How Much Does Shopify Theme Development Cost in 2025?

If you’ve considered creating a custom Shopify theme for your ecommerce store, you’re not alone.

Your theme is more than just the collection of templates that influences how your store looks. It’s the number one element influencing the experience customers get on your site.

I’ve seen countless companies lose sales and opportunities, simply because they don’t invest enough time in creating a theme that elevates their brand, and delights their customers.

Investing in Shopify theme development is an excellent way to gain an edge over your competitors. It helps to differentiate your store, give credibility to your brand, and even improve conversion rates.

However, there are costs involved, from the price of paying for a premium theme, to working with developers and experts.

Here’s everything you need to know about the cost of Shopify theme development, regardless of whether you’re working with specialists, or diving in to Liquid programming alone.

Key Factors Influencing Shopify Theme Development Costs

The cost of theme customization and development on Shopify can vary depending on a range of factors. The three most important (and influential) elements that will affect how much you pay for your Shopify theme are:

• Custom vs Pre-Made Themes
• Developer Location and Expertise
• Project Complexity

Let's have a look at each one in more detail:

1. Custom vs Pre-Made Themes

There are two ways to potentially approach creating a unique theme “e-commerce design” experience for your store.

If you have relatively basic needs, then the best option might be to customize a free or premium theme already offered by Shopify.

There are hundreds of options to choose from, and even premium options will only cost between $150 and $350 on average.

Once you choose your theme, you can use the Shopify theme editor to make changes to certain elements, like colors, typography, and the arrangement of sections.

However, if you want more granular changes to your store, the best option may be to access a “custom theme” built for you from scratch by a Shopify developer.

This will allow you to build an entirely unique experience, using a combination of Liquid programming techniques, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

2. Developer Location and Expertise

Next, if you don’t have experience with Shopify theme development or the Liquid language yourself, you’ll need to access the help of a professional.

The Shopify developer rates experts charge often vary depending on the level of experience and expertise they have, and their location.

If you want to hire a local developer, with a lot of experience working on Shopify sites, then you can expect to pay a lot more.

A US-based developer could charge you between $3,000 and $10,000 for a fully customized theme, or less to simply edit an existing theme.

3. Project Complexity

Finally, you’ll need to consider how complex your requests are. If your designer is just making a few simple changes to a pre-existing solution on the Shopify theme marketplace, the amount you spend is likely to be a lot lower.

However, if you’re hiring experts who can help you add new integrations or functionality into your theme, you’ll need to pay more.

Consider your project scope carefully, and how long it’s likely to take for your developer to build the ideal theme. The more complex the project, the more you’ll pay.

Shopify Theme Development Cost Breakdown

I’ve covered the core factors that will influence your Shopify theme costs, now let’s look at some average expenses on a deeper level.

There are three main costs to consider here:

1. Domain and Website Costs
2. The Theme Costs
3. Shopify Expert and Agency Fees

Let's have a look at each one in more detail:

1. Domain and Website Costs

First, you’re going to need a Shopify website, and a domain name. The price you pay for your Shopify ecommerce plan will vary depending on the features you need.

For access to the complete website builder, you’ll need at least a Basic Shopify plan, starting at $39 per month.

You’re also going to need a unique domain name, to help differentiate your store from other sites on the web.

You can purchase a domain name from Shopify for $14 per year (if you want a .com domain), or you can shop around and buy a domain from another registrar.

2. The Theme Costs

Once you have your website and domain name, you can start looking at the costs of Shopify theme development. As mentioned above, the route you take will affect your expenses significantly.

If you choose a pre-existing Shopify theme, you can access either one of the “free Shopify” themes for nothing, or edit a premium theme, which usually comes with a one-off cost of between $150 and $350, depending on the features you’ll need.

If you’re hiring a Shopify developers to create a custom theme, your price will vary depending on the complexity of your requirements, the location of your developer, and your experiences.

