Agencies have an incentive to recommend custom builds. Most premium e-commerce brands don't need one. Here's how we decide.
Choose Shopify when
- You sell physical products with standard checkout
- Your team needs to update products and pages themselves
- You want a large ecosystem of reliable apps and partners
- You'd rather spend on the brand than on maintaining infrastructure
Consider custom when
- The experience genuinely can't be built on a theme — interactive configurators, unusual flows
- You need a front end that's fully your own, connected to Shopify behind it
- Performance or design requirements outgrow what themes allow
Either way, own it
Whatever you choose, make sure the accounts, domain, code and data are in your name. That matters more than the platform.