Thails is a Shopify Plus agency specializing in high-converting eCommerce experiences. Built on 8+ years of hands-on eCommerce expertise, we've helped 50+ global brands — including Absolut Elyx, Hey Harper, and GURU Beverage — grow revenue by optimizing their stores for conversion, UX, and performance. Our founder launched their first online business at 16 and has been obsessed with turning browsers into buyers ever since. That merchant-first mentality drives everything we do. What We Do: We combine custom Shopify Plus development with data-driven UX design and conversion optimization to create stores that don't just look great—they perform exceptionally. From new store launches to migrations and strategic redesigns, we partner with ambitious brands ready to scale. What Sets Us Apart: We own outcomes, not just tasks. We focus on revenue impact, not activity. Our clients average 25-35% improvement in conversion rates within the first 3 months of working together. We've been merchants ourselves. As store owners, we know that revenue is everything. We've experienced slow load times tanking conversions, poor UX killing AOV, and features that sounded good but added friction. That's why we're obsessed with optimization. We don't add complexity unless it drives growth. Every design choice, every line of code, every feature we implement is validated against one metric: Does this help your customers buy more? Results speak louder than promises. Our clients see 25-35% conversion rate improvements, reduced cart abandonment, and higher average order values. We measure success by your revenue growth, not by completion dates. Let's discuss your project now, book a call here: https://thails.com/book-free-call/ 25+ 5 Star Reviews: here and here See all our case studies here
Shopify Custom Theme Development Experts
Most Shopify stores run on a Theme Store theme, and most of them should. A custom build starts to make sense when the theme is working against you: product types it can't display well, a design system it can't hold, or years of patches that break with every update.
Shopify custom theme development means building a theme around your catalogue and designs, usually from a Figma file, on Online Store 2.0 (Shopify's current theme architecture, where every page is made of editable sections). The finished theme should let your team change layouts and content in the theme editor without calling a developer.
It is not adjusting the theme you already have; that is theme customisation, a far smaller job. Nor is it the visual design itself. A designer produces the files, and the developer turns them into a working theme.
Compare portfolios and starting prices below, and ask each developer for a live store they built from someone else's designs.
Top-rated Shopify custom theme developers and studios
I am a Full-Spectrum Software Engineer leveraging 15+ years of hands-on expertise to solve diverse technical challenges. My background is uniquely broad, allowing me to seamlessly transition between design-focused work (theme design and custom themes), core development (app development and feature requests), and system stability (troubleshooting). I pride myself on delivering projects that meet the highest standards for performance, maintaining a commitment to modern methodologies and consistently stylish, high-speed delivery.
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Achieve higher revenue per visitor at a lower cost of ownership We are a Growth Agency that works exclusively with Direct-to-Consumer brands turning over more than €1M a year, on Shopify or ready to move to it, who are struggling to scale profitably, at the stage where paid acquisition is already well run and extra budget stops adding profit.
Your partners in growth on Shopify Hi there! I'm Leighton. My team and I have been building Shopify websites for over a decade, and we've helped over 350 store owners build, launch, and grow their businesses. We specialize in helping our clients improve their conversion rates, average order values, and customer lifetime value to grow their profits through excellent design. We don't just do the bare minimum of exactly what our clients ask us to do. Instead, we provide creative suggestions, pushback, and recommendations throughout our relationship to guide you in the right direction and find hidden opportunities for growth. If you need a seasoned team who can help you grow your business, let’s find out if we’re a good fit to work together.
When checkout, apps, or theme architecture hold the business back, more campaigns rarely help. I work with Shopify Plus teams that need a scalable foundation and a sharper merchant experience before the next phase of growth. From custom apps and checkout extensions to migrations and integrations, I own the architecture from first diagnosis through long-term delivery. https://ocontis.studio/
We are a performance-driven Shopify Plus agency helping DTC brands grow through better design, smarter data, and continuous optimization. We specialize in conversion rate optimization (CRO), UX/UI enhancements, and Shopify development for high-growth brands. Whether it’s improving product storytelling, streamlining checkout, or optimizing multi-region performance, our focus is on measurable results — not just pretty pixels. Our clients include fashion, lifestyle, and wellness brands that want to elevate their online experience and drive consistent revenue growth.
Over the last 10+ years, I’ve worked as a freelancer, spent four years at a creative agency leading design, development, and client delivery, and now run a 2-person team that feels more like a creative partner than a traditional agency. We work closely with merchants who want a Shopify site that actually reflects the brand they’ve built — and can support where they’re going next. I’m most interested in projects where design, dev, and strategy all overlap — where there’s a real problem to solve, not just a template to swap.
