Will Hermes of "Rolling Stone" called the song "mighty" and compared Welch's vocals with Glinda the Good Witch. "Entertainment Weekly"s Kyle Anderson commented that "Welch's soul is constantly in peril here, forcing her to dance away from devils" in the "swinging, jubilant" song. Andy Gill of "The Independent", and Lewis Corner of Digital Spy, put the song in their lists of songs to download from "Ceremonials". Kitty Empire of "The Observer" wrote that Welch's vocals sound "multitracked, and are augmented by a chorus of friends." On the Triple J Hottest 100 list, "Shake It Out" was ranked at number thirteen. On "Slant Magazine"s year-end list of Best Singles of 2011, "Shake It Out" was ranked at number thirteen. The writers of the website further commented, "If lyrics about freedom, overcoming regrets that have been collected 'like old friends here to relive your darkest moments,' and the simple truth that it's hard to dance with a devil on your back doesn't move you, then perhaps the final 60 seconds of 'Shake It Out' will, which forsakes language altogether and builds to a cacophony of bone-rattling organ, tribal percussion, and intersecting vocal parts that find Florence Welch finally succumbing to her demons and having drinks in the dark at the end of the road with the rest of us." At the 2012 NME Awards on 29 February 2012, "Shake It Out" won in the category for Best Track. At the 2013 Grammy Awards, the song was nominated in the category of Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. In 2019, "Pitchfork" ranked the song as the 174th best song of the 2010s. The song debuted at number 36 on the "Billboard" Adult Pop Songs chart on 22 November 2011. On the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, "Shake It Out" peaked at number 72 for the week ending 18 March 2012. The single became Florence and the Machine's fourth top twenty single in the UK Singles Chart after "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up), "You've Got the Love and "You've Got the Dirtee Love". It has sold over a million digital copies in the US as of October 2012. The single reached Number 12 in the UK in 2011 and as of July 2018 it has shifted 598,000 copies, combining streaming and sales. 25 million have streamed this since records began in 2014.