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Most stores do not need a custom app, and we will say so before you spend anything. When one is genuinely the answer, because the workflow is yours alone or the integration has to reach a system no App Store listing has heard of, we build it properly: GraphQL Admin API, Shopify Functions, native extensions in the surfaces your team already works in.
What it unlocks
Built for merchants who have hit the edge of what the App Store covers: bespoke pricing logic, an ERP or warehouse system that has to stay in sync, discount rules the standard engine cannot express, or an admin workflow their team runs a hundred times a day in a spreadsheet.
Capabilities
Engagement rhythm
Free scoping call and fixed-price quote
Technical discovery and API design
Build and test against a development store
Install, monitor and maintain
What we do
The scoping call starts by trying to talk you out of it. A large share of the app briefs we see are already solved by an existing App Store listing, a Shopify Flow automation, a metafield and a theme change, or a Function that takes a fraction of the effort of a full app. That conversation is free and we will tell you plainly when buying beats building. A custom app is the right answer when the workflow is genuinely specific to your business, when the integration target is a system no public app supports, or when the data cannot leave your control.
A merchant custom app is built for one store, installed straight from your admin, never listed publicly, and never subject to Shopify app review. A public app is distributed through the App Store, authenticates over OAuth, carries mandatory compliance webhooks, needs a billing implementation and has to pass review. They are different products with different cost profiles. Most merchants want the first and get quoted for the second. We scope the distribution model explicitly before any code is written.
GraphQL Admin API as the default, because that is where Shopify puts new capability and REST is now the legacy surface. Query cost budgeted against the leaky-bucket rate limit rather than discovered under load. Bulk operations for anything that touches the whole catalogue. Webhooks with signature verification, idempotency keys, and a retry path, because Shopify guarantees at-least-once delivery and a naive handler will double-process an order eventually. Failure modes designed in, not patched in after the first bad night.
Discount logic, delivery customisations, payment method rules and cart transforms belong in Shopify Functions, the successor to the old Scripts model, running server-side inside Shopify rather than as theme JavaScript a customer can bypass. Bespoke volume pricing, B2B tiers, conditional bundles, hiding a payment method for certain carts: these are Function problems. Solving them in the theme is fragile and it breaks the moment someone checks out from a channel that is not your storefront.
Theme app extensions so merchandisers place app blocks from the theme editor without touching Liquid. Admin UI extensions so the workflow lives inside the Shopify admin instead of a second dashboard nobody logs into. Checkout UI extensions where the plan supports them. Shopify Flow triggers and actions so your app composes with the automation your team already runs. An app your staff have to remember to open is an app that quietly stops being used.
Source code in your Git repository. API credentials and the app registration in your Shopify account, not ours. Deployment pipeline and hosting in your name. Documentation written for the next developer rather than as a formality. Shopify deprecates API versions on a published quarterly cycle, so an app is a maintained asset rather than a finished one; we offer a retainer for that, and we will hand the whole thing to another team without friction if you would rather not use us.
How an engagement runs
We walk the workflow you are trying to fix, the systems that have to talk to each other, and who uses the result day to day. If an existing app, a Flow automation or a theme change solves it, we say so and the conversation ends there at no cost. If a build is genuinely warranted, you get a fixed-price quote and timeline within 48 hours, line-itemed by scope, with the distribution model (merchant custom app or public app) settled in writing.
Data model mapped against the Shopify objects it has to touch. API surface chosen and query cost estimated against the rate limit before anything is built. Webhook topics selected and the reconciliation path designed for the deliveries that will inevitably be missed or duplicated. Third-party system contracts confirmed, including authentication, and their failure behaviour agreed. Scope written down as acceptance criteria you sign off.
Built and tested on a development store seeded to look like your real catalogue, not a handful of sample products. Rate limits, bulk operations and partial failures exercised deliberately rather than hoped past. Extensions reviewed with the people who will use them daily while there is still time to change the interface. Staging walkthroughs at the halfway and completion marks.
Installed on the live store, with a rollback path agreed before it goes anywhere near production. Error and latency monitoring wired so you hear about a broken sync from us rather than from a customer. First 30 days bug-fix included. After that an optional retainer covers API version upgrades on Shopify's quarterly cycle, dependency patching and feature work, or you take it in-house with the documentation and walk away.
The lay of the land
The honest position is that most app briefs do not need an app. The App Store carries thousands of listings, and for subscriptions, reviews, loyalty, bundling, upsells, returns and the other well-trodden categories, a mature paid app is almost always cheaper, faster and better maintained than anything bespoke. It also gets fixed by someone else when Shopify changes an API. If your requirement has a category name, start by shopping for it. Building it yourself buys you control you probably do not need and a maintenance liability you definitely do not want.
Below that, there is a tier of problems that look like app problems and are not. Shopify Flow handles a surprising amount of conditional automation with no code at all. Metafields and metaobjects plus a theme change cover most structured-content and merchandising asks. A Function on its own, with no surrounding app, covers a lot of pricing and delivery logic. Ordering these correctly from cheapest to most expensive, rather than jumping to a build, is the single biggest saving available on this kind of project, and it is the first thing the scoping call does.
A custom app earns its cost in three situations. First, when the workflow is genuinely specific to your business and doing it by hand is consuming real staff hours every week. Second, when Shopify has to stay in sync with a system that no public app supports, which in practice means an ERP, a warehouse system, a legacy accounting package or an in-house tool. Third, when the data or the logic cannot sit inside a third-party app, whether for commercial confidentiality or because a public app's pricing scales badly against your order volume. If your situation is one of those three, a build is the right call and the economics usually work quickly.
