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Cost guide

How much does a Shopify store cost in 2026?

A Shopify store with a custom theme costs $1,875–$12.5K at the direct rate, as a fixed quote against an itemised list of sections. A custom app or integration and the monthly retainer are priced on their own below. Every figure becomes a written proposal.

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Direct rate, in ₹ or $ · Reply within four business hours (typical)

The range

What it costs,
at the direct rate.

Fixed quotes for the theme and for each app or connection, with a monthly retainer for a store that keeps launching campaigns. Moving onto Shopify is priced on its own row.

  • ProjectCustom theme build$1,875–$12.5Kfixed quote, one-time
  • ProjectCustom app or integration$1,875–$12.5Kfixed quote, one-time
  • RetainerMonthly retainer$625–$3,750per month

Indicative: every figure is refined into an itemised proposal.INR figures shown excl. GST.

Where the engagement includes it, a Prism workspace holds requests, approvals, tasks and reviews.

What moves the price

Why the price
varies from job to job.

01

How many sections your merchandising needs

A Shopify theme is built section by section in Liquid, Shopify's theme language. Each section is a block your team can place, fill and move without a developer. The estimate is the number of different sections, and how much each one has to do. Bundles, collections that sort themselves and weekly campaign pages all add sections.

Biggest factor
02

Shopify Plus features

Shopify Plus is the platform's plan for large businesses. It allows work a standard store never needs: a custom checkout, trade price lists, company accounts and a store per market. Each needs engineering and its own testing, because a checkout mistake costs an order. A standard checkout sits at the bottom of the range. Plus, used fully, sits at the top.

Shopify Plus
03

Apps: keep, replace or build

Every installed app means a monthly fee and extra code on every page. Our review sorts them: what stays, what a few lines of theme code can replace, and what needs a custom app. Replacing an app costs build hours once and removes its fee for good. Building one is its own row below. A long app list is the first place a quote can come down.

Hidden cost
04

Integrations and which way they flow

Orders, stock and customers usually live in more than one place. That might be an ERP (the system that holds stock and accounts), a warehouse, a subscription tool or an email platform. A one-way feed out of Shopify is simple. A two-way sync, where each side can change the same record, brings many unusual cases. Handling those is what the fee pays for.

Scope
05

Design and product data

Design is priced under web design. Product data entry and photography are priced separately. A theme can't be finished for products that don't exist yet. A store with signed-off designs and a clean product export gets built. A store still deciding what to sell during the build pays for the waiting.

Often forgotten
06

How often you run campaigns after launch

The retainer is sized to how often your store changes. A store that launches a landing page and a promotion every week uses the hours. A store that makes changes every few months does not, and should buy by the project. Tell us how often you make changes, and the proposal sizes each month to that.

Ongoing cost
The options

Which option
suits your business.

Each option below is one way to buy Shopify. Read what it is and who it suits, then ask for the one that fits. Your proposal itemises it.

Project

Custom theme build

$1,875–$12.5Kfixed quote, one-time
What it is

A custom theme built in Liquid, section by section. Your team can edit content and launch campaigns without a developer on call. It is a fixed price against the list of sections and the Plus features it must support.

Who it fits

Brands on Shopify or Plus that have outgrown their template. Its sections can't show products the way you need, apps are piled on to make up for it, and a page builder slows every page. It does not fit a store whose template already works; there, an app or the retainer is the better buy. A store still choosing its platform is priced under eCommerce.

Included
  • Theme code and its history kept in your accounts, with previews to check changes
  • Sections built for how you sell, without a template's fifty unused options
  • App review: what stays, and what theme code can replace
  • Limits on scripts and images for each template, and Core Web Vitals measured on every release
  • Checkout tested from basket to order confirmation before launch
Not included, quoted separately
  • Shopify plan and app subscription fees
  • Migration onto Shopify (see Shopify Migration)
  • Design (see Web design)
  • Product data entry and photography
Turnaround
Theme work in weeks
Moves the number
Number of sections and Shopify Plus features. Custom checkout, B2B price lists and stores for several countries each add work a starter store never needs.
Request this option →
Project

Custom app or integration

$1,875–$12.5Kfixed quote, one-time
What it is

A custom app where the app store has nothing that fits. Or a link between Shopify and the systems that hold your stock, orders, subscriptions or email, so every system agrees on what was sold.

Who it fits

Stores where someone types orders in twice, where stock on the site doesn't match the warehouse, or where a task lives in a spreadsheet. It does not fit a need that a well-kept ready-made app already meets. Our review will say so, instead of building for the sake of it.

