Headless Shopify or a standard theme: what each one costs

en 2026-09-21 6 min read

A shop that takes payments is step 04 on our ladder, and that includes a standard build on Shopify's own theme layer with your structure, design and content on top: EUR 3.500 to 7.500, 6 to 12 weeks. Headless Shopify, where we build the storefront ourselves and Shopify keeps the products, orders and checkout behind it, is step 05: from EUR 7.500, with the quote following discovery.

A shop with a normal catalogue and a team that changes things without asking anyone is better off on the theme layer, and we will say so before you ask.

The case for the standard theme, first

The first argument is maintenance. The theme layer is software someone else keeps working: tax rules, discount codes, gift cards, fraud checks, customer accounts, the mobile admin. Go headless and several of those become our problem, and our problem has a cost attached.

The second argument is the app ecosystem, and it is a strong one. A review widget, a loyalty scheme, a subscription product, a bundle builder: on the theme layer these are an install and some configuration. Built from scratch, each one is custom development with its own quote. Until an app's monthly price adds up to more than building the feature, paying it is the cheaper trade.

The third argument matters most day to day: your team can edit it. Sections, banners, images, a new collection, a homepage reshuffle, all from the admin, with a preview, without a deploy. If the shop changes weekly, that is the whole operation, not a convenience.

What headless actually buys

Headless means the storefront is an application we build in Next.js, reading products, collections, inventory and prices from Shopify through its API and handing the customer to Shopify to pay. The front of the shop becomes code you own.

• Interfaces a theme cannot express: a configurator, a sizing tool, a quiz that narrows a large catalogue, a stockist map, a made-to-order flow reading live inventory.
• One codebase across several brands, languages or regions, sharing components instead of maintaining near-copies of a theme.
• Editorial and commerce in one page, with CMS content and live product data side by side rather than in an embedded frame.
• Control over what reaches the browser. You decide what loads and in what order, instead of inheriting what a theme and its apps decided.
• The repository, the code and the database are yours, which counts for more once the storefront is an application rather than a configured theme.

What the price does not show

Every theme feature you stopped noticing becomes a line in the build: search, filters, sorting, the cart drawer, discount entry, customer accounts and order history, wishlists, reviews, cross-sells. None of them is hard alone. Together they are why headless sits at step 05 rather than step 04.

Apps are the sharper edge. An app that exposes an API can be wired into a headless storefront. An app that works by injecting a widget into a theme cannot, so it has to be rebuilt, replaced or dropped. We go through your installed list during scoping, before any number exists, because that list moves the price more than anything else.

Editing changes too. Your team keeps the Shopify admin for products, variants, prices, inventory and orders, which is the part it is easy to assume you lose. What goes is the theme editor for page layout. So either someone briefs a front-end change, or we build a CMS so layout and copy stay in your hands, and that CMS is part of the scope, not a free extra.

Side by side

Where payments sit on the ladder

A shop takes payments, so a Shopify store is step 04 work at EUR 3.500 to 7.500 at the least, and never step 03. On a standard theme build, Shopify runs the checkout and we build the shop around it. On a headless build we also build the storefront application that hands customers to that checkout, which is why it sits at step 05. An internal admin your staff work in all day is step 05 work too.

Process and timeline

Scoping comes first and a fixed quote always follows scoping. For a headless build, scoping is where we list the apps, the catalogue structure, the markets and languages, and every page that is not a product. That list is the quote.

A theme build runs 6 to 12 weeks at step 04. A headless storefront is step 05, and its timeline is set in discovery. On either path, the part that waits on you is product data and photography: missing descriptions and inconsistent images hold the build still. Next.js development covers the storefront side, and design and engineering covers how the two run together.

When to spend less

If your bottleneck is people arriving rather than what they see when they get there, headless is the wrong purchase. Take SEO foundation at EUR 450 to 750 as a one-off, keep the theme, and put the difference into being found. A plain theme with visitors beats a beautiful storefront with none.

If nobody on your side can brief a front-end change in writing, headless will make you slower, because every banner becomes a request. Stay on the theme until that is no longer true, or budget for the CMS that fixes it.

And if your catalogue is straightforward, your apps do what you need and the shop is doing its job, then do not hire us for headless yet. Get the step 04 theme build right, keep Care at EUR 100 to 300 a month, and come back when you hit the wall. You will know the moment: it is the feature you keep describing that nobody can build inside the theme.

Questions we get asked

Will headless make my shop faster?

It gives you control over what the browser has to load, which is not the same as a guarantee. A headless storefront built carelessly, pulling full-size images for every product on the homepage, is slower than a well-configured theme. Speed comes from the decisions, not the architecture.

Will my apps still work?

That depends on how each one is built. Apps with an API, and anything running on the checkout or admin side, carry across. Apps that work by dropping a widget into your theme do not. We go through your installed list during scoping and tell you which is which before you commit.

Can I start standard and move to headless later?

Yes, and that is the strongest argument for starting standard. Products, orders, customers and checkout live in Shopify on both paths, so going headless later replaces the front end, not the business.

Is Care more expensive for a headless shop?

Where it lands in the EUR 100 to 300 a month band is agreed per project, and headless gives Care more to watch, because there are two things to keep healthy instead of one: Shopify, and the storefront application with its dependencies and deploys. New features and redesigns stay project work, priced at their step, and the ladder is on packages.

Describe the one thing your theme will not do, and we will say whether it is worth step 05 money or whether an app already does it. Tell us about your shop.