Shopify's storefront filters are the obvious way to let a shopper narrow a collection by make, model and year. On a small catalogue they work. On an auto parts catalogue they run into five limits, and the first one removes the filters from the page altogether. This guide lists the limits, what each does to vehicle filtering, and what the alternatives cost.

The limits

Limit	Value	What it means for fitment
Products in a collection	5,000	Above this, Shopify does not display filters on the collection.
Search results	1,000	Above this, filters are not displayed on the search results page.
Filters per store	25	Shared between your own filters (price, brand, availability) and any used for fitment.
Values shown per filter	100	A filter with more values than this does not show them all.
Entries in a list metafield	128	A product's fitment list in a metafield cannot be longer than this.

Sources: the 25-filter limit is stated in Shopify's developer documentation on storefront filtering ("Users can create up to a maximum of 25 filters."), read on 4 October 2026. The other figures are from Shopify's Help Center and developer documentation as we read them in July 2026. Shopify can change these, so check the current pages before you rely on a number.

The 5,000-product limit

This is the one that matters most. Shopify's documentation says a collection with more than 5,000 products does not display filters. An auto parts store that wants shoppers to filter the whole catalogue by vehicle needs filters on its largest collection, and a parts catalogue passes 5,000 products early.

The usual workaround is to split the catalogue into smaller collections, by category or by brand, so each stays under the limit. That keeps filters visible. It also means a shopper can only filter by vehicle inside one category at a time, and "show me everything that fits my truck" has no page.

The 25-filter limit

A store gets 25 filters in total. Make, model and year take three. That sounds affordable, and it is, until the scheme needs more. One approach to year ranges gives each year its own field, and a catalogue that spans 25 model years would use every slot on years alone. Any design that needs more than a few filters for fitment is competing with price, availability, product type and vendor for the same 25 slots.

The 100-value limit

A filter displays up to 100 values. A make filter fits inside that. A model filter does not once the catalogue covers more than 100 models, which a store selling for a few dozen makes does, so the model filter cannot show its full list. The shopper's model may be one of the values that is not shown.

The 128-entry metafield limit

Filters read from product data, and the natural place for a product's fitment list is a list metafield. That list holds up to 128 entries. A wide-fit part fits more vehicles than that, so the list cannot hold all of them. It is the same kind of ceiling as the tag limit, and a lower one. See Shopify's product tag limit and fitment.

Filters are not a vehicle selector

Even inside the limits, storefront filters are page filters. They sit on a collection or search page and narrow what is already there. A vehicle selector is a different thing: a set of dependent dropdowns on the home page that takes the shopper straight to the parts for their vehicle and remembers it afterwards. Filters can narrow a page. They do not give you the selector. See How to add a vehicle selector or parts finder to Shopify.

What stores do instead

Split collections to stay under 5,000. Keeps native filters. Loses whole-catalogue vehicle search.
Tag URLs. A link such as /collections/all/ford+f-150 filters by tag with no filter limit. It inherits the tag limit on each product instead.
One product per vehicle. Some stores list a separate product for each vehicle a part fits. Every product has one fitment, so nothing overflows. The catalogue grows by the number of vehicles, and stock, reviews and edits are split across copies.
A search that is not a Shopify filter. An app stores the fitment and serves the results itself, so the storefront filter limits are not involved.

Where ClearFitment sits

ClearFitment is the last kind. The vehicle search and its results page are served by the app from its own fitment rows. They are not Shopify storefront filters, so the limits in the table above do not apply to them, and your 25 filters stay free for price, availability and the rest.

It has limits of its own. Each plan holds a set number of fitment rows: Small up to 10,000, Medium up to 100,000 and Large up to 500,000. No store can hold more than 500,000 fitment rows today, and one import file can hold up to that many. The search block, fit badge and fitment table are app blocks, so the theme has to be an Online Store 2.0 theme that accepts them. There is no VIN or registration-plate lookup.