Shopify with a custom theme is right for most stores. Headless Shopify suits brands where the storefront differentiates and revenue justifies the build. A fully custom platform is rarely worth it — you take on payments, security, PCI scope and compliance for savings that only materialise at very high volume.
This is usually framed as two options. It is three, and the middle one — Shopify handling commerce with a custom front end — is where most serious brands land.
Not two
Where headless starts paying
What custom takes on
The fee you are weighing
Shopify theme $4k–$12k; headless $12k–$35k; fully custom $40k+ with a longer timeline.
Shopify $39–$2,300/month plus transaction fees. Custom has none, but you pay for what they cover.
Shopify absorbs PCI scope, fraud tooling and tax calculation. Custom means owning all three.
Themes constrain; headless and custom do not. This is the main reason brands move.
Shopify's is the strongest advantage. Headless keeps most backend apps and loses script-injecting ones.
Shopify handles uptime through peak trading. On a custom platform, Black Friday is your problem.
| Shopify theme | Headless Shopify | Fully custom | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build cost | $4k – $12k | $12k – $35k | $40k+ |
| Time to launch | 3–6 weeks | 8–14 weeks | 16+ weeks |
| Platform fees | Yes | Yes | No |
| Transaction fees | Yes | Yes | Payment processor only |
| Design freedom | Constrained | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| PCI scope | Minimal | Minimal | Yours |
| Peak-trading risk | Shopify's | Shared | Yours |
| Best at | Any revenue | $100k+/month | Rarely |
Because the platform fee buys payments, fraud, tax, uptime and PCI scope — all of which you would otherwise build and own.
If fewer than three of those are true, a well-built custom theme delivers most of the benefit for a third of the cost. We recommend that far more often than headless.
Roughly $100k a month is where the conversation becomes reasonable, and around $200k is where it usually pays back within a year. Below that, spend the money on product, photography and acquisition.
Backend apps — inventory, fulfilment, accounting — keep working. Apps that inject scripts into a Liquid theme do not. The audit identifies which you actually depend on before you commit.
Yes. Going from theme to headless keeps Shopify as the backend, so catalogue, orders and customers stay put. It is one of the lower-risk migrations in ecommerce.
WooCommerce suits stores already deep in WordPress with modest volume. BigCommerce and others are credible. Shopify wins on ecosystem and checkout quality, which is why most of our ecommerce work sits there.
How we think about this work, in more depth.
Comparison
A 30-minute call, then a written proposal with scope, price and timeline within two to three working days. No retainer required to get a real number, and no obligation if the answer is that we are not the right fit.