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    Commerce · Service

    Headless Shopify.
    Hydrogen, or React.

    A storefront no theme can hold, in front of the catalogue and checkout Shopify already runs.

    See the stores
    At a glance
    From $0,099
    Final price written into the scope after a 30-minute call
    0+
    Shopify stores worked on
    0+
    Stores launched
    THREE WAYS TO BUILD

    Same Shopify.
    Different storefront.

    Products, orders and checkout stay in Shopify in all three. What changes is who renders the pages, and what that costs you.

    Built with
    Liquid theme
    Liquid, Online Store 2.0
    Hydrogen on Oxygen
    Hydrogen on React Router
    Custom React storefront
    React, e.g. TanStack Start
    Hosted on
    Liquid theme
    Shopify
    Hydrogen on Oxygen
    Oxygen, included with paid Shopify plans
    Custom React storefront
    Your hosting, e.g. Cloudflare
    Editing pages
    Liquid theme
    Theme editor, drag and drop
    Hydrogen on Oxygen
    Metaobjects in Shopify admin, or a CMS
    Custom React storefront
    Metaobjects in Shopify admin, or a CMS
    Storefront apps
    Liquid theme
    Install, add as an app block
    Hydrogen on Oxygen
    Rebuilt through each app's API
    Custom React storefront
    Rebuilt through each app's API
    Checkout
    Liquid theme
    Shopify checkout
    Hydrogen on Oxygen
    Shopify checkout
    Custom React storefront
    Shopify checkout
    Upkeep
    Liquid theme
    Theme updates
    Hydrogen on Oxygen
    Framework and API upgrades
    Custom React storefront
    Framework, API and hosting upgrades
    Best when
    Liquid theme
    Most D2C catalogues
    Hydrogen on Oxygen
    The storefront is Shopify's alone
    Custom React storefront
    The shop lives inside a React product
    Price
    Liquid theme
    Store with theme from $999
    Hydrogen on Oxygen
    From $3,099
    Custom React storefront
    From $3,099
    WHAT'S INCLUDED

    The storefront. And everything a theme gave you.

    Headless removes what a theme already gives you. The scope puts each piece back, or says why not.

    Storefront
    01
    Home, collection, product, cart, search, account and content pages
    02
    Storefront API integration: products, variants and collections
    03
    Search and collection filters
    04
    Cart handed to Shopify checkout
    05
    Customer login through the Customer Account API
    06
    Markets: currency and language, where the store sells abroad
    What a theme did for you
    01
    Server-rendered pages, meta tags, structured data and sitemap
    02
    Redirects from every old URL
    03
    Content model in metaobjects or a CMS, so pages stay editable
    04
    Each storefront app rebuilt through its API, or replaced
    05
    Shopify analytics and consent, plus GA4 and Meta events
    06
    Menus, drawers and forms that work with a keyboard and screen reader
    Engineering
    01
    Repository in your GitHub, with a README a new developer can follow
    02
    A preview deploy for every change, one-step rollback
    03
    A cache rule for every query, written down
    04
    Error and uptime monitoring
    WHAT IT COSTS

    From $3,099.

    That is the starting price. The pages, the integrations and the apps being rebuilt can move it, and the written scope carries the final figure before work starts. Third-party subscriptions and fees are excluded.

    $0,099
    Headless storefront, from
    Hydrogen or React frontend, Shopify backend and checkout.
    $0
    Monthly maintenance, from
    A month. Framework and API upgrades, monitoring and fixes.
    0 min
    First call
    The storefront, the stack and whether headless is right at all.
    0–12 wk
    Typical plan
    From signed scope to launch. The scope sets the date.
    HOW LONG

    Decide first. Then build.

    A typical plan. Integrations and rebuilt apps move it.

    01
    Week 1

    Decide

    Theme or headless. Then Hydrogen on Oxygen or custom React, with the running cost of each written down.

    02
    Weeks 1–2

    Architect

    Routes, data queries, cache rules, content model, and what replaces every storefront app.

    03
    Weeks 3–10

    Build

    Storefront, cart, accounts, analytics and content, shipped to preview deploys you can open any day.

    04
    Weeks 11–12

    Launch

    Lighthouse, SEO and checkout testing, redirects, cutover, then handover of the repository.

    IF IT GOES WRONG

    The theme stays live.

    Until the new storefront is ready.

    01

    No switch until it works

    The current theme keeps selling while the storefront runs on preview deploys.

    02

    Rollback in one step

    Every deploy is kept. A bad release is reversed without waiting for a fix.

    03

    The theme as a fallback

    The Online Store theme stays in Shopify after cutover, ready to take the domain back.

    04

    Code that outlives anyone

    Your repository, documented, in React. Any React developer can pick it up.

    05

    Scope in writing

    Pages, integrations and apps are listed before the build. A change is priced before it is made.

