Reporting & research on Shopify and ecommerce
Merchants searching for a Shopify FAQ page without an app usually get pointed to a theme comparison chart, but the actual answer sits inside a single Dawn section file with 13 settings that already does the job.
Most merchants who search “shopify faq page without app” end up on a listicle ranking five paid themes, when the actual answer is sitting inside the free Dawn theme they may already have installed. The section is called collapsible-content, the file is sections/collapsible-content.liquid, and as of commit 258f00f from August 10, 2026 it carries 13 settings and 1 block type. That is the whole feature. No app, no app block, no extra monthly charge. The confusion comes from theme marketing pages that describe “FAQ sections” as if they were a separate product, when in Dawn’s case it is one section file doing accordion-style collapse and expand.
Naming the settings matters more than describing them in general terms, because a merchant deciding whether this section covers their need should be able to check it against a list. The 13 settings in collapsible-content.liquid include caption, a plain text field for a small label above the heading. They include heading, typed as inline_richtext, which means you can bold a word or drop in a link inside the heading itself, unlike a plain text field. heading_size is a select with 5 variants, so you get 5 fixed size steps rather than a free number. heading_alignment is a select with 3 variants, almost certainly left, center, right. layout is a select with 3 variants, controlling how the blocks stack or split on the page. container_color_scheme ties into the color_scheme setting type, which pulls from the theme’s global color palette rather than a standalone color picker.
What is not in this list matters as much as what is. There is no setting here for a search engine FAQ schema, no setting for conditional logic between blocks, and no setting to change how many blocks display before a “show more” cutoff. The section does one job, collapsing and expanding text blocks under a heading, and it does that job with 1 block type repeated as many times as the merchant adds blocks.
A merchant moving from Dawn to Horizon and searching the new theme’s files for collapsible-content will not find it. In the code checked at commit 8b42ace from August 31, 2026, Horizon’s relevant files are sections/main-page.liquid with 5 settings and 3 block types, sections/media-with-content.liquid with 8 settings, blocks/page-content.liquid with 1 setting, and blocks/_carousel-content.liquid with 12 settings and 1 block type. None of these four files contain the word collapsible in this measurement. main-page.liquid’s 5 settings cover content_direction (a select with 1 variant), gap as a range from 0 to 100 in 1px steps, background_color, and two padding-block range settings, also 0 to 100 in 1px steps. media-with-content.liquid’s 8 settings cover media_position (2 variants), media_width (3 variants), media_height (5 variants), section_width (2 variants), an extend_media checkbox, and background_color. None of that is an accordion toggle.
This does not mean Horizon merchants cannot build an FAQ layout, since media-with-content or the carousel-content block with its 12 settings and 3 position variants could be arranged into a Q&A style layout by hand. But it means the specific, purpose-built, 1-click accordion behavior that Dawn ships in a single named section is absent from Horizon’s file list as measured here. That gap is the story, not a footnote.
| Theme file | Settings | Block types | Commit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dawn sections/collapsible-content.liquid | 13 | 1 | 258f00f (Aug 10, 2026) |
| Horizon sections/main-page.liquid | 5 | 3 | 8b42ace (Aug 31, 2026) |
| Horizon sections/media-with-content.liquid | 8 | 0 named | 8b42ace (Aug 31, 2026) |
| Horizon blocks/_carousel-content.liquid | 12 | 1 | 8b42ace (Aug 31, 2026) |
| Horizon blocks/page-content.liquid | 1 | 0 | 8b42ace (Aug 31, 2026) |
The table above only counts settings and block types, and that number has no measured link to page speed. Across the market, 247 themes have enough CrUX data from July 2026 to report a mobile Core Web Vitals pass rate, with a median of 85.5% of visits passing, a best theme at 98.6%, and a worst at 46.1%. Desktop numbers, from 199 themes with sufficient data, run higher: a median of 86.2%, a best of 99.2%, a worst of 30.3%. This is real visitor traffic measured by Chrome’s dataset, not a synthetic lab test, so the range reflects actual conditions on actual phones and desktops in July 2026. A section with 13 settings adds template weight the same as a section with 5 settings might, depending on how many blocks a merchant stacks into it, so the settings count and the speed number are separate questions that both need checking.
The category list attached to this market’s data covers Art, Auto, Bags, Beauty, Clothing, Electronics, Food and drink, Home, Jewelry & Access., Kids, Pets, Sports, and Toys, and none of those categories are named “FAQ page,” so a merchant will not find this feature filed under a category tab, only inside a theme’s own section list. Among the 329 themes in the aggregate, UTD’s entries are worth a look (browse UTD’s themes) alongside the rest of the market, though the facts checked here do not show UTD’s specific Core Web Vitals rank or its exact review count against the market median of 23, so that comparison stays open rather than settled.
A merchant on Dawn should open sections/collapsible-content.liquid through the theme editor, add the section, and check its 6 named settings against their actual FAQ content before assuming a paid theme is required. A merchant on Horizon should stop searching for a section named collapsible-content, since it is not in the file list as of commit 8b42ace, and instead evaluate media-with-content or carousel-content for a hand-built substitute.
Yes, and the mechanism is the collapsible-content section at sections/collapsible-content.liquid, which as of commit 258f00f (August 10, 2026) carries 13 settings and 1 block type. That is enough to build a heading, set its size from 5 select options, align it 3 ways, and choose one of 3 layout variants. Each block collapses and expands on its own, which is the accordion behavior an FAQ page needs. Nothing here requires a theme app extension or an app block from the App Store.
The settings include caption as a plain text field, heading as inline_richtext so you can bold or link words inside it, heading_size with 5 choices, heading_alignment with 3 choices, layout with 3 choices, and container_color_scheme tied to the theme's color scheme picker. That is 6 of the 13 named settings, and the rest govern spacing and block-level behavior inside the same file. There is no setting here for FAQ schema markup or search indexing, so those stay outside this section's job.
Horizon does not have a file matching collapsible-content in the facts checked here. What Horizon has instead is sections/main-page.liquid with 5 settings and 3 block types (commit 8b42ace, August 31, 2026), plus sections/media-with-content.liquid with 8 settings, plus blocks/page-content.liquid with a single text_color setting and blocks/_carousel-content.liquid with 12 settings and 1 block type. None of those four files carry the word collapsible or an accordion-style toggle in this measurement, so a Horizon merchant wanting the exact Dawn behavior is not looking at a renamed twin, they are looking at a different structure.
The market's mobile Core Web Vitals pass rate sits at a median of 85.5% of visits across 247 themes with sufficient CrUX data from July 2026, with the best theme at 98.6% and the worst at 46.1%. Desktop sits higher at a median of 86.2% across 199 themes, ranging from 30.3% to 99.2%. This is measured from real visitor traffic, not a lab run, so it reflects what actually happens on a phone with a slow connection. A section file with 13 settings does not by itself move a theme's percentile, since page weight and script count elsewhere on the theme matter more.
No, because setting count is not a proxy for speed or for review confidence. The median review count across the market is only 23, and the median price is $300 inside a $100 to $500 range, so a theme with a high settings count can still sit in a thin-review, average-price bracket. Compare the specific settings you need, in this case caption, heading, heading_size, heading_alignment, layout, and container_color_scheme, against what the theme you already own already ships.