How Much Do Shopify Experts Cost

Hamiid Nouasria
7 min readApr 23, 2023

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Currently, Shopify ranks #1 among all the available e-commerce platforms, which shows how popular it is among the masses! Shopify makes it easy to create an e-commerce store while offering a high degree of web design flexibility and customization.

Although it’s easy to tackle the basic tasks, you will need to hire a Shopify expert for more advanced stuff. This leads us to questions like how much do Shopify experts cost and how do I find my Shopify expert?

So today, we will look at all these questions to help you find a Shopify expert for your e-commerce store!

how much do Shopify experts cost

Do I Really Need to Hire a Shopify Expert?

Shopify was built with ease of use in mind, and it is visible throughout the platform! From a range of different tools and themes and payment options, it is very easy to make a Shopify store! For basic tasks, there is no need to get a Shopify expert’s help. At best, you can learn about the basic tasks by watching a YouTube tutorial or two!

However, if you need help with technical knowledge or advanced stuff, then you will need to hire Shopify store experts, like Overmentality.com, who excels in Headless Shopify Website Development. A good Shopify expert knows all about which themes, plugins, or tools are needed to make your store a success! Furthermore, these experts are also good at SEO, branding, and the overall marketing side of running an online store.

How Do I Find My Shopify Expert

There are a lot of marketplaces and resources through which you can find a Shopify expert for your online store. To hire the best Shopify experts, you first need to figure out what type of help you really need. When it comes to Shopify experts, they offer a lot of services from marketing to setup to optimization!

There are a lot of places where you can find such experts. Yet, the best source is the Official Shopify Experts Marketplace! Through the “Experts Marketplace,” you can find all sorts of services such as:

And so on…

You can use the search bar to find freelancers or companies for a particular service or set of services. For example, if you search for Shopify SEO services, you will be shown a list of freelancers. Besides each freelancer, you can also see their origin country. For example, if you need Shopify experts based in Ottawa, the marketplace is ready to help!

Besides the official marketplace, you can find experts through freelancing marketplaces such as Upwork, Freelancer, and others.

Whenever you are looking for a Shopify expert, always make sure that they have the Shopify Expert Certification. This certification ensures that the individual or the company you are hiring for your store is indeed an expert!

What Is a Shopify Plus Expert

Shopify Plus experts are handpicked by the Shopify platform itself and thus represent the best talent there! Only those who demonstrate a proven track record of delivering high-quality services are selected as Shopify Plus Experts.

Furthermore, a Shopify Plus expert must be really exceptional in their ability to truly present the Shopify brand! When you hire a Shopify Plus expert, you can rest assured that they will have extensive Shopify Plus knowledge.

A good Shopify Plus expert can help you with:

Since these experts represent the best talent and undergo a rigorous screening process, they are more expensive than normal experts. But with a higher price tag, you can expect nothing but the highest level of service and professionalism!

In the end, it will help your store grow and generate more leads & sales!

What Is The Difference Between Shopify Partner and Expert

On the surface, both the Shopify Plus partners & Shopify plus experts do similar types of work and get access to the same tools. However, there is a noteworthy difference between these two!

A Shopify Plus expert starts as a Shopify Plus partner, and over time, their work is checked by the platform. Once Shopify determines that the expert’s quality of services meets their standard, it promotes them to experts!

It is difficult in itself for a freelancer or an agency to become a Shopify Plus partner; it is even more difficult to become a Shopify Plus expert!

So when you work with an agency with the title of Shopify Partner expert, you can know that you are working with the best Shopify talent in the world!

How to Become a Certified Shopify Expert

In order to become a certified Shopify expert, one needs to pass the certification exams of Shopify. Depending on the exams you have passed, you will only be able to offer services relevant to that exam.

Since Shopify takes its brand image seriously, it is quite challenging to pass the exams. You will need to have a full grasp of the coursework to complete the exam questions.

Although there are a lot of courses offered by Shopify, the most important certifications are given below:

Product Fundamentals

This certification covers the technical side of the Shopify platform… To pass this certification, full knowledge about the fundamentals of the product is required! The course of product fundamentals involves the following subjects:

  • How to integrate and work with APIs
  • How to create and use scripts
  • How to solve the technical problems on the Shopify platform
  • How to utilize Shopify apps
  • How to customize themes for Shopify
  • How to use Shopify Roles

Business Fundamentals

This certification covers the business fundamentals of running a Shopify store. To pass this certification, you will need to essentially know about:

  • Marketing and sales techniques
  • Identification of good Shopify merchants
  • Project management methods

Basically, all the things that are related to the business side of running a Shopify store! It is important for aspiring Shopify experts to pass this certification as it can help them get recognized. Furthermore, there are a lot of people who are looking for services related to business fundamentals.

App Development

The Shopify platform makes it easy for store owners to add additional functionality to their stores through apps. Due to the usefulness of these apps, the agencies or freelancers who can create Shopify apps are also in high demand.

So, in order to complete the certification of app development, you will need to know how to create these apps in the first place! Since we are talking about app development, you will need to understand the Shopify platform. On top of that, programming knowledge and problem-solving skills are also important!

Theme Development

To Offer services related to theme development, it is important to complete the Theme Development Certification offered by Shopify!

On the Shopify platform, merchants can choose from thousands of free & paid themes.

But did you ever wondered where these themes come from?

It is the Shopify partners and experts who develop these themes!

A theme dictates the visual appearance of a Shopify store and is thus very important. De facto, a good theme can make a huge difference in the sales and conversion rate of a store as compared with an average theme or a poor one.

To successfully complete this certification, you will need extensive knowledge about UX design and programming.

How Much Do Shopify Experts Cost?

There is no rule of thumb when it comes to how much it will cost to hire a Shopify expert. It actually depends on the type of service you need & the duration of that service. On top of that, working with top talent vs an average one will also make a huge difference in the costs!

Generally, tasks that are not so complicated will cost you less as compared to more complicated ones. For example, it would cost you more to get an expert in app development or theme development. On the other hand, hiring someone to fix an error or two will cost less!

On average, you can expect to pay anywhere from $500 up to $15000 to hire a Shopify expert. A custom build of the entire store starts from $25,000 and goes all the way up to $75,000. If we talk about the hourly rates of these experts, it is usually in the $20-$150/h range.

However, as stated earlier, it will all depend on the type of work you need and the experience level of the agency/freelancer. You might be able to get a Shopify expert at affordable rates for easy tasks or if the expert is rather new. On the other hand, Shopify Plus partners and Shopify Plus experts will be more expensive but highly experienced as well!

Conclusion

As you can see, the answer to questions such as how much Shopify experts cost is highly variable. We have listed some of the average rates, but it will all depend on a lot of different factors. As for how I find my Shopify expert, we have also mentioned some of the best resources on this page!

In the end, just remember you should focus more on quality rather than price when looking for a Shopify expert!

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Hamiid Nouasria

Hamid is the Co-founder and CEO of Overmentality.com & he is a Top Rated Plus blogger and content writer on Upwork.