Shopify developers inside your client’s store, as part of your team.
A live store never stops changing; there’s always another section to add or a sale to get ready. Agencies hire Shopify developers from us for that work, as 40 or 80 hours a month or as one dedicated Shopify developer, full time. They get into the store through a collaborator account your agency requests, and build on an unpublished theme. We give you a start date once we’ve checked capacity.
Sections, apps, sale prep and the odd broken filter. All of it is built on a copy of the theme while the live one keeps selling.
Online Store 2.0 sections your client can add and reorder.
Each app adds a script and a bill, so some become theme code.
The changes a sale needs, ready before it starts.
A test order is placed after every change here.
Measured before and after. We can’t promise the result.
Including themes that have been through a lot of hands.
The store keeps taking orders while we work, so nobody edits the published theme. A change goes through six steps instead.
They write it and set the priority. If it touches an app or checkout, your Project Manager says so before work starts, because those need a test order.
The developer works on an unpublished copy, or on a branch in your Git repo connected to it. The published theme isn’t touched.
You get a preview link to the unpublished theme, so you see the change on the real products and collections.
We run Theme Check (Shopify’s linter for Liquid and JSON) on the theme, then try the change on iOS and Android. On Flex 40 and Studio 80 a second person does that; on the Dedicated Developer plan the developer does, with the Project Manager overseeing.
If the change touches cart, checkout, shipping, tax or a payment method, a test order is placed before you’re asked to approve.
The theme is published in a quiet hour for the store. The previous theme stays in the store as a draft, ready to publish again if anyone needs it.
Example checkout tests.
Weekly updates with a checkout test after each one, plus a monthly report in your branding, are what Commerce Care does. It’s sold per store.
How a fixed-price Shopify build runsNo staff account in our name, and never the owner’s login. Your agency asks for access and the store owner approves it.
Who owns and pays for what on a storeYou’re buying time on your clients’ stores. No bill moves to you, and we never become the store’s owner.
The developer works in the theme. The Project Manager makes sure it’s the right change, on the right store.
A plan can cover one store or several. Your assigned Project Manager keeps a single queue across them and marks which tasks touch an app or checkout, because those end with a test order.
Tell your Project Manager when a client’s sale or launch starts. The theme for it is prepared ahead and waits unpublished until you say go.
Your team talks to the developer directly about the theme. The Project Manager still oversees the work, and how often you meet is written into your order.
These belong to your client’s store, and so do their bills. We set them up, style them to the theme and take out the ones nobody uses.
Email and reviews
Klaviyo
Judge.me
OkendoSubscriptions and upsells
Recharge
Rebuy
Search & DiscoveryData and automation
Shopify Flow
Matrixify
Translate & AdaptTwo questions decide it: does store work arrive every month, and is all of it development? Prices and terms are on the plan cards further down.
Hours across a few stores
Who touches the store
A Shopify developer, and a designer or tester for the tasks that need one.
Store work it fits
Section and template changes on a few client stores, an app set up, a sale prepared.
Too small for
A new theme, or a move from another platform. Those are fixed-price projects.
Before a sale
Add ad hoc hours for the weeks before it, quoted first.
Hours with design in them
Who touches the store
The same people for twice the time, and a Project Manager given to your account.
Store work it fits
Campaign pages that need design as well as code, for clients who run a sale most months.
Too small for
A Plus checkout build or a B2B set-up, which are scoped and quoted.
Before a sale
Sale dates are agreed at the twice-weekly check-in, so the theme is ready ahead of time.
One Shopify developer, all month
Who touches the store
One senior Shopify developer, who works for your agency and for nobody else.
Store work it fits
One large store, or a group of them, with a theme backlog that fills a developer’s month and designs that come from your own team.
Too small for
Design. There is no designer and no second tester in this plan.
Before a sale
The developer is already yours, so the sale just goes to the top of the queue.
New stores and migrations are fixed-price projects, each with its own delivery date.How rollover, notice and the minimum term work Hours by region Hire WordPress developers Hire Webflow developers
Our on-time refund is for fixed-price projects, because they have a delivery date. A plan has these four instead.
We never contact, pitch or quote your client, during the plan or after it. If they contact us, we decline and tell you within 1 business day.
Read the zero-poach termsWe work from accounts you create on your domain, in your tools. You own them, and you can switch any of them off at any time.
How it worksYour assigned Project Manager works during your business day, within the working hours written in your order.
