Shopify Development for Custom Themes, Apps & Storefront Builds

For most stores, a custom Liquid theme with Online Store 2.0 sections is the right answer — it ships faster, keeps the native checkout, and your team can edit pages in the theme editor without a deploy. Headless makes sense when you need custom merchandising logic Liquid can't express, when content lives in a separate CMS that drives the storefront, or when the storefront has to share a design system with an existing application. Headless also means you now own the hosting, caching, and preview infrastructure that Shopify handles for you. I'll recommend a theme unless there's a concrete reason not to.

Only if you need what Plus actually unlocks: checkout customization through Shopify Functions and checkout extensions, B2B company accounts and catalogs, multiple storefronts under one organization, or higher API limits for heavy integration traffic. Plenty of stores are on Plus for features they never turned on. If you're already on Plus, I'll use those capabilities properly. If you're not, I'll tell you honestly whether your requirements need it.

Yes. Migrations are mostly a data problem, not a design problem: mapping products, variants, and custom fields into Shopify's product model and metafields, moving customer records without breaking password resets, preserving order history where the platform allows it, and — the part most migrations get wrong — mapping every old URL to a 301 redirect so you don't lose the search rankings you've already earned. I plan the redirect map before launch, not after traffic drops.

More than most merchants realize. Each app that injects a script tag adds render-blocking JavaScript, and uninstalled apps often leave their script tags and theme snippets behind. A store running fifteen apps is frequently loading code from apps nobody uses anymore. I audit what's actually loading on your storefront, remove the orphaned leftovers, and replace the worst offenders with theme code or a custom app where it's worth doing.

Most custom theme builds run 5–10 weeks depending on catalog complexity, how many templates need custom treatment, and whether metafield modeling is involved. Adding a custom app or a significant third-party integration extends that. Headless storefronts take longer because you're building the infrastructure the theme layer normally provides. I scope from your actual catalog and requirements, not a package tier.

Custom Shopify projects at Black Lab Development range from $4,000 for a focused custom theme build to $24,000+ for headless storefronts or builds with custom apps and multiple system integrations. Migrations and performance remediation sit in between depending on catalog size and how much cleanup the existing store needs. Pricing reflects actual scope — I quote after the audit, not before.