In the US, most Shopify developers charge between $38 and $61 per hour.

3. Shopify Expert and Agency Fees

While you can always consider hiring a freelance Shopify developer, or investing in Liquid programming yourself, many companies prefer to work with Shopify approved Experts and agencies.

These are partners that work directly with Shopify, and list their services on the Shopify Experts marketplace. Again, the price of your expert can vary based on various factors.

Premium-quality services can cost you between $500 and $300, while US Shopify experts can charge between $75 and $100 per hour.

If you want an entire team to work on your Shopify theme development strategy, then you’ll need to pay for an agency.

Agencies can offer comprehensive assistance with everything from Shopify CLI and GitHub management to Shopify app integration, but they can charge well over $5000 for their services, depending on your development needs.

Additional Shopify Theme Development Costs to Consider

Aside from the three main expenses listed above, there may be some additional costs you’ll need to think about when you’re planning your budget. For instance:

Third-party apps and add-ons:

If you want to extend the functionality of your Shopify site with add-ons from the Shopify app store, there may be a monthly fee or upfront cost to pay for any resources you want to access.

If you want your developer to work with you on creating custom apps, and integrations, you’ll need to pay an extra charge.

You may also need to consider upgrading to Shopify Plus (see the costs breakdown here), for more API calls and controls. The more complex your requirements, the more you’ll pay.

Maintenance Fees and Updates

If you don’t have a lot of development expertise, it makes sense to have a developer on-hand to help you maintain and optimize your store over time.

You’ll need to pay these experts every time they need to update or change your theme, redesign your store’s appearance, or implement new integrations.

Usually, maintenance fees will be charged on an hourly basis. However there are agencies and experts that can offer retainer deals to clients who need long-term support.

You’ll need to shop around to make sure you’re getting the best price.

Additional Expertise

Aside from working with experts on Shopify theme design and app development, you might also want to tap into the assistance of some other types of experts.

Shopify Experts can work with you on an hourly basis to optimize your store for search engines, making technical changes to your theme and site layout that can improve your ranking potential.

You might also want to work with these experts on long-term marketing strategies, ensuring you can adapt your promotional methods to adhere to e-commerce trends and changing buyer behaviors.

Shopify Development Tools and Resources

Shopify theme development can be expensive, particularly if you’re working with experts or agencies to build a custom solution from scratch.

That’s why some ambitious business owners decide to invest in custom development themselves.

It’s worth noting that Shopify theme development and customization isn’t always simple.

You’ll need a decent amount of coding knowledge, and you’ll need to build your familiarity with things like the Liquid programming language, HTML, CSS, JSON templates, and JavaScript.

However, there are tools and resources that can help you, such as:

• Shopify CLI: Shopify’s Command Line Interface allows you to make granular changes to theme with code. It’s how you tell Shopify what to do with your theme.
• The Dawn theme: Dawn is Shopify’s free development theme, which you can copy into a GitHub repository, and use as the foundation building blocks for your own theme.
• GitHub: GitHub acts as the hub for your theme development process, giving you access to version control tools, and allowing you to “push” your theme to the Shopify platform.
• Liquid language tools: Liquid is the language used by Shopify for theme development, alongside CSS, HTML and JavaScript. There’s a Liquid cheat sheet you can access online to give you extra insights into how it works, and you can also take courses in Liquid.
• Shopify theme development tools: Shopify offers a range of free tools to developers building Shopify themes, including the “Theme check” tool, and the Shopify theme inspector for Chrome. You can access these resources here.

Step-by-Step Guide to Developing a Shopify Theme

If, after checking out the average cost of developing a Shopify theme with the help of experts, you decide to go it alone, there are few key steps you’ll need to take.

Before you start designing a theme, you’ll need a Shopify Partner account (which you can create here) and your Shopify store.

You’ll also need a GitHub account for versioning control, and the latest version of Node.JS. From there, here are the steps you’ll need to take:

Step 1: Setting Up a Development Environment

To start designing your Shopify theme, you’ll need a development environment, and Shopify CLI (Command Line Interface).

