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Services - For new stores - Custom theme development
Custom theme development
We build custom Shopify themes from scratch. No template constraints, no compromises on brand, and built around how your store actually sells.
Rated 5.0 ★ on Google · Rated 5.0 ★ from 61 reviews in the Shopify Partner Directory · 120+ Shopify stores built
Right for you?
Is a custom theme right for you?
Custom Shopify theme development is the right call when:
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The brand experience matters more than speed to launch
You need the store to feel like you, not a configured template.
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You've outgrown a theme
You're fighting its limits every time you want to change something. Most custom builds we deliver are exactly this: an established brand replacing a store that has stopped keeping up.
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You need functionality no theme offers
Bespoke product page behaviour, complex variants, unusual merchandising.
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The theme carries features you will never use
You are maintaining code written for somebody else's store.
If none of these apply, a store setup, a premium setup or theme customisation will get you further for less, and we'll say so. A premium setup in particular stretches a long way before a custom build is the better buy.
What we build
What a custom build includes
- 01
Bespoke design implementation
Built to your brand guidelines or your designers' Figma, pixel accurate.
- 02
Modular, editable sections
Your team can build and edit pages without a developer.
- 03
Lean code
Liquid written for your store and nothing else, with no inherited dependencies you did not ask for.
- 04
Shopify 2.0 architecture
Sections everywhere, app blocks, metafields and metaobjects.
- 05
Custom functionality
Advanced variants, bundles, size guidance, lookbooks, whatever the brand needs.
- 06
Built for Shopify Plus where relevant
Checkout extensibility and international markets.
Custom vs premium theme
Custom theme or premium theme?
Think of it as motorsport. A premium theme professionally customised is a commercial car prepared for racing: a strong platform, properly set up, and more than capable. A custom theme is a Formula 1 car, designed from nothing for one purpose, with no part on it that is not there for a reason.
Both win races. They are not the same car, they are not built the same way, and they do not cost the same.
Shopify Store Setup Premium Store Setup Custom Theme Development
Starting point A commercial theme A commercial theme Nothing
Inherited code Yes, including features you will not use Yes, including features you will not use None
Flexibility Moderate, using the theme's built-in sections as they are High, with custom UX/UI sections added on top of the theme Total
What limits you The theme's structure and built-in settings The theme's structure, extended by custom sections and added functionality Your requirements alone
Timeline 3–4 weeks 6–10 weeks 12–20 weeks
From £2,000 £5,000 £30,000
Right when You want a strong store live fast, and the theme's built-in sections cover what you need. You want custom sections, added functionality and hands-on QA a standard setup doesn't include. You are an established brand operating at scale, usually on Shopify Plus or close to it, and the theme has become the constraint
Shopify Store Setup
Starting point
A commercial theme
Inherited code
Yes, including features you will not use
Flexibility
Moderate, using the theme's built-in sections as they are
What limits you
The theme's structure and built-in settings
Timeline
3–4 weeks
From
£2,000
Right when
You want a strong store live fast, and the theme's built-in sections cover what you need.
Premium Store Setup
Starting point
A commercial theme
Inherited code
Yes, including features you will not use
Flexibility
High, with custom UX/UI sections added on top of the theme
What limits you
The theme's structure, extended by custom sections and added functionality
Timeline
6–10 weeks
From
£5,000
Right when
You want custom sections, added functionality and hands-on QA a standard setup doesn't include.
Custom Theme Development
Starting point
Nothing
Inherited code
None
Flexibility
Total
What limits you
Your requirements alone
Timeline
12–20 weeks
From
£30,000
Right when
You are an established brand operating at scale, usually on Shopify Plus or close to it, and the theme has become the constraint
Premium theme, professionally built on
You start from a commercial theme and we shape it around your brand. It is flexible and it stretches a long way, further than most brands expect, and it is the right answer until the ceiling starts to cost you more than the rebuild would.
The trade-off is what comes with the platform: a commercial theme is built to serve thousands of very different stores, so it carries settings, sections and code for features you will never switch on. That comes with you, and no amount of customisation removes it.
Custom theme, built from nothing
A blank canvas. Every section, template and line of code exists because your store needs it, and nothing else is there. Built from the ground up around your catalogue, your customer and how you actually merchandise.
