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Cost guide

How much does a Shopify store cost in 2026?

A custom Shopify theme runs $1.5K–$10K 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, and every figure becomes a written proposal within 48 hours.

Request this optionSee the full rate card

Direct rate, in ₹ or $ · Itemised proposal in 48 hrs

The range

What it costs,
at the direct rate.

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

  • ProjectCustom theme build$1.5K–$10Kfixed quote, one-time
  • ProjectCustom app or integration$1.5K–$10Kfixed quote, one-time
  • RetainerMonthly retainer$500–$3Kper month

Indicative: every figure is refined into an itemised proposal within 48 hours.INR figures shown excl. GST.

Every option includes a Prism workspace for requests, approvals, tasks and the weekly review.

What moves the price

Why the range
is a range.

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 piece your team can place, fill and reorder without a developer. The count of distinct sections, and how much logic each carries, is the estimate. Bundles, self-merchandising collections and weekly campaign pages all add sections.

Biggest lever
02

Plus features

Shopify Plus, the platform's enterprise tier, unlocks work a standard store never needs: checkout extensibility, business-to-business price lists, company accounts, storefronts per market. Each is engineering with its own testing, because checkout is where a mistake costs an order. A standard checkout sits at the bottom of the range; Plus, used properly, at the top.

Plus lever
03

Apps: keep, replace or build

Every installed app is a monthly fee and a script on every page. The audit sorts them: what stays, what a few lines of theme code replace, what needs a custom app. Replacing costs build hours once and removes a fee for good. Building is its own row below. A long app list is the first place a quote goes down.

Hidden lever
04

Integrations and which way they flow

Orders, stock and customers usually live in more than one place: an ERP, the system that holds stock and accounts, a warehouse, a subscription tool, an email platform. A one-way feed from Shopify is plumbing. A two-way sync, where each side can change the same record, is where the edge cases live. Edge cases are what the fee pays for.

Scope lever
05

Design and product data

Design is priced under web design, and product data entry and photography are priced separately. A theme cannot be finished against products that do not exist yet. A store with signed-off designs and a clean product export gets built. A store still deciding what it sells while the theme is under way pays for the waiting.

Often forgotten
06

Campaign tempo after launch

The retainer is sized to how often the store moves. A store that launches a landing page and a promotion every week uses the hours. A store that patches quarterly does not, and should buy by the project instead. Say how often you ship and the proposal sizes the month to that, not to an average.

Ongoing lever
The options

Which option
fits your case.

Each option below is one way to buy Shopify. Read what it is and who it fits, then request the one that matches your case; the proposal itemises it.

Project

Custom theme build

$1.5K–$10Kfixed quote, one-time
What it is

A custom theme built in Liquid, section by section, structured so your team edits content and launches campaigns without a developer on standby. 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 whose template has become the ceiling: sections that will not do what the merchandising needs, apps stacked to compensate, a page-builder layer slowing every request. It does not fit a store whose template already does the job; there an app or the retainer is the better buy. A store still choosing its platform is priced under eCommerce.

Included
  • Theme under version control in your accounts, with preview environments
  • Sections built for your merchandising, not a template's fifty unused options
  • App audit: what stays, what theme code replaces
  • Scripts and images budgeted per template, Core Web Vitals measured on every release
  • Checkout exercised 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; first section on a preview theme within 14 days of NDA
Moves the number
Section count and Plus features: checkout extensibility, B2B price lists and multi-market storefronts each add engineering a starter store never needs.
Request this option →
Project

Custom app or integration

$1.5K–$10Kfixed quote, one-time
What it is

A custom app where the app store has nothing that fits, or a connection 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 re-keys orders, where stock on the site disagrees with the warehouse, or where a workflow lives in a spreadsheet beside the admin. It does not fit a need a maintained off-the-shelf app already serves well; the audit will say so rather than build for the sake of it.

Included
  • Which system owns which record, settled before code
  • Built and tested in a development store before it touches live orders
  • Failure handling: retries, logging, and syncs that recover rather than drop
  • 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
Direction of sync: a one-way stock feed is plumbing, two-way order and customer sync is where the edge cases live.
Request this option →
Retainer

Monthly retainer

$500–$3Kper month
What it is

A standing monthly relationship for a store that keeps moving: theme and section changes from a shared backlog, apps and integrations kept working as the platform changes, and a named engineer on your channel.

