A monthly platform fee, forever
Paid every month regardless of sales volume, on top of whatever else the store is running.
REBUILD · FROM SHOPIFY
Three fees, all recurring, none of them optional
Shopify is a hosted ecommerce platform: a monthly subscription, a transaction fee on every sale unless you use its own payment processor, and paid apps for whatever the base platform does not do natively. Each one is small on its own. Together, indefinitely, they are the real cost of the store.
THE THREE FEES
What actually recurs
Not a criticism of the platform. A description of what it costs to run a store on it, indefinitely.
A cut of every sale, indefinitely
Unless the store uses the platform's own payment processor exclusively, a fee applies to every transaction, forever.
Paid apps that compound over time
Each feature the base platform lacks becomes another monthly fee, rarely audited or removed once installed.
WHERE THE CHECKOUT LIMITS SHOW UP
A catalogue that does not fit the platform's assumptions
Variant-heavy or made-to-order products, specifically.
Shopify's checkout assumes a fairly standard variant structure. A fragrance with size and concentration tracked independently, or a made-to-order item with a delivery window, often needs logic the platform was not built around. Our own perfume and oud, flowers and gifting, and patisserie builds are custom checkouts built for exactly that shape of catalogue.
BY INDUSTRY
What breaks depends on what you sell
A fragrance catalogue fails differently from a jewellery store's checkout.
Perfume and oudVariant limits, gifting workarounds Flowers and giftingCutoffs, delivery slots, oversell Modest fashionFour-dimension variants, made-to-measure Furniture and homeFreight quoting, stock honesty SupplementsSubscriptions, regulatory data Beauty and cosmeticsShade accuracy, app-driven weight Jewellery and watchesMetal pricing, certification Chocolate and datesCorporate orders, heat-sensitive delivery
STRAIGHT ANSWERS
Questions about migrating off Shopify
The ones that come up before anyone signs anything.
Shopify is a hosted ecommerce platform: a monthly subscription for the platform itself, plus a transaction fee on every sale unless you use its own payment processor, plus whatever paid apps the store has installed for things the base platform does not do natively.
Each app that solves one problem, a better search, a loyalty program, a custom field, adds its own monthly fee, and most stores keep adding them rather than removing the ones no longer earning their cost. The transaction fee applies to every sale indefinitely, which a one-time rebuild does not.
Shopify's checkout is built for its own product model, which assumes a fairly standard variant structure. A catalogue with unusual combinations, like a fragrance with size and concentration variants tracked independently, or made-to-order items with delivery windows, often needs a custom checkout built around the actual product rather than the platform's assumptions.
Between
Send us your website address. We will tell you what is wrong with it.
Two days, no charge, no obligation, and you keep the report whether or not you hire us.