FAQ
A merchant custom app is built for one store, installed directly from your Shopify admin, never listed publicly and never subject to Shopify's app review. That is what most merchants actually want. A public app is distributed through the Shopify App Store, authenticates over OAuth, has to implement mandatory compliance webhooks and a billing flow, and has to pass Shopify's review before it can be listed. Public apps cost meaningfully more to build and carry ongoing obligations. We settle which one you need in the scoping call, in writing, before any code is written.
Often something off the shelf will do, and we will tell you so for free. Before quoting a build we check whether an existing App Store listing covers it, whether Shopify Flow can automate it without code, whether metafields plus a theme change solve it, and whether a standalone Shopify Function is enough. Those options run from free to a fraction of a build. We only quote an app when the workflow is genuinely specific to your business, the integration target is a system no public app supports, or the data cannot sit with a third party.
It depends almost entirely on the distribution model and the integration surface. A single-purpose merchant custom app touching one API and one workflow is a different order of magnitude from a public App Store app with OAuth, billing, compliance webhooks and review. The free scoping call ends with a fixed-price quote within 48 hours, line-itemed by scope, and if the scope grows mid-build we agree the new line items before that work starts. No estimate ranges, no scope creep.
Most merchant custom apps land in 6 to 10 weeks from scoping call to live install. Public App Store apps take longer because Shopify's review sits between you and launch and can add iterations that are outside our control. Integrations into an ERP or warehouse system are usually gated by the other vendor's API and their availability rather than by our build, so we scope that dependency explicitly and tell you where the timeline risk actually sits.
Usually not. Admin API integrations, webhook pipelines, theme app extensions, admin UI extensions and discount Functions all run on standard Shopify plans. Checkout UI extensions and payment or delivery customisations are Plus features, so if your requirement lives in the checkout specifically then Plus becomes part of the conversation. We will confirm which side of that line your build sits on during scoping rather than assuming you need to upgrade.
You do, from day one. Source code in your Git repository, the app registration and API credentials in your Shopify account rather than ours, hosting and the deployment pipeline in your name. Documentation written for whoever picks it up next. There is no agency licence, no gatekeeping, and no situation where leaving us means rebuilding. If you want to move it in-house or to another team, the handover is clean by design.
Shopify releases new API versions quarterly and supports each one for a defined window, so any app is a maintained asset rather than a finished one. Ignoring that is how apps break without warning. An optional retainer covers version upgrades ahead of the deprecation dates, dependency and security patching, monitoring review, and included time for feature work. Or you take it in-house with the documentation and manage the cycle yourself. We are not precious about which.
Everything we do
Pick any other engagement that fits your business, or take the whole stack from one senior team.
Custom Shopify themes, performance-tuned from launch, conversion-led PDPs, SEO and Merchant Centre wired clean.
Custom WooCommerce themes that perform like Shopify, with the editorial flexibility and ownership of WordPress.
Custom WordPress sites built code-first as the default, with the option of a properly configured page builder when your team needs ongoing editorial freedom.
We update, back up, monitor, and patch your WordPress site every week so a stale plugin never takes your business offline.
Technical SEO, content, local, schema, and Search Console health, run as a retainer and measured against revenue.
Most Shopify SEO is left to an app that emits duplicate or invalid schema. We do the work in Liquid, where it belongs.
WooCommerce SEO done at theme and plugin level, not delegated to the Yoast WooCommerce add-on.
WordPress SEO done at theme, plugin, and hosting level, not delegated to a Yoast or Rank Math settings page.
Optimisation for answer surfaces: Google AI Overviews, Featured Snippets, People Also Ask, and voice assistants. Schema-first, data-led, tied to organic revenue.
Optimisation for generative AI surfaces: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and agentic checkout. Content structured for LLM ingestion, product feeds tuned for shopping agents, LLM mention tracking on a retainer.
We build Google Ads accounts around conversions: tight structure, clean tracking, landing pages that match the query.
Paid search, paid social, SEO, content, and analytics run by the same senior people, with reporting tied to pipeline.
Most PPC agencies run Google only. We run Google plus Microsoft Ads in parallel, with cross-channel tracking and audience strategy.
Shopping and Performance Max are the start, not the strategy. We run the full funnel for ecommerce accounts, with margin context, not just ROAS.
Shopify-specific Google Ads work: native Merchant Centre integration, customer-list sync, Shopify Audiences, and PDP-level CRO.
Service businesses optimise to form fills. We optimise to sales-qualified leads and closed-won revenue, wired into your CRM.
We run Facebook and Instagram Ads with senior account managers, server-side tracking, and continuous creative testing so spend earns its keep.
No templates. No page builders. Bespoke websites with Lighthouse 95+, SEO foundations baked in, and CMS controls that make sense.
Custom-built ecommerce, sized to your catalogue and ops. Shopify, WooCommerce, or custom-built; the platform follows the business model.
Cape Town-focused SEO: local pack and Google Business Profile, technical foundations, content, and GSC discipline, run as a retainer and measured against revenue.
Cape Town web design agency. Bespoke builds, Lighthouse 95+, SEO foundations baked in, CMS controls your team can actually use. In-person discovery meetings across the city.
Bespoke website builds engineered around your stack, your integrations, and how the site has to perform under real load. Custom code, headless where it fits, observability and security treated as deliverables.
Continuous CRO: diagnose where the funnel leaks, run hypothesis-led tests, measure against revenue, not vanity engagement metrics.
Custom Shopify apps for the workflow no off-the-shelf app covers. Admin API integrations, Shopify Functions, checkout and admin extensions, built for your store and owned by you.