Shopify has no built-in way to deliver an order export to an SFTP server. The admin export is a manual action that produces a download or an emailed link — there is no destination field, no schedule, and no credentials to enter. If a 3PL, warehouse system, or ERP wants a file dropped on their server every morning, something outside Shopify has to put it there.
There are three honest ways to close that gap. They differ mostly in who maintains them.
Option 1 — Build it yourself against the API
Write a service that queries the Shopify Admin API for orders in a window, renders them into the file format the receiving system wants, and uploads over SFTP on a schedule.
This gives you total control, and it’s the right call if the transformation is genuinely bespoke or has to touch systems beyond Shopify. What people tend to underestimate is the long tail: API version migrations, pagination and rate limits, retries when the far end is down, host key rotation, credential storage, alerting when a run silently produces an empty file, and somebody to own all of it at 6am when the warehouse says the file never landed.
Option 2 — A middleware or iPaaS platform
Integration platforms can connect a Shopify trigger to an SFTP destination without you running servers. This is a reasonable fit if you already use one, or if the same job also has to sync inventory, push to a marketplace, or fan out to several systems.
The trade-offs are cost that scales with volume rather than complexity, and file formatting that’s often the weakest part of the toolchain — these platforms are built to move records between APIs, so bending one into a fixed-width text file with a partner’s exact header row can be more fight than it looks.
Option 3 — An export app that delivers over SFTP
Exportify includes scheduled SFTP delivery on the Advanced plan. You define the template — the fields, their order, the file format, the file-name pattern — and our support team configures the schedule and destination with you. After that it runs on its own: Exportify builds the file and pushes it to your server. The setup is documented in SFTP delivery and Scheduled exports.
A typical setup looks like:
- Cadence — daily at 06:00 UTC
- Scope — orders from the trailing 24 hours, filtered by status or tag
- Format — the XML or delimited schema the receiving system requires
- File name — a pattern with date variables, so each drop is uniquely named
- Destination —
sftp://your-3pl/incoming
Get the receiving system’s spec in writing first — exact columns, exact header text,
delimiter, encoding, line endings, file-name convention, and what they do with a duplicate
file name. Most failed integrations are not transport failures. They are a partner expecting
ship_to_postal and receiving Shipping Zip.
Comparing the three
| Approach | Best when | Real cost |
|---|---|---|
| Custom build | Logic reaches beyond Shopify, or you have engineers to own it | Ongoing maintenance and on-call |
| Middleware / iPaaS | You already run one, or the job fans out to several systems | Per-volume pricing; awkward at exact file formats |
| Export app with SFTP | The job is “this file, this shape, this server, on a schedule” | Subscription; bounded to what the app can express |
Getting started with scheduled delivery
- Collect the destination host, path, credentials, and the file spec from the receiving team.
- Build the template first and run it manually. Send the output to the partner and have them confirm it parses before you automate anything.
- Once the file is accepted, set the cadence and the order window it should cover.
- Watch the first few scheduled runs land, and agree with the partner how you’ll both know if one doesn’t.
SFTP delivery sits on Exportify’s Advanced plan at $49.99 per 30 days, with a 15-day free trial — see pricing. If your requirements are unusual, tell our support team what the far end expects and we’ll tell you honestly whether Exportify can produce it.