That is the real difference. Not tuning, but the absence of everything you are not using, and a codebase your team is not navigating around.
Where custom builds usually land
In practice a custom theme suits established brands operating at scale, and most of the ones we build are for businesses already on Shopify Plus or moving towards it. That is not a rule about who we work with, it is about where the investment pays back: the returns on removing every unnecessary line of code grow with the traffic running through it, and a store doing a few hundred orders a month recovers far more from a premium build than from a bespoke one.
So most brands should start with the premium route and move to custom when the theme becomes the constraint rather than the shortcut. We will tell you honestly which side of that line you are on, including when the answer costs us the larger project.
Section controls
Your team keeps full control
A custom theme is only worth what your team can do with it after we leave. So every section we build ships with its own controls in the Shopify editor, and your team controls all of it: what appears in the section, how it is arranged, how it behaves on each device, and how it is styled.
There is no fixed set of options decided in advance. Controls are built per section, around what that section actually needs to do, which is the point of a bespoke build. A lookbook needs different settings from a size guide. Whatever your team would otherwise have to ask a developer for becomes a setting instead.
That is the practical difference from a commercial theme. A commercial theme gives you the settings its developer chose for thousands of unrelated stores. Yours are chosen for your store, by people who have watched a team run one, and they go considerably further.
Process
How a custom build runs
Typical timeline: 12-20 weeks
Projects start from £30,000 and are quoted on scope.
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01 Discovery and architecture
Brand, requirements and the technical plan.
-
02 Design
Either we design it, or we build from your designers' Figma files.
-
03 Development
Built in sprints, and every sprint is visible to you the moment it closes. You get a working preview link and a short walkthrough of what was built, so you watch the theme come together section by section rather than waiting three months for a reveal. Feedback from one sprint shapes the next.
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04 QA
Cross-device, cross-browser and accessibility checks.
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05 Training & handover
Training and documentation included.
Process
How a custom build runs
Typical timeline: 12-20 weeks
Projects start from £30,000 and are quoted on scope.
-
01 Discovery and architecture
Brand, requirements and the technical plan.
-
02 Design
Either we design it, or we build from your designers' Figma files.
-
03 Development
Built in sprints, and every sprint is visible to you the moment it closes. You get a working preview link and a short walkthrough of what was built, so you watch the theme come together section by section rather than waiting three months for a reveal. Feedback from one sprint shapes the next.
-
04 QA
Cross-device, cross-browser and accessibility checks.
-
05 Training & handover
Training and documentation included.
Proof
CUSTOM BUILDS WE'RE proud of
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A custom theme giving every page its own layout, with as much editable control handed to the client as possible.
Industries
The categories we know best
We work most often with fashion, lifestyle and luxury brands, and that focus is why our custom builds start further ahead. If your brand sits outside these categories, we're still happy to talk.
Fashion & Lifestyle
Sizing and fit, returns, drops that spike traffic in minutes, variant and colourway UX, and editorial imagery handled properly.
Explore
Luxury
Restraint over urgency, made to order and appointment flows, clienteling, and the international duty and delivery complexity that comes with high value orders.
Explore
Jewellery
Ring sizing, macro photography and zoom, gemstone and hallmark data, engraving and personalisation, and gifting.
Explore
We also build for beauty, footwear and sports brands, where the same problems apply in a different shape. If you sell something else entirely, say so early and we will tell you honestly whether our experience transfers or whether another agency knows your category better.
Blog
Choosing a custom theme agency
- January 1, 2025
How to Choose the Right Shopify Agency
What to work out before you start looking, how to tell agencies apart, and the questions that reveal most about who you are dealing with.
FAQs
Building a Shopify theme from scratch to a brand's own design, rather than configuring an off-the-shelf template.
From £30,000, depending on scope and functionality. This is a different order of project from a theme-based build, and it is quoted per project once we understand the requirements. If the budget points elsewhere, a premium store setup or theme customisation will serve you better and we'll say so.
Typically 12-20 weeks.
Yes. We regularly build from designers' Figma files, and we can design the store ourselves if you'd rather.
Yes. We build modular Shopify 2.0 sections so your team can create and edit pages without a developer.
If your current theme mostly works, theme customisation is cheaper and faster. If you're constantly fighting its limits, build custom.
Yes, including checkout extensibility and Shopify Functions.