See hours by regionWorking hours and updates are service targets, and the on-time refund doesn’t cover them. If we materially miss the same one two months running and don’t fix it within 10 business days of your written notice, you can end the plan at once and get back prepaid fees for the unused period.
Read the Partner AgreementOne price list for every platform. App subscriptions and the Shopify plan stay on your client’s bill.
One senior developer on your work and nobody else’s.
$3,200per month
Tell us what a normal month looks like in a 20-minute call. You get a written scope and a fixed monthly price within 2 business days of the call.
For the odd job that doesn’t justify a monthly plan.
Billed in 30-minute blocks, and always quoted before we start.
$40 per hourQuoted before we start
Four ways to keep your clients’ stores moving. Which one fits depends on how much store work you have, and how regular it is.
| A Shopify freelancer | An in-house Shopify developer | A store project with us | A plan with us | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fits | One store, occasional changes, and someone at your agency who can test a checkout | Store work fills a full-time role all year, and you want that person in the building | A new store, a migration or a redesign with a scope you can write down | Several client stores that each need something most weeks |
| How they get into the store | A collaborator account from their own Partner account, or a staff account. Check which, and who can remove it | Collaborator access through your agency’s Partner account | Collaborator access your agency requests. You switch it off at handover | Collaborator access your agency requests, kept while the plan runs |
| Where the theme code lives | Wherever they keep it. Ask for it in your repo | Your repo | Your Git repo, from the first commit on Shopify Custom | Your Git repo |
| Checkout after a change | You test it, or you trust them to | Your team tests it | Test orders across payment methods before launch | A test order after any change to cart or checkout |
| You pay | By the hour or the day | A salary, in quiet months too | A fixed price per store | A fixed fee per month |
| Weak point | Nobody to cover a sale week if they are booked | One person’s skills, however the stores change | Each small change needs its own quote | The fee is due in a month with little to do |
On store work, we’d look hardest at who tests checkout. A change that breaks it costs your client sales until someone notices.
These are about stores. Unused hours, the refund and taking a developer onto your payroll are covered in the plan questions.
Plan questions, for any platformBy the month: $1,200 for Flex 40 (40 team hours), $2,200 for Studio 80 (80 team hours), or $3,200 for the Dedicated Developer, one senior developer on your stores full time. The Shopify plan and app subscriptions aren’t in those figures. Smaller jobs are $40 an hour.
Yes. A Dedicated Developer is yours alone, and you decide whether that means one client’s store or several. The plan is development only, so section designs come from your team. It runs for at least 3 months.
Through a collaborator account. Your agency sends the request from its Shopify Partner account using the store’s collaborator request code, and the store owner approves it and picks the permissions. Shopify doesn’t count collaborators towards the store’s user limit. If your agency has no Partner account yet, it’s free to open, and we’ll help you set it up.
Yes: checkout and thank-you page extensions, Shopify Functions for discount, shipping and payment rules, Flow automations, B2B company accounts and price lists. Small changes to these fit in plan hours. A new Plus checkout or a B2B set-up is scoped on a call and quoted at a fixed price.
Your client, as before. App subscriptions are billed by the app maker to the store, and the Shopify plan and payment fees stay on your client’s account. Our monthly fee covers people’s time and nothing else.
The previous theme can be published again, because it stays in the store as a draft. It shouldn’t come to that often: a change only goes live after you’ve approved it on an unpublished theme, with a test order first if it touches cart or checkout.
No. The collaborator request comes from your agency’s Partner account, so the store’s list of users shows your agency. Nothing in the theme names us either, in the credits, the footer or the code comments, and the developer’s email address is on your domain.
Yes. They edit the published theme and we work on a separate, unpublished one, so neither changes the other. Ask them to tell you what they changed, so we can carry it into the working copy before that’s published. Where a theme is connected to GitHub, edits made in the theme editor are committed to its branch.
Yes. We build Online Store 2.0 sections with their settings in the theme editor, and use app blocks so an app’s content can be placed without editing code. Shopify limits a JSON template to 25 sections of up to 50 blocks each, and we plan a page’s sections inside that.
The store owner removes our collaborator access and you take us off your repo. The theme code is already there. Flex 40 and Studio 80 stop 30 days after either of us gives written notice. The Dedicated Developer plan needs the same notice and can’t end inside its first 3 months.
Next, you send a short brief and we reply with a fixed price and a delivery date in writing. You pay nothing until you sign the order.