This is the tool that allows you to tell Shopify what you want your theme to do. It also allows you to preview and test theme changes in a local environment.

You can install Shopify CLI on Linux, Windows, or MacOS, using the instructions given here. Once you have CLI installed, you can start your local development server.

Running the Shopify theme dev will allow you to interact with your theme within a Chrome Browser.

Step 2: Designing Your Theme

Once you have your development environment up and running, you can start experimenting with your theme.

To do this, you’ll need to download and copy the Shopify “Dawn” theme. This is the reference theme developers use to create themes, without having to start from scratch.

It’s a good idea to do your research and learn as much as you can about Shopify theme architecture here.

Shopify themes work using sections, section groups, templates, layout files, and file blogs. You’ll need JSON templates to control the look and feel of your pages using sections.

You’ll also need to experiment with JavaScript from time to time, to give your theme more functionality. Before you start designing, make sure you:

• Define the goals of your theme: Determine what you want your theme to do, what core capabilities you need to include, and which resources you’ll be using.
• Map out the customer experience: Ensure you know what customers want from your website when they visit your store. Focus on delivering an excellent experience, and ensure your theme is responsive on all devices.
• Take advantage of GitHub: Leverage GitHub’s features for versioning control and collaboration as you work on your new theme.

Step 3: Leveraging Shopify Development Tools

Alongside Shopify CLI, and the Dawn theme, there are other handy tools you can use, created by Shopify, that can help you with the development process. I’d recommend checking out:

• The Shopify Liquid VS Code extension: A comprehensive tool for visual studio code users, to help enhance your local development experience.
• Shopify theme check: Shopify’s command-line based linter for theme creation. This is also included in the Visual Studio code extension.
• Shopify theme inspector for Chrome: A browser-based plugin that allows you to profile and debug your Liquid templates.
• Liquid Prettier Plugin: A plugin that helps you format your Liquid language code and HTML in a consistent style.
• Lighthouse CI: A solution that helps ensure your theme performs as expected (ideal for testing functionality).

Launching Your Custom Shopify Theme

To launch your custom Shopify theme on Shopify, you’ll need to take advantage of the Shopify GitHub integration.

Before you initially publish anything, it’s a good idea to run through your theme and check everything is working as expected.

You can preview your theme, and experiment with it yourself using the Shopify Theme Dev option with Google Chrome and Shopify CLI.

Click through each page of your website carefully, and examine how each element performs. If there are any bugs, this could harm your user’s experience, and have a negative impact on your conversion rates.

You can also use the tools mentioned above (such as Shopify Theme Check), to scan for any potential bugs or errors you might have missed.

Once you’re happy, access your Shopify GitHub integration from your admin account.

The first time you “push” the theme code from your GitHub repository to your admin account, you can upload it to your theme library using the -unpublished command:

If you want to launch the theme officially, simply remove the “-unpublished” flag when you’re initiating the “push” action.

From there, you can access and use your Shopify theme from your Shopify theme library, and make any additional edits you like using Shopify’s theme editor tools.

You can also push your theme directly to the Shopify theme store, using the “Theme Publish” command in your development terminal.

Keep in mind, if you want to “publish” a theme for other people to use, you’ll need to ensure the design is significantly different from the original “Dawn” template you used to structure your theme.

The Cost of Shopify Theme Development

Investing in Shopify theme development is an excellent way to give your ecommerce website a competitive edge in the increasingly cluttered digital landscape.

The right theme can help to elevate your brand’s credibility, and deliver a great experience to customers, increasing your conversions.

While you can develop a custom theme yourself, using the strategies outlined above, I’d advise only using this option if you’re already confident with coding.

If you haven’t developed a theme before, you’ll probably save a lot of time and effort by working with an expert.

Just remember that you’ll need to pay a little extra for that support.

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