You can have a Shopify store live by tonight. Pick a template, upload your photos, and you're open. That's real, and for plenty of people it's the right move.
The catch shows up a few months later, when you want one small thing the template doesn't do. That's when you find out you've been renting a shop, not owning one.
What am I actually choosing between?
The easiest way to see the difference is to picture two kinds of shop.
Shopify is a stall in a big mall. It's a service that runs your online store for a monthly fee. Setup is fast, and the mall takes care of the technical work. But you follow the mall's rules, you pay rent every month (plus extra for some apps), and you can only change the layout in the ways the mall allows.
A custom website is a shop built to your measurements. We design and build it around how you actually sell, instead of squeezing your business into someone else's layout.
The difference you'll notice first is the look and feel. A template gives you layouts many other stores use too, with your logo on top. A custom site looks like your business and works the way your customers actually shop.
Every custom site needs an admin panel, the private screen where you change prices, photos, and text yourself. For a simple storefront, we recommend a tool called Sanity. It's about as easy as filling in a form. If your business has more complex workflows, we build a custom admin panel instead.
You may have heard of a third option, WordPress. It's free software you install and run yourself, and it suits plenty of content-heavy sites. For a shop, it leans on plugins (small add-on programs, usually built by other developers) that need regular updates. We'll leave it out of the rest of this post to keep the choice simple.
What does Shopify do really well?
It's only fair to start with Shopify's strengths, because they're real.
- It's quick to start. Shopify's pricing page says there are no setup fees on any plan, and it offers a free 3-day trial, so you can try the whole thing before paying.
- Checkout is built in. If you want to take payments from the first day, the tools are already there.
- The technical work is handled for you. You don't have to think about keeping the store running.
- There's an app for many things. Subscriptions are one example, and you can add extras like that without any building work.
- You can still change the look. Shopify's theme editor lets you add, remove, and rearrange the sections of a theme to change how a page is laid out.
If your shop fits comfortably inside all of that, a custom site would cost you more for little gain. We'd tell you so ourselves.
Do I have to take payments online from day one?
Shopify is built around selling online, with checkout at the center. That suits many shops, but not every one. A custom site lets you decide, and change your mind later.
We're building a site right now for a furniture importer in London. For now, the importer wants a shop window, not a cash register. Customers browse sofas and dining tables, pick the ones they like, and send an inquiry. The importer replies with price and delivery details, and there are no online payments.
Later, the importer wants customers to pay on the site, through a checkout that follows GDPR. That's the European data protection law covering what you can collect about customers, how long you keep it, and how they can ask you to delete it.
With a custom site, that's a feature added to a site that already exists, not a rebuild. In the meantime, the importer doesn't pay for a checkout that isn't being used yet.
What does each one really cost over time?
Most people compare the monthly price, but a better comparison is everything you'll pay over three years. The two options spend your money in very different ways.
Shopify is a monthly subscription, so the cost continues for as long as the store does. On top of your plan, many apps charge their own monthly fees. Shopify's help center says app subscription charges land on your regular Shopify bill, though some apps bill you separately. Shopify also says that if you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, third-party transaction fees may apply. You can see the details on its pricing page.
A custom site costs more at the start, because someone designs and builds it around your business. After that, the running costs are often small, since a simple site can sit on a very cheap or even free plan, as we explain in our post on why every business needs a website. Every project includes a post-launch support window, and most clients then choose a monthly maintenance plan with no lock-in.
For a small shop with standard products, Shopify is usually the cheaper way to start. A custom site starts to make sense when your list of paid apps and workarounds keeps growing, or when your selling doesn't fit a template at all.
We can't give you a number here, because it depends on what your shop needs. Whoever you talk to, including us, ask to see the three-year total and not just the build price.
Where does my customer data live, and who controls it?
Your customer list is probably the most valuable thing your online shop produces, so this matters more than it sounds.
On Shopify, your store and your customer data live on Shopify's computers, under Shopify's terms. That's the trade-off of renting: the shop is yours to run, but the building isn't.
