand Kit today is a manual styling toolkit you apply per image inside the editor. Training the AI on your brand guidelines so it applies your identity automatically during generation - without you opening the editor - is on the roadmap but not live yet.
Working across your whole catalogue not just one product at a time
Most of what AdaptiveIQ does - scoring, recommendations, publishing - is built to work at the catalogue level, so you're never stuck clicking into products one by one to get a full picture of your store's visual quality.
Catalogue sync
A background job scores every product and image in your store in a single pass. It runs automatically after you connect, and again any time you trigger a manual re-sync - live progress is shown on your dashboard the whole way through.
Recommendations Hub
Every flagged issue across your entire catalogue shows up in one list - filterable by priority and status - instead of you having to open each product to find out what needs attention.
Apply to Shopify
Once you're happy with an optimized image, push it straight back to your live store in one action. Your original image isn't overwritten in our records - it stays archived so you can always see what changed.
Re-analyse on demand
Made manual edits to a product and want fresh scores immediately, rather than waiting for the next sync? Trigger a re-analysis for that single product and AdaptiveIQ re-scores it right away.
Studio Credits what they cost and how they reset
AI generation - creating, editing, or varying a product image - runs on Studio Credits. Scoring, recommendations, and category intelligence never cost credits, on any plan, including Free.
What costs credits
Only AI image generation work draws from your credit balance:
- Generating a new slot image - 15 credits
- Uploading a model reference photo (used so on-model shots match a real person) - 30 credits
What never costs credits
AI thumbnail scoring, recommendations, category detection, and re-scoring your catalogue are unlimited and free on every plan - including Free. You can analyse your entire store as often as you like without spending anything.
The Free plan
Free includes unlimited scoring and recommendations, but AI generation itself is not available - you'll need to upgrade to Starter, Growth, or Scale to generate, edit, or vary images.
When credits run out
Each paid plan includes a fixed amount of Studio Credits per billing period. Once you've used them all, generation pauses - you won't be charged extra or silently overdrawn. You can either wait for your next billing period (credits reset automatically) or upgrade to a plan with a larger allowance.
Choosing a credit tier
Starter, Growth, and Scale each offer a few monthly credit tiers at different price points, so you can pick an allowance that matches how much you generate without overpaying for credits you won't use.
Good to know
If a generation needs more credits than you have remaining, AdaptiveIQ blocks it before any work starts - you'll see exactly how many credits you have left, how many the action needs, and when your balance resets.
Automated thumbnail sequencing rotating images based on performance
Sequencing will let you define rules - based on click-through performance, season, or time of day - that automatically promote a different image into the primary slot, without you ever touching the product manually.
Performance-triggered rotation
Automatically promote whichever image is converting best for a product, based on real click and view data, without manually swapping your primary photo.
Rule-based scheduling
Define seasonal or time-of-day rules so your storefront's primary image changes itself on a schedule - a winter shot in December, a summer shot in July, with no manual intervention.
What's available right now instead
Until sequencing ships, templates and the editor already give you full manual control over slot order and which image is primary - you can reorder, swap, or replace any slot's image at any time.
API access for custom integrations
AdaptiveIQ already runs on webhooks under the hood to stay in sync with Shopify. The same event-driven model is being extended into programmatic API access for Growth and Enterprise plans that want to build custom integrations on top of their catalogue data.
Webhook-driven sync today
Product, collection, and shop events already flow into AdaptiveIQ in real time - this is the same mechanism that keeps your store and AdaptiveIQ from ever drifting out of sync, and it's live today, not part of the roadmap.
REST endpoints
Catalogue, scoring, and analytics data are intended to be available over REST for bulk operations and custom integrations on qualifying plans.
Getting access
Self-serve API keys aren't open yet. If you need programmatic access today, contact support to request early access for your store.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Visit Help & Support in-app for FAQs and tutorials, or reach out directly - we read every message.
Or email us directly at dayo@adaptiveiq.co