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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.
- Investment
- From £30,000
- Partner
- Certified Shopify Plus Partner
★★★★★ 5.0 Google · 5.0 Shopify Partners (61) · 120+ stores
Right for you?
Is a custom theme right for you?
Custom Shopify theme development is the right call if any of these sound like your store:
Your brand needs a store that feels unique
A custom Shopify theme designed around your brand, not a template everyone else is using.
You've outgrown your Shopify theme
Every change means fighting its limits. Most of our custom builds replace a store that stopped keeping up with the brand.
You need features no theme offers
Custom product pages, complex variants, bundles or merchandising built for how you sell.
Your theme is slowed down by code you don't use
A custom theme carries only what your store actually needs.
One of these is reason enough. A custom theme is the right call.
Start a projectIf none of these apply, a store setup, a premium setup or theme customisation will get you further for less, and we'll say so.
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 Store Setup
Premium theme, professionally built on
A strong platform, shaped around your brand. It stretches further than most brands expect.
You start from a commercial theme and we shape it around your brand. It is the right answer until the ceiling starts to cost you more than the rebuild would.
Trade-off: A commercial theme serves thousands of stores, so it carries settings, sections and code for features you will never switch on. No amount of customisation removes it.
Most brands start here
Growing brands, up to a few hundred orders a month.
Custom Theme Development
Custom theme, built from nothing
A blank canvas. Every section, template and line of code exists because your store needs it.
Built from the ground up around your catalogue, your customer and how you actually merchandise, and nothing else is there.
The difference: Not tuning, but the absence of everything you are not using, and a codebase your team is not navigating around.
When the theme becomes the constraint
Established brands on Shopify Plus or close to it, with high traffic.
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.
-
Step 01
Discovery and architecture
Brand, requirements and the technical plan.
-
Step 02
Design
Either we design it, or we build from your designers' Figma files.
-
Step 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.
-
Step 04
QA
Cross-device, cross-browser and accessibility checks.
-
Step 05
Training & handover
Training and documentation included.
Proof
CUSTOM BUILDS WE'RE proud of
-
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.
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Sizing and fit, returns, drops that spike traffic in minutes, variant and colourway UX, and editorial imagery handled properly.
Explore -
02Luxury
Restraint over urgency, made to order and appointment flows, clienteling, and the international duty and delivery complexity that comes with high value orders.
Explore -
03Jewellery
Ring sizing, macro photography and zoom, gemstone and hallmark data, engraving and personalisation, and gifting.
Explore
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.
MM AI System
Want to build with AI?
New sections and features built by AI, checked against our rules and reviewed by a senior.
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.