Who it fits

Stores with a campaign calendar and a merchandising 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 backlog
  • App and integration maintenance as Shopify's APIs change
  • Core Web Vitals checked on every release
  • A named engineer on your channel
Not included, quoted separately
  • Shopify plan and app fees
  • Large features, scoped as their own project
  • Performance rescue on a store we did not build (see Performance Optimisation)
Turnaround
Monthly, 3-month minimum
Moves the number
Campaign tempo: a store launching a landing page a week uses the hours, a store that patches quarterly does not.
Request this option →
Cheaper or dearer

What moves a quote
down, or up.

The proposal itemises sections, apps and integrations, so each item below is a line you can see move before you sign.

Brings the quote down
  • Signed-off designs and a clean product export, so the theme is built against real content
  • A standard plan and a standard checkout, with no Plus customisation
  • One market, one currency, one language
  • Apps the audit can retire in favour of theme code
  • Integrations that flow one way, from Shopify out
Pushes the quote up
  • Checkout extensibility, business-to-business price lists and company accounts on Plus
  • Storefronts per market, each with its own pricing, language and rules
  • Two-way sync with an ERP or a warehouse that also edits the record
  • Merchandising logic the platform does not do natively: bundles, configurators, custom pricing
  • A launch date tied to a season, which puts more engineers in parallel
What you get

What the fee
actually buys.

The fee buys a theme your team can run, apps that keep systems agreeing and a written account of both. Sales and conversion rate are not promised, because they depend on products, price and traffic. The store's speed and its working checkout are.

01

A theme in your accounts, with previews

The theme sits under version control in your Shopify account, with preview environments for every change. Any Shopify developer could pick it up tomorrow.

02

Sections your merchandising team can run

Each section is built for how you sell, with the settings your team needs and none of the ones they do not. Campaign pages get launched without a ticket.

03

An app audit with the cost of each

Every installed app listed with what it does, what it costs monthly and what would replace it. The decisions are yours; the arithmetic is written down.

04

Speed measured on every release

Core Web Vitals, Google's measures of how fast a page loads and responds, are budgeted per template and checked on every release. The number is a gate, not a report.

05

A checkout exercised before launch

Basket to order confirmation, with payment methods, shipping rules, taxes, discounts and the failure cases tested before a customer meets them.

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.

AgenciesAgency partners buy at the partner rates on agencies.pixelcrayons.com; volume terms are agreed under NDA.

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Questions

Frequently
asked.

No. The plan, app subscriptions, payment processing and any third-party service are billed by those platforms to your own accounts. Keeping platform fees outside the quote is deliberate. You see the recurring cost of the store apart from the one-off cost of building it, and nothing is marked up on the way through.

Because on Shopify a page is an arrangement of sections, and sections are what get built. Once a section exists your team can place it on any page without a developer, so the page count barely moves the fee. The number of distinct sections, and the logic inside each, does. The proposal lists them, so you can see which are the expensive ones and decide whether the store needs them.

There is no fixed uplift, because Plus only costs more when its features are used. A Plus store with a standard checkout is priced like a standard store. Checkout extensibility, business-to-business price lists, company accounts and per-market storefronts each add engineering and testing, and each is its own line in the proposal. If you are paying for Plus and using it like a starter plan, that is the first conversation we will have.

Usually the app, and the audit says so when it is true. A maintained app that does the job well costs a monthly fee and a script tag, which is often the right trade. A custom app earns its price when no app fits, when several app fees add up to more than a build, or when an app's script weight is what makes the store slow. The proposal shows the arithmetic either way.

No. The migration is its own row on the rate card, priced by what has to be counted: products, variants, customers, orders and every URL that ever ranked. The theme is the new front of the store; the migration moves everything behind it. Many buyers take both, and the proposal shows each separately so you can sequence them or bring one from elsewhere.

Yes. The custom app or integration row stands on its own. A store happy with its theme often needs only the connection to its warehouse, its subscription tool or its accounting. The one condition is a theme we can work with: if the integration must render in the theme and the theme is a page-builder tangle, the proposal will say what has to change first.

Related

Other cost guides
and the service itself.

How much does a website cost in 2026?Cost guide: the options, what moves the price and what the fee buys.How much does a WordPress site cost in 2026?Cost guide: the options, what moves the price and what the fee buys.How much does web design cost in 2026?Cost guide: the options, what moves the price and what the fee buys.About ShopifyThe service page: what the work is, how it runs and the proof behind it.Shopify on the rate cardThe same ranges beside every other service, in one card.

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