How to choose a Shopify agency: costs, checks, contract

In short

To choose a Shopify agency, write down the scope first, shortlist two to four providers from the Shopify Partner Directory, live references or recommendations, and compare written quotes for the same scope. The store should belong to the merchant from the start: it is created in the merchant's own Shopify account, or built by the agency as a client transfer store and handed over, and the agency then works through a collaborator account. Shopify's partner tiers are based on revenue and the number of merchants a partner brings to Shopify, not on project quality, so live reference stores and a clear contract say more than a badge.

All facts about Shopify come from the Shopify Help Center, shopify.dev and Shopify's partner tiering guide, checked on 3 November 2026. The contract section cites German, EU and Swiss law; it is a checklist for the conversation with the agency, not legal advice.

Shopify agency, freelancer or Shopify expert: what fits

"Shopify expert" is used loosely for agencies and freelancers alike. Shopify itself speaks of Partners, and its help center says a collaborator request can come from a "Partner, freelancer, or agency". The choice depends less on the label than on the size and risk of the project.

A freelancer and an agency use the same access route into the store, a collaborator account, and the same contract points apply. The difference is capacity: a single person is a single point of failure, which matters most around launch.

Shopify Partner Directory and partner tiers

The Shopify Partner Directory lists, according to Shopify, "all established Shopify agency partners". It covers more than 30 services in six groups: marketing and sales, store setup and management, development and troubleshooting, visual content and branding, content writing, and expert guidance. It can be searched by name or browsed by service or tier, and narrowed by filters such as location.

Each partner profile shows data from the partner's account and work with Shopify merchants:

• primary location and up to 3 primary languages,
• estimated team size and the current number of stores the partner works with,
• how long the company has been a Shopify Partner,
• the top client industries (up to 3), client markets (up to 3) and services (up to 6) of the last 4 years,
• up to 6 featured clients, chosen by the partner from its eligible collaborations and store transfers.

Profiles show no prices. Shopify asks merchants to send details about the store with links, the budget, the timeline and the problem through the Contact button. The partner then bills the merchant directly, and those charges do not appear on the Shopify bill.

What Select, Plus, Premier and Platinum mean

Every partner starts on the Registered tier. Shopify's tiering guide for the fourth quarter of 2026 sets the following thresholds for the higher tiers. A partner needs one of the two revenue figures (the stronger one counts) and the number of new merchants.

• Time window: revenue counts over the trailing 5 years; new merchants over 5 years for Select and Plus and over 2 years for Premier and Platinum. Tiers update every quarter, on 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October.
• Directory: in November 2026, partners from the Select tier upwards are invited to the directory. Shopify's help center notes that updated tiers take effect on 1 January 2027, after which directory eligibility starts at a tier called Silver. The tier names in the directory can therefore change in 2027.
• Credentials: for 2026, Shopify's guide says credentials are waived and only commercial activity is evaluated.

The tier is a useful filter for experience and volume, because a partner can only reach it with real stores and revenue. It does not measure design quality, code quality or how a partner treats small clients. A Platinum partner may be oversized for a store with a few hundred products, and a freelancer on the Registered tier, who does not appear in the directory, can still do good work. References decide, not the badge.

Who owns the store: own account, collaborator and staff accounts

A Shopify store has exactly one owner, and the owner has complete access to every part of the admin, including banking and other financial information and customer data. For the merchant to stay in control, the merchant should be that owner. There are two clean ways to get there.

1. The merchant opens the store in their own Shopify account and lets the agency in through a collaborator account.
2. The agency builds a client transfer store in its partner organization and transfers ownership to the merchant before launch.

Collaborator account or staff account

• Collaborator request: the partner needs a 4-digit request code from the merchant (Settings > Users > Security). Generating a new code invalidates the old one.
• Permissions: a collaborator can be given every permission in the store. Shopify advises granting only what the task needs, for example no access to payment settings for a design job.
• Expiry and removal: if a collaborator has not logged in for 90 days, access expires automatically and can be reactivated. Removing a collaborator account is permanent.
• Staff limits: on the German pricing page, Basic includes no additional staff accounts, Grow up to 5, Advanced up to 15 and Plus an unlimited number. Collaborators do not count toward this limit, so an agency can work on a Basic store too.
• Ownership: ownership cannot be transferred to a collaborator. A new owner must already be a user of the store. If the agency holds the owner role itself, every handover depends on the agency, which is a warning sign.

Transfer of ownership for a store the agency builds

According to shopify.dev, client transfer stores are "stores you build on behalf of a client". Ordinary development stores cannot be transferred to clients, so the agency has to choose the right store type at the start. Until the transfer:

• real transactions are not possible, only test orders with the test gateway or Shopify Payments test mode,
• only free and partner-friendly apps can be installed, and the password page cannot be removed,
• the plan cannot be changed; the merchant selects a plan when accepting the transfer.

Before sending the transfer, the agency must deactivate Shopify Payments, Shopify Balance, Shopify Credit and Shopify Capital, otherwise the transfer fails. Shopify recommends entering the client's address and checking the billing currency first. The agency's business entity is never transferred: the merchant enters their own business details after taking over, and then activates Shopify Payments in their own name. A pending transfer expires after seven days if the client does not accept it.