💌 Your outsourced marketing department. Founded in 2015, In Social is a full-service, Shopify Plus digital marketing agency that acts as the outsourced marketing department for our clients. From services such as; organic and paid social media, Google & PPC advertising, website design, development and conversion rate optimization, influencer marketing, branding and design, content creation, Ecommerce and Amazon store management, customer service (with our college educated, native English speaking Canadian based team of agents), US-based fulfillment, and everything in between, we leverage data to embody our methodology of “The Full Circle Approach to Digital Marketing,” developing, deploying, and optimizing holistic and cohesive marketing efforts that creates seamless customer journeys that drive brand affinity and, ultimately, sales conversion.
I build high-performing Shopify stores designed for speed, scalability, and long-term savings so your only monthly cost is your Shopify subscription. If your current theme is patched or bloated, a clean rebuild is the smarter move. All builds are theme-editable, free from third-party scripts, and made to be maintained forever. I work exclusively with the Horizon theme, the latest stack by Shopify, and also work with fresh paid themes without any dev history to create fast, SEO-ready, and easy-to-manage stores that convert. What I specialize in: - Shopify 2.0 and custom theme rebuilds - Web redesigns and new designs using Figma - Figma to Shopify development - Performance and SEO optimization - CRO-focused custom features/sections - Shopify API and app development (Shopify Plus) - Long-term store care and maintenance Most clients stay for years because I build clean, smart, and scalable stores that deliver real results. Let’s make your Shopify store work harder for you.
🚀 Shopify & Webflow websites that look great — and perform reliably across devices. You need a site that’s easy to manage, fast to load, and built with your goals in mind. I help small businesses and creators launch clean, well-structured Shopify 2.0 and Webflow builds that enhance your brand presence — without the tech headaches. With a full-stack foundation (React, Express.js, Node.js, MongoDB) and 3+ years in SaaS technical support, I combine developer precision with support-level empathy to create websites that are stable, maintainable, and easy for your team to manage. 🛍️ What I Do Shopify 2.0 Development Custom themes & reusable sections (Liquid/JSON) Full store setup, migration & configuration Clean product structure + intuitive navigation App integrations, customization & troubleshooting Metaobjects for flexible, organized content Speed & performance best-practice optimization Webflow Design & Development Responsive, polished layouts CMS-driven structures for easy content updates Clean, scalable builds (no messy classes) Landing pages designed with scalable structure & UX best-practices Full-Stack Enhancements React-based UI components Node.js API integrations MongoDB / Supabase configuration Secure deployments with Nginx & PM2 For smaller tasks — such as bug fixes, layout adjustments, or quick enhancements in Shopify or Webflow — click “ Get a Free Quote ” and I’ll get back to you shortly. 💡 Why Clients Work With Me Clear, proactive communication Strong troubleshooting from years in SaaS support Clean code, scalable structure & long-term maintainability A blend of technical skill + design sensibility Next Steps My goal is simple: make your store not only look better — but work better, in a way that truly supports your business now and as it grows. If you're ready to enhance your Shopify or Webflow experience, let’s connect. I’d love to hear about your project. Portfolio: https://anikacustod.io/ — Anika
How to hire a custom theme developer for Shopify
Custom Shopify theme development quotes are hard to compare, because each developer prices their own reading of the same design file. Remove the guesswork before you ask for numbers.
Finish the designs before you request quotes. Desktop and mobile layouts for the home page, a collection page, a product page, the cart and one content page give a developer something concrete to price. Unfinished designs get quoted as if the developer will fill the gaps, and they will, at build rates.
Ask for a Figma to Shopify build, not a portfolio. Plenty of attractive portfolio stores started as a purchased theme with new colours. Ask which projects began from another team's design file, then open those live stores on a phone and click through to checkout.
Look at the theme editor, not just the storefront. A good custom theme gives your team sections and blocks with sensible settings: a banner with image, heading and button fields, not a hard-coded image that needs a developer to change the text. Ask for a screen share of the editor on a past build.
Agree a performance target in writing. Custom code can be lean or bloated depending on the developer's habits. Ask how they'll measure Core Web Vitals, Google's scores for loading (LCP), responsiveness (INP) and layout stability (CLS), on product and collection templates before launch.
Red flags in a theme quote. No line for testing across devices and browsers. A private starter theme the developer won't let you see. Silence on accessibility, which is cheaper to build in than to retrofit. And any plan to edit a purchased theme's core files while calling the result custom.