The bigger risk is apps. Each app you install asks for permission to see certain data, and customer details are often part of that. Shopify's developer documentation says merchants approve those permissions when they install an app, which means reading each app's privacy policy first. Ten apps can mean up to ten companies holding a copy of your customers' names and addresses.
To be fair, Shopify does put a guard in place. The same documentation says apps don't get access to its most protected customer data by default. Your job is still to decide which apps deserve your trust.
With a custom site, the data stays in cloud accounts that belong to you. You own the code too, once the project is complete and paid for. We connect only the services your site needs, so fewer companies touch your customers' information. That makes it easier to answer the question GDPR asks: where does it go?
What if I start on Shopify and want to leave later?
Plenty of people start on Shopify, and that's a perfectly good plan. The real question is how hard it is to leave when you're ready, so it helps to know before you begin.
The good news is that Shopify lets you take some of your information with you. You can export your products and export your customer list as spreadsheet files, and larger exports are emailed to you instead of downloading right away.
If you bought your web address through Shopify, you can also transfer it to another provider. Only the store owner can do this, and for common endings like .com there's a 60-day wait after you buy the address or change your contact details. So don't leave it until the last minute.
Other pieces are separate questions: your order history, your theme design, and whatever your apps stored. Check each one before you commit. We're happy to give you a second opinion.
Two habits make leaving much easier. Keep your web address in an account you control, and export your products and customers every so often, even when you're happy.
Will a custom site make my shop load faster?
Imagine every app is a box your visitor's phone has to carry in the door before it can show the page, even if that page never uses what's inside. Ten apps, ten boxes.
We build with Astro and Next.js, two tools that let us prepare pages ahead of time and leave out any code a page doesn't use. Your photos and text arrive. The rest stays home.
That matters most for a customer browsing on a phone with a weak signal. A Google analysis of mobile pages, based on 2017 data, estimated that the chance of a visitor leaving rises 123% as a page goes from one second to ten seconds to load. It's a model's estimate and the data is several years old, but the direction is clear: slower pages lose people. Google's search guidance also highly recommends good scores on its speed checks (called Core Web Vitals) for success in search.
A well-tuned Shopify store can be quick too. The difference is where you start: a template often carries code for features you'll never use, and a custom site starts with only what you asked for.
Shopify or a custom site: which one should I pick?
It depends on what you need. Here's a quick way to check.
Shopify is probably fine if:
- You have a small catalog of standard products.
- You want to take payments online from day one.
- You need to launch this week.
- You're happy with a template look.
A custom site fits better if:
- You want to start without payments and add them later.
- You want a look that's yours, not a template with your logo on it.
- You'd rather own your site, with your data in accounts that belong to you, than rent it.
- Your selling doesn't fit a template. Made-to-order pieces, bulk quotes, and customers who message before they buy often land here.
We'll say this plainly, even though we build custom sites: if the first list sounds like you, Shopify is a perfectly good choice.
Our honest opinion: if you've never sold online, the safest first website is often one that doesn't take payments at all. You learn what customers actually ask for before you build the checkout.
We don't sell a package and then ask you to adapt to it. We start with how you sell today and build the site around that, not the other way around. You can see the steps on our how we work page.
A few things people ask
Do I need to be technical to run a custom site?
No, and you never touch code. You update products, photos, and text in the admin panel described earlier, without calling a developer.
Who looks after the site after launch?
Post-launch support is included in our website and e-commerce work, along with documentation and a proper handoff. We agree what the support covers before we start.
Can I start with a catalog and add payments later?
Yes. That's the London importer's plan, and adding online payments later doesn't mean rebuilding the store.
Will a custom site cost more?
At the start, usually yes, because it's built around your business and a template isn't. We can't quote a number before we understand your project, since it depends on how much is custom, what the site connects to, and how much design work is involved.
Can I move from Shopify to a custom site later?
Yes, and the section on leaving Shopify explains what you can take with you. Tell us what you have today, and we'll tell you honestly what's involved.
If you're weighing an online store, our Website & E-commerce Development service covers business websites and online shops, with or without online payments, built around your requirements. Tell us how you sell now and we'll tell you honestly whether custom is worth it for you.