Included
  • Agreed before coding: which system holds the master copy of each record
  • Built and tested in a test store before it touches live orders
  • If a sync fails, it retries, logs the error and recovers instead of losing data
  • Documented and handed over in your accounts
Not included, quoted separately
  • Third-party API and platform fees
  • Changes on the other system's side
  • Ongoing monitoring (retainer below)
Turnaround
2 to 8 weeks
Moves the number
Which way data flows. A one-way stock feed is simple. Two-way order and customer syncing is where the unusual cases hide.
Request this option →
Retainer

Monthly retainer

$625–$3,750per month
What it is

Monthly support for a store that keeps changing. You get theme and section changes from a shared to-do list, and apps and links kept working as Shopify changes. A named engineer is on your chat channel.

Who it fits

Stores with a campaign calendar and a sales team that needs engineering most weeks. It does not fit a store that changes a few times a year, which should buy a page or an app as its own project. A slow store we did not build is priced under performance optimisation.

Included
  • Theme and section changes from a shared task list
  • Apps and connections kept working as Shopify changes its APIs
  • Core Web Vitals checked on every release
  • A named engineer in your chat channel
Not included, quoted separately
  • Shopify plan and app fees
  • Large features, scoped as their own project
  • Speeding up a store we did not build (see Performance Optimisation)
Turnaround
Monthly, 3-month minimum
Moves the number
How often you launch campaigns. A store launching a landing page each week uses the hours. A store updated every three months does not.
Request this option →
Cheaper or dearer

What makes your quote
lower or higher.

The proposal lists sections, apps and integrations. So you can see each item below change a line before you sign.

Brings the quote down
  • Signed-off designs and a clean product export, so the theme is built with real content
  • A standard plan and a standard checkout, with no Plus customisation
  • One market, one currency, one language
  • Apps our review can replace with theme code
  • Integrations that send data one way, out of Shopify
Pushes the quote up
  • A custom checkout, trade price lists and company accounts on Plus
  • A store per market, each with its own pricing, language and rules
  • Two-way sync with an ERP or a warehouse that also changes the record
  • Selling features Shopify lacks: bundles, product builders, custom pricing
  • A launch date tied to a season, which needs more engineers working at once
What you get

What your fee
pays for.

The fee buys a theme your team can run, apps that keep your systems in step, and a written record of both. We don't promise sales or conversion rates, because they depend on products, price and traffic. We do promise a fast store and a working checkout.

01

A theme in your accounts, with previews

The theme sits in your Shopify account with a full change history, and you can preview every change. Any Shopify developer could pick it up tomorrow.

02

Sections your team can run

Each section is built for how you sell, with the settings your team needs and none they don't. Your team launches campaign pages without asking a developer.

03

An app audit with the cost of each

Every installed app is listed with what it does, what it costs each month and what could replace it. You make the decisions, with the sums written down.

04

Speed measured on every release

Core Web Vitals, Google's measures of how fast a page loads and responds, have a target per template. They are checked on every release, and a change that misses the target doesn't go live.

05

A checkout tested before launch

We test every step from basket to order confirmation: payment methods, shipping rules, taxes, discounts and what happens when something fails. All before a customer sees it.

06

What Shopify bills you directly

The Shopify plan, app subscriptions, payment processing and any third-party service are billed by those platforms to your accounts, never inside the fee. Code and documentation are handed over as we go.

AgenciesThe ranges above are direct prices. Agency partners buy from the partner price list, about 20% lower on packages.

See the partner price list →
Questions

Frequently
asked.

No. The plan, app subscriptions, payment processing and any outside service are billed by those platforms to your own accounts. We keep platform fees out of the quote on purpose. You see the store's monthly running cost apart from the one-off cost of building it, and we add no mark-up.

Because on Shopify a page is a set of sections, and sections are what we build. Once a section exists, your team can place it on any page without a developer. So the fee depends on the number of different sections and how much each one does. The proposal lists them, so you can see which cost most.

There's no fixed extra, because Plus only costs more when you use its features. A Plus store with a standard checkout is priced like a standard store. A custom checkout, trade price lists, company accounts and a store per market each add engineering and testing. Each is its own line in the proposal.

Usually the app, and our review says so when it's true. A well-kept app costs a monthly fee and a little extra code, which is often a fair trade. A custom app is worth it when no app fits, when several app fees add up to more than a build, or when an app's code slows the store.

No. The move is its own row on the rate card. It is priced by what has to be moved: products, variants, customers, orders and every web address that ever ranked. Many buyers take both. The proposal shows each separately, so you can choose the order or buy one elsewhere.

Yes. The custom app or integration row stands on its own. A store happy with its theme often needs only the link to its warehouse, subscription tool or accounts. The one condition is a theme we can work with. If it's a tangle of page-builder code, the proposal says what has to change first.

Related

Other cost guides
and the service page.

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