When is Shopify theme development from scratch worth it?
A premium Theme Store theme costs $180–$500, once. A bespoke build costs $5,000–$30,000, and every future fix is yours to fund. That gap needs a specific reason.
Build from scratch when your products don't fit a standard product page (made-to-measure clothing, configurable furniture, kits assembled from many parts), your merchandising depends on layouts no theme offers, or you run a design system across other channels and every theme needs its styles overridden line by line. A theme buried under years of patches from different freelancers is often cheaper to replace than to keep repairing.
Extend a premium theme when the problem is one or two templates. Custom sections at $600–$3,000 each leave the rest of the theme intact, and updates stay manageable as long as the new code lives in its own section files. Most stores belong here — and a good developer will tell you so.
Either way, the handover decides whether you own the theme. Ask for:
- A Git repository in your company's account, connected through Shopify's GitHub integration or a documented deploy process
- Section and block schema (the settings definitions behind each section) with every setting labelled in plain language
- Short written documentation: what each section does and what not to touch
- An update path: who fixes the theme when Shopify changes something, and at what rate
How much does a custom Shopify theme cost?
Two typical market ranges for a build from approved designs, plus the entry prices developers list on shopexperts.
Full custom theme
$5,000 – $30,000
Bespoke build from approved designs
Custom sections
$600 – $3,000
Per section, with editor settings
Starting prices on shopexperts
$40 – $10,000
Median $475 across 82 developers
Template count moves the price most. Five templates and a dozen sections sit near the bottom of the full-build range; product configurators, several collection layouts, multiple languages and a large section library push toward the top. Theme and Liquid developers (Liquid is Shopify's templating language) typically charge $60–$150 an hour.
Every one of the 82 custom theme developers on shopexperts published a starting price in September 2026, and their $475 median sits below even the custom sections tile. Use it to spot who takes small theme jobs, and budget a full build against the market ranges.
Quotes compare fairly only on finished designs, so send approved desktop and mobile files with your request.
What goes into a custom theme build?
Most custom theme projects combine several of these:
Figma to Shopify builds
Approved designs turned into templates, sections and styles
Section and block libraries
Reusable sections with settings your team edits in the theme editor
Complex product pages
Configurators, variant logic and specs fed from metafields
Theme rebuilds
A heavily patched theme replaced with clean, documented code
Performance and accessibility
Fast templates and keyboard-friendly markup from the first commit
Handover and upkeep
Git repository, documentation and an agreed update path
Frequently asked questions about Shopify custom theme development
Most builds from approved designs take 4 to 12 weeks. The spread comes from template count, how many custom product features are involved, and how quickly your team signs off each stage. Content entry and app setup are often left out of the estimate, so ask whether the developer is loading products and pages or handing over an empty theme. Rushing usually means cutting device testing, which is where launch-week bugs come from.
The developer breaks the design into templates, sections and blocks, decides which elements your team should be able to edit, and builds each one in Liquid. Expect questions about states the designer didn't draw: empty collections, long product titles, sold-out variants, error messages. A Figma file that includes those states produces a cheaper, faster build. Pixel-perfect matching at every screen size is possible but costs extra, so agree which breakpoints matter.
Not automatically. A custom theme can drop features you don't use, which helps, but speed depends as much on image handling, fonts, third-party scripts and the apps you install afterwards. A careless custom build can be slower than a well-made Theme Store theme. Put a Core Web Vitals target in the contract and test the product page with your real apps installed, not an empty demo store.
Both are well represented. In September 2026, the 82 custom theme developers on shopexperts included 43 freelancers and 39 agencies, with 20 in the US, 14 in the UK and 7 in Canada. A freelancer suits finished designs and a contained scope. An agency suits projects that also need design, copy, migration or project management, and gives you continuity if one person leaves.
Yes, if it was built properly. Text, images, section order and most layout choices should be editable in the theme editor with no code. New section types, logic changes and anything that touches Liquid still need a developer, so many stores keep a small retainer or book a theme customisation specialist for later changes. Ask the developer to walk your team through the editor before final payment.
No. Custom themes work on every Shopify plan. Checkout is the exception, because it sits outside the theme entirely: you set its colours, fonts and logo in Shopify's checkout editor, and custom blocks inside the checkout steps are built as app extensions rather than theme code, which on those steps requires Plus. A theme developer who promises a fully custom checkout on a non-Plus store is describing something the platform doesn't allow.