    06

    Bugs fixed

    Anything in the delivered scope that does not work as agreed is fixed as part of the build.

    WHO IT'S FOR

    Some stores. Not most.

    If the second list sounds like you, a Liquid theme will serve you better, for less.

    Headless fits

    • 01
      The storefront is the product

      Configurators, 3D, or a buying flow that behaves like an app.

    • 02
      Commerce inside something bigger

      A membership, a training platform or a content site built in React.

    • 03
      Several systems on one page

      Shopify products next to bookings, content or data from elsewhere.

    • 04
      An engineering team

      People who will own the storefront, or a monthly plan that will.

    A Liquid theme is the better choice

    • 01
      The theme editor is how you work

      Banners and drops changed by the founder, every week, without a developer.

    • 02
      The store runs on apps

      Reviews, loyalty, subscriptions and upsells that install in minutes on a theme.

    • 03
      Speed is the only complaint

      A slow theme is fixed faster, and for far less, by rebuilding the theme.

    STANDARDS YOU CAN CHECK

    Written down. Handed over.

    Each one is checked before launch, and the evidence comes with the repository.

    01

    Rendered on the server

    View the source of any product page. The title, price and description are in the HTML.

    02

    Lighthouse on a phone

    Performance, accessibility and SEO measured on home, collection and product. Targets agreed in the scope.

    03

    A cache rule per query

    Catalogue data cached for speed, cart and account never cached. The rules are in the README.

    04

    Shopify checkout, untouched

    Payments, taxes and promo codes run where Shopify runs them. Customisation through Checkout Extensibility.

    05

    Consent before tracking

    Shopify's Customer Privacy API decides what fires. Analytics wait for consent.

    06

    Every app accounted for

    A written list: kept, rebuilt through its API, or replaced, with the reason for each.

    HEADLESS AND LIQUID

    One headless storefront.

    And the Liquid stores that did not need to be.

    Commerce
    Core Table

    A headless Shopify storefront built in React, with checkout on Shopify.

    BuiltReactStorefront API
    View case
    Commerce
    The Cinnamon Kitchen

    A healthy bakery on Impact, with delivery rules on every product card.

    BuiltLiquid
    View case
    Commerce
    Farmers Pride

    Natural staples on Kalles, with Shiprocket one-click checkout.

    BuiltLiquid
    View case
    BEFORE YOU BRIEF

    The questions founders ask first.

    Most D2C stores do not. A Liquid theme keeps the theme editor, installs apps in minutes and costs less to run. Headless is worth it when the storefront must do something a theme cannot, or when commerce sits inside a larger React product. The first call answers this, and the answer is sometimes a theme.
    Hydrogen, when the storefront is Shopify's alone: it comes with Shopify's commerce components, caching and analytics, and Oxygen hosting is included with paid Shopify plans. A custom React storefront, when the shop lives inside an application that already exists, or the team already runs its own hosting such as Cloudflare. The Core Table is the second kind.
    Products, collections, prices and promo codes stay in Shopify admin, as before. Page content — banners, landing pages, lookbooks — is modelled as metaobjects in Shopify admin or held in a CMS, and the storefront reads it. What goes away is the drag-and-drop theme editor, so the content model is designed in the scope, before the build.
    App blocks and theme app extensions do not render on a headless storefront. Apps that work in the admin — inventory, fulfilment, accounting — keep working. Storefront apps such as reviews, loyalty or upsells need an API and are rebuilt as components, or replaced. The scope lists every app and what happens to each.
    Yes. The cart hands off to Shopify checkout, with the same payment methods, and customisation goes through Checkout Extensibility, the same as a theme store.
    Every product, collection and content page is rendered on the server, with titles, descriptions, canonical tags, structured data and a sitemap. Old URLs are redirected at launch.
    Headless is software, and software needs upkeep: framework upgrades, API versions every quarter, monitoring. The repository is yours and documented, so your own team can own it. Otherwise monthly maintenance starts at $199 a month. That running cost is part of the first call's answer.
    A headless storefront starts at $3,099. The final price depends on the pages, the integrations and the apps being replaced, and is written into the scope after a 30-minute call. Third-party subscriptions and fees are excluded, and anything beyond the agreed scope is quoted in writing before it is done.
    No. The store is built on a Shopify development store and ownership is transferred to you at launch, so no Shopify subscription is needed until then. The Shopify Partner setup covers analytics, Google and Meta tracking, the payment gateway (with Razorpay onboarding assistance) and Shiprocket for logistics.
    Monthly maintenance starts at $199 a month. It covers framework and API upgrades, monitoring and fixes. Your own team can take it over instead, since the repository is yours.
    6 SERVICES · COMMERCE

    More in Commerce.

    Theme or headless.
    One call.

    Thirty minutes on the storefront you want. A written answer after it, even when the answer is a theme.

    See pricing