Hire a Shopify developer when you'd rather spend your time on your products than on setup screens, when your product pages need more than a title and a photo, or when you want a store that looks like your brand instead of a template. A good developer sets up the store, loads your products, builds the design and hands you a store you run yourself from Shopify's admin. At Thornwood Digital, custom Shopify stores start at $3,500 and typically take 4 to 6 weeks.
Here's what it costs, what a developer handles, what you provide and what to ask before you hire one.
When should I hire a Shopify developer instead of doing it myself?
When the setup is keeping you from selling. Shopify is built so an owner can sign up, add a few products, pick a theme and start selling, and plenty of businesses start exactly that way.
Owners usually look for help at one of three points: the setup list gets long and every setting raises a question, the product pages need more than a title and a photo, or the store works but doesn't look like their brand. That's when handing off the technical work lets you get back to the products.
How much does it cost to have a Shopify developer build a store?
At Thornwood Digital, our custom Shopify stores start at $3,500, and a typical store takes 4 to 6 weeks to build. Scope sets the price: how many page designs, how many products and variants we load, whether products move from another platform, and which features go in. You get a fixed quote in writing after a free call.
Prices vary widely between developers, so compare what's included in writing, not just the number. Some costs are separate and ongoing whoever builds it, paid on your own accounts: your Shopify plan, card processing and any third-party transaction fees, any paid apps (subscriptions, loyalty programs and reviews often run on one), and your domain renewal.
Want a fixed number for your store? Get a Shopify build quote
What does a Shopify developer handle, and what do I provide?
The developer handles the technical work; you bring the business. At Thornwood, that means we set up the store (payments, shipping, tax settings, your domain, policies and customer emails), load your products and variants, design and code a custom theme, brand your checkout, and wire in the features stores ask for, like subscriptions, loyalty points, product reviews and influencer codes. Before launch, we run a test order.
From you, we usually need:
- Your product list with names, prices and options
- Product photos, or a plan for getting them
- Your logo and any brand colors or fonts you use
- How you want to handle shipping and returns
- Where you're registered to collect sales tax
- Collaborator access to your Shopify account, which stays in your name
You send files and answers through your client portal, and you approve the design before the full build.
What should I ask before hiring a Shopify developer?
Ask five things: whether you can see stores they've built and can name, who actually does the work, what the price includes in writing, what Shopify charges you on top, and who owns the theme code at the end.
The last one matters more than people expect. The store should be on your own Shopify account, and the agreement should say in writing who owns the custom code (a theme bought from Shopify's theme store stays under its own license). At Thornwood, the store is on your account and the custom theme code is yours once the build is paid, and the same small team you talk to on the first call designs and builds your store.
What do I need to set up before launching a Shopify store?
Before launch, a store needs payments, shipping rates, tax settings, store policies, your domain, branded customer emails and a tested checkout. Here's what each one involves:
- Payments: connecting how you get paid and turning on the payment methods your customers use.
- Shipping: rates by weight, price or region, a free-shipping threshold if you want one, and any products with special rules.
- Sales tax: Shopify collects tax based on how it's set up. You're responsible for knowing where you need to register and collect (a tax adviser can confirm that), and the store is set up to match.
- Your domain: pointing your own web address at the store, so shoppers reach the store at your own web address.
- Policies: refund, shipping, privacy and terms pages, which Shopify links from checkout.
- Customer emails: order confirmations and shipping updates with your logo and your wording instead of Shopify's defaults.
- A test order: a purchase run from start to finish, so your first customer isn't the one who finds a problem with checkout, shipping, tax or the emails.
Some of these take minutes. Others depend on decisions about how you sell and ship, and those are the ones that stall a launch.
What should a Shopify product page include?
A product page should answer the questions that could stop someone from buying: clear photos, the price, options like size, color or flavor set up as real choices, what shipping costs and how long it takes, your return policy, and a description written for the person buying.
The rest depends on what you sell. A supplement needs its full facts panel. Furniture needs dimensions. Clothing needs a size guide. Shopify can store these as their own product fields, and many themes can show them. When yours can't show them the way you need, a developer can extend the theme, or build it into a custom one. In a custom build, they show up in the same spot on every product, and you edit them in the admin like anything else.
Loading products is its own job, too. Thirty products in three sizes each is ninety variants, and each one needs its price checked, plus a SKU (your stock number) and an inventory count if you track them. We load them in bulk, so your job is checking them, not typing them.
Do I need a custom Shopify theme?
Not always. A theme from Shopify's theme store is the right call for plenty of stores, especially when you're testing demand and the money belongs in inventory. A bought theme can also be branded with your colors and fonts, or given a few custom sections.
A custom theme pays off when your brand is what you're selling and a shared theme makes you look like others in your category, when your products need information the theme can't show well, or when you're paying for apps to patch what the theme can't do. Bought themes are used by many stores, and stacking apps for reviews, size charts and banners can leave a store feeling stitched together.
What is a custom Shopify theme?
A custom theme is the design of your store, built around your brand and your products instead of adapted from a template. At Thornwood, we design it first, then code it starting from Shopify's bare starter theme.
It's still Shopify underneath. Your products, orders, customers, payments and reports all live in Shopify, and checkout is still Shopify's. What changes is everything a shopper sees before checkout: the homepage, collections, product pages, the cart and your content pages.
It's also built for you to run. The pages are made of sections, so you can rearrange them, swap photos and change wording in Shopify's theme editor without calling anyone.
What parts of Shopify can't a developer change?
The two limits owners ask about most are checkout and hosting. On standard plans, a developer can brand checkout with your logo, colors and fonts, but not redesign it; Shopify Plus, Shopify's plan for larger brands, allows deeper checkout changes, still within Shopify's rules. Hosting is Shopify's too: Shopify keeps the store online, and your monthly plan pays for it.
For most stores, that's a good trade. Checkout is the last place you want surprises, and Shopify's is one shoppers already know.
Can a developer move my store to Shopify from another platform?
Yes. Products, variants, photos and pages can come over from Wix, Squarespace, WooCommerce, Etsy or BigCommerce. When your old store is on a domain you own, we point each old page address to its new one, so saved links and search results lead to the right place. Marketplace links, like Etsy listings, stay with the marketplace, so they get their own plan. Search rankings can shift for a while after any site move.
Will I be able to run the store myself after it's built?
Yes. Products, prices, photos, collections, discounts and orders are all managed in Shopify's admin, like any Shopify store.
What owners usually hand back to us is the upkeep. An online store changes far more often than an informational website: new products, seasonal photos, sales, shipping changes and app updates that need testing. Our care plan covers that with developer time every month, and if something we built or set up breaks, we fix it free. The plan is month to month, and the store keeps up with the business without you learning the theme code.
We're a small studio based in Pleasant Grove, Utah, working with businesses across the U.S. You can see what goes into a build, and stores we've built, on our Shopify development and ecommerce website design page.
If you have products ready to sell and the setup is what's holding you back, tell us what you sell, how many products you have and whether you already have a store. Tell us about your business