The reason most "Shopify development cost" articles refuse to give real numbers is that agencies and freelancers don't want to be held to them before they've qualified your budget. That's useful for them. It's not useful for you.
These are the real price ranges for common Shopify projects, based on what I actually charge and what I see charged across the market. The ranges exist because scope varies - but they're real ranges, not placeholders.
The variables that actually move the price
Before the numbers: the things that push a project toward the top or bottom of any range.
- Scope clarity. A detailed brief with Figma designs costs less to quote and less to build than "I want something like this but different." Ambiguity gets priced in.
- Complexity of integrations. A store that needs to connect to an ERP, a custom fulfilment system, and a B2B pricing API costs significantly more than one using standard Shopify apps.
- Timeline pressure. Rush work - anything with a deadline under 2 weeks - commands a premium. This is standard across any professional services context.
- Revision cycles. Fixed-price projects that start with a vague brief end up with scope creep disguised as revisions. Briefs with clear acceptance criteria don't.
- Who you hire. A freelancer with 10 years of Shopify-specific experience charges more than a generalist web developer who has touched Shopify twice. Both will tell you they build Shopify stores.
Section or feature additions
Price range: $300–$1,500
Single additions to an existing theme: a custom homepage section, a product page feature (sticky ATC bar, variant image switching, tabbed descriptions), a cart modification (free shipping bar, upsell widget), or a custom collection page filter. These are the most common Shopify development requests and the most variable in complexity.
A simple static section with a few settings fields is a few hours of work. A dynamic section pulling from metaobjects with complex responsive behaviour is a day or two. Get a fixed quote on the spec, not an hourly estimate on a vague description.
Theme customisation
Price range: $500–$2,500
Taking an existing Shopify theme (Dawn, Prestige, Impulse, or a purchased theme) and customising it to match a brand - colour scheme, typography, layout adjustments, custom sections, header/footer work. This is not a full rebuild; it's working within the existing theme architecture.
The low end is light cosmetic work on a modern OS 2.0 theme. The high end is extensive reworking of a complex or older theme that requires understanding its custom JS architecture before touching anything.
Product page redesign
Price range: $599–$2,000
A conversion-optimised product page design and Liquid implementation as a new template in your existing theme. At the lower end: a structured redesign following established CRO patterns (buy box hierarchy, social proof placement, sticky ATC). At the higher end: custom interactive elements, complex variant handling, or a fully bespoke design from scratch.
The product page redesign service I offer is fixed at $599 for the design and Liquid build. If you want to understand what that scope covers, the service page breaks it down.
Full custom Shopify theme
Price range: $4,000–$12,000
A custom theme built from scratch or from a minimal starter, not adapted from an existing commercial theme. This includes a complete Liquid template architecture, all section types, full OS 2.0 compatibility, custom JS for interactions, and performance optimisation.
The lower end is a clean, focused theme for a store with a limited section library and straightforward UX. The higher end is a complex theme with a large section library, custom filtering, interactive product pages, and heavy brand expression.
Agency quotes for custom themes often start higher than this - you're paying for account management, project managers, and overhead, not just the person writing the code.
New Shopify store design and build
Price range: $3,000–$10,000+
The full process: brand/UX strategy, Figma designs for all key page types, and Shopify theme development. The deliverable is a live store, not a template you configure yourself.
The lower end is a focused build for a new store with a defined brand, a clear product catalog, and standard page types. The higher end is a complex store with many page types, a custom section library, integrations beyond standard apps, and extensive design work.
The new Shopify store service starts at $3,000 and covers strategy, Figma, and development - with a 3–4 week timeline for stores within that scope.
Platform migration (WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce → Shopify)
Price range: $2,000–$8,000
Migrating product data, customer records, order history, and content - plus implementing 301 redirects for SEO preservation. The range is driven almost entirely by catalog size and complexity: a 200-product store with a single product type is straightforward; a 5,000 SKU store with complex product variants, multiple custom attributes, and years of blog content is a multi-week project.
Migrations that include a theme build (because the destination theme needs to be created, not just the data moved) sit at the higher end. Pure data migration for stores where the theme is already built or being handled separately sits at the lower end.
Headless Shopify (Hydrogen + Remix)
Price range: $15,000–$60,000+
Building a Hydrogen storefront using the Storefront API is a fundamentally different scope to a Liquid theme build. You're building a React application that happens to use Shopify as its commerce backend. Development time is 3–5× longer than a traditional theme. Ongoing maintenance costs are higher.
Before committing to this budget, it's worth reading the headless vs traditional breakdown - for most stores, a well-built traditional theme is the right answer at a fraction of the cost.
Audits
Fixed prices: $599–$899
Audits are scoped deliverables with fixed pricing because the scope is defined - the work is analysis and reporting, not open-ended development.
- Speed Audit: $599 - Core Web Vitals, app overhead, image delivery, fix list in 24 hours
- UX/UI Audit: $699 - Friction analysis across the full funnel
- SEO Audit: $699 - Technical SEO, schema, crawlability, on-page signals
- CRO Audit: $899 - Full conversion audit with prioritised action report in 5 business days
Monthly retainer / ongoing development
Price range: $1,500–$5,000/month
A set number of hours per month for continued development work - new sections, performance improvements, A/B test implementation, integration work, and ongoing optimisation. The range reflects hours available per month: $1,500/mo covers a few targeted changes; $3,000–5,000/mo covers a sustained development programme.
Freelancer vs agency: what's the price difference?
An equivalent scope quoted by a Shopify agency typically runs 2–3× the freelancer price. The agency overhead - account management, project management, sales overhead - gets built into every project. You also share developer attention across multiple simultaneous projects rather than having a single developer focused on yours.
There are cases where an agency is the right choice - large team coordination, multi-discipline projects, enterprise-scale retainers. For most Shopify projects, you're paying the overhead without getting a proportional benefit in quality. The developer vs agency comparison covers this in more detail.
Red flags in a quote
- Hourly-only quotes on a scoped project. If a developer won't give you a fixed price for a clearly defined piece of work, they're either unable to estimate accurately or planning to bill time regardless of output.
- Prices that are implausibly low. A "full custom Shopify theme" quoted at $800 is either a heavily-templated theme with minimal customisation, or a developer who will cut scope when the hours run out.
- No questions about your brief. A developer who quotes on a vague description without asking clarifying questions either hasn't read it carefully or is planning to interpret scope liberally later.
- No examples of Shopify-specific work. General web developers who occasionally do Shopify work charge similar rates to Shopify specialists but produce different results. Ask to see live Shopify stores they've built, not just screenshots.
How to get an accurate quote
The more specific your brief, the more accurate the quote. A good brief includes: the work you want done (not just "make it look better"), the pages or features in scope, whether you have existing designs in Figma or need design work included, your launch date, and any technical constraints (existing apps that need to stay, integrations that need to work).
A developer who gives you a fixed price on a detailed brief and explains what's in and out of scope is giving you a quote you can trust. A developer who responds to a vague brief with a wide range and "we'd need to scope it more" is deferring the real conversation.
If you want a fixed price for a specific Shopify project, the fastest route is a 15-minute call. I'll ask the questions that turn a vague brief into a specific scope, and give you a number you can plan around - not a range.