After the transfer the merchant owns the store. Shopify's developer page states that the partner keeps collaborator access by default, while the same page describes the completed status as having no collaborator relationship. Checking under Settings > Users after the handover shows which access really remains.

Theme licence and other accounts

A theme bought in the Shopify Theme Store is licensed only to the store where it was bought. A theme that is not licensed for the store cannot be customized or published until the licence issue is resolved, and it receives no support or updates. The paid theme should therefore be bought in the merchant's store. The same principle applies outside Shopify: domain, payment providers, Google and Meta accounts, analytics and the code repository should be registered to the merchant's company, with the agency added as a user.

What a fair quote for a Shopify store contains

Quotes are only comparable when they describe the same scope. A fair quote names each of these points, even if the answer is "not included".

The legal requirements and their running costs are covered in more detail in the article What an online store costs in 2026.

What a Shopify agency costs: cost drivers and examples

No neutral statistic on Shopify agency fees was found. Any market average quoted online is an estimate. What reliably moves the price is the scope:

• Design: an adapted theme costs less than a custom design for every template.
• Custom code: own sections, apps or checkout functions take developer time and need maintenance.
• Data: the number of products, variants and languages, and whether customers and orders are migrated.
• Integrations: accounting, warehouse, ERP or CRM connections.
• Markets: each additional language, currency and legal setup.
• Content: whether texts and product photos are ready or have to be produced.

Two published estimates show how far ranges diverge. The German comparison site Dr. Web, updated on 20 October 2026, gives €110 to €180 an hour for agencies and €80 to €140 for freelancers, both net, and €2,000 to €8,000 one-off for an adapted standard theme, €8,000 to €50,000 for a custom store and from €50,000 for Plus projects; it states itself that no neutral statistic exists and that the figures are market observation. The directory business-on.de, as of September 2026, quotes theme-based Shopify stores from about €1,000 to €3,000 and custom brand stores from about €10,000, each citing a single agency's website. Both figures are estimates of third parties, not survey data.

As one example with a public price: at Alpinefy, a Shopify store starts from €4,000 at a fixed price for up to 5 pages in 1 language, each extra language costs €220, and a move to Shopify starts from €2,900. Alpinefy is not a VAT payer, so the quoted price is final. When comparing quotes from German or Austrian agencies, it helps to check whether a price is net or gross.

The running costs come on top and are paid by the merchant to Shopify and the app developers: in Germany the Shopify plan starts from €19 a month billed yearly, according to Shopify's pricing page in November 2026. The full monthly calculation is in What an online store costs in 2026, and for stores in Slovakia and Czechia in How much a Shopify store costs in Slovakia and Czechia.

Questions to ask a Shopify agency

1. References: which live stores did the agency build, with URLs, and which part of each (design, development, migration)? Can a past client be contacted?
2. Test of a reference: open two reference stores on a phone and go through a test purchase up to the payment selection. Speed, search and checkout show more than a portfolio image.
3. People: who exactly works on the project, are they employees, freelancers or subcontractors, and in which country? Who is the contact person?
4. Partner profile: is there a profile in the Shopify Partner Directory, and which tier and featured clients does it show?
5. Timeline: what are the dates of each phase, and what does the agency need from the merchant, and when?
6. Change requests: how are new wishes estimated, approved and billed, and what counts as a change rather than a defect?
7. Ownership: will the store be created in the merchant's account or as a client transfer store? Who owns the design, the custom code and the theme licence?
8. Access: which permissions does the collaborator account need, and what happens to it after launch?
9. Apps: which apps are planned, what do they cost per month, and does the agency earn a commission on any of them?
10. Legal texts: who supplies them, and who updates the store when the law changes?
11. Testing: how is the store tested before launch, on which devices and with which payment methods?
12. After launch: how long are defects fixed at no charge, and how quickly does the agency respond?

Red flags when choosing a Shopify agency

• The store runs in the agency's own account, with no client transfer store and no date for the handover.
• The agency asks for the owner's login and password instead of sending a collaborator request.
• The paid theme is bought in the agency's store or used without a licence.
• Domain, payment provider or analytics accounts are registered to the agency.
• A fixed price arrives the same day, without questions about products, data, integrations or markets.
• The quote has no written scope, only a total.
• The full price is due before work starts.
• There are no live references, or none that can be opened on a phone.
• The agency writes legal texts itself without a lawyer or a legal text provider.
• The agency will access customer data but offers no data processing agreement.
• The contract says nothing about rights to the code and design.

Contract checklist: Werkvertrag, acceptance, rights, data processing

For a store with a defined result, contracts in Germany are commonly drafted as a contract for work (Werkvertrag). Under § 631 BGB the contractor owes the promised work, which can also be a result achieved through work or services, and the client owes the agreed fee. The points below make such a contract workable.

