- Vendor
- Shopify
- Price
- Free
- Stores in sample
- 47
- Last updated
- 2026-05-19
Dawn theme — real-world performance benchmark
Dawn is Shopify’s free reference theme. It’s the default install on new stores and accounts for the largest single theme cohort in our public storefront audit dataset.
What we measured
Based on 47 stores running Dawn, audited May 2026:
| Metric | p50 | p75 |
|---|---|---|
| Lighthouse Performance | 78 | 72 |
| LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) | 2.1s | 2.4s |
| CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) | 0.02 | 0.05 |
| INP (Interaction to Next Paint) | 110ms | 180ms |
(p75 = 75th percentile, the slowest quarter of stores in the cohort.)
How Dawn compares
Dawn’s p75 LCP of 2.4s falls just inside Google’s “Good” threshold (2.5s). That’s better than most third-party themes we measured.
If your Dawn-based store is significantly slower than 2.4s, the cause is usually third-party apps adding render-blocking scripts — not the theme. Run a free SOptim audit to see where your time goes.
Try Dawn
Dawn is free in the Shopify Theme Store. Install via Shopify Admin → Online Store → Themes → Add theme → Dawn.
About this article: Based on Lighthouse audits of 47 public Shopify storefronts running Dawn, collected by the SOptim Audit Bot in May 2026. Aggregated cohort of 10+ stores per the SOptim Hub data policy.
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