1. Specification as an annex: the quote points from the table above become part of the contract.
2. Payment milestones: § 632a BGB lets the contractor ask for instalments up to the value of the work delivered. Milestones such as design approved, store built and launch tie payments to results.
3. Acceptance (Abnahme): under § 640 BGB the client must accept work that matches the contract, and cannot refuse because of minor defects. The work also counts as accepted if the contractor sets a reasonable deadline after completion and the client does not refuse within it, naming at least one defect. Agreed acceptance criteria and a test protocol (test orders with each payment method, mobile and desktop, each language) prevent disputes.
4. Known defects: a client who accepts the work knowing a defect keeps certain rights only when reserving them at acceptance (§ 640 (3) BGB). Open points belong in the acceptance record.
5. Change requests: a written procedure with estimate, approval and effect on the timeline.
6. Rights of use: computer programs, including their design material, are protected under § 69a UrhG. § 31 UrhG distinguishes simple and exclusive rights of use; where the types of use are not listed, the purpose of the contract decides their scope (§ 31 (5) UrhG). The contract should therefore list the rights explicitly: use, modification, and modification by third parties such as a later agency, without time limit.
7. Third-party components: the theme licence, apps and fonts are under their own terms and are bought in the merchant's name.
8. Data processing agreement (AVV): if the agency can see customer or order data, it processes personal data on the merchant's behalf. Art. 28 GDPR then requires a contract in writing, which can be electronic, covering instructions, confidentiality, security, subcontractors, support with data subject requests, deletion or return of the data at the end, and audits.
9. Switzerland: for a Swiss merchant, Art. 9 of the Swiss Data Protection Act applies; according to the Swiss data protection commissioner (EDÖB), the merchant remains responsible, must make sure the processor complies and must secure this by contract, and subcontracting needs prior approval.
10. Handover: access, documentation, the app list and the code repository are part of acceptance.
11. Support and exit: defect fixing period, response times, notice period for any ongoing support, and the return of all access when the cooperation ends.

Process and timeline: from the brief to launch

No reliable source gives typical project durations, and each quote should therefore contain its own dates. Some deadlines are set by Shopify and can be planned in.

1. Brief: products, markets, languages, payment methods, integrations, budget and the desired launch date, the same details Shopify suggests sending to partners.
2. Shortlist: two to four providers from the directory, references and recommendations.
3. First call and quotes: the same brief to everyone, then compare scope point by point.
4. Contract: specification, milestones, acceptance, rights and AVV signed before access is given.
5. Store setup: the merchant opens the store, in Germany with a 3-day free trial and then €1 a month for 3 months on most plans, or the agency creates a client transfer store.
6. Access: the merchant shares the request code and approves the collaborator request with the needed permissions.
7. Design and build: a prototype first, then templates, products and apps.
8. Content and legal texts: texts, photos, translations and legal texts from the provider; this step depends on the merchant and often sets the pace.
9. Tests: test orders with every payment and shipping method on mobile and desktop.
10. Transfer and payments: for a client transfer store the merchant accepts within seven days and chooses a plan, then enters business details and activates Shopify Payments.
11. Acceptance: a written record with any open points.
12. Launch and support: redirects live for a migration, monitoring of the first orders, and a review of collaborator access afterwards.

A launch shortly before a peak season such as Black Friday leaves no buffer. For a move from another platform, the article From Shoptet to Shopify without losing Google rankings describes the redirects.

Checklist for choosing a Shopify agency

1. Scope written down: pages, products, markets, languages, integrations, budget, launch date.
2. Two to four providers on the shortlist, each with live reference stores.
3. Two reference stores tested on a phone up to the payment step.
4. Partner profile and tier checked, read as a sign of volume, not quality.
5. Same brief sent to all, quotes compared point by point and net against net.
6. Store in the merchant's own account or as a client transfer store with a handover date.
7. Agency access through a collaborator account with only the needed permissions.
8. Theme licence, domain, payment and analytics accounts in the merchant's name.
9. Legal texts from a lawyer or provider, withdrawal button and order button in the scope.
10. Contract with specification, milestones, acceptance criteria and change procedure.
11. Rights of use for code and design listed explicitly.
12. AVV under Art. 28 GDPR signed if the agency sees customer data.
13. Training, documentation and app list part of acceptance.
14. Collaborator access reviewed after launch.

For a store that already runs, an e-shop audit shows what to fix first before a new agency is briefed. The comparison of platforms is in Shopify or WooCommerce.

Sources, checked on 3 November 2026: Shopify Partner Directory, overview of the Partner Directory, hiring and working with Shopify Partners, Shopify Partner Program tiers, eligibility for the Partner Directory, Shopify Partner Program Tiering Guide Q4 2026 (PDF), collaborator accounts, changing store ownership, sensitive permissions, client transfer stores (shopify.dev), client transfer stores (Help Center), theme licence, unlicensed themes, Shopify pricing (DE), § 631 BGB, § 632a BGB, § 640 BGB, § 31 UrhG, § 69a UrhG, Art. 28 GDPR, EDÖB on processing by processors, § 1 BFSG, § 2 BFSG, § 3 BFSG, § 5 DDG, § 356a BGB, WKO on the withdrawal button, § 312j BGB, Dr. Web, Shopify agency comparison 2026 (estimates), business-on.de, Shopify agencies (estimates).