Build vs. Buy on Shopify
Build, buy, customize, or wait — decided with numbers. Capability-by-capability verdicts with honest 3-year cost math.
Custom wins on 3-year cost or fit — with maintenance counted honestly.
The app wins your scenario — we say so plainly.
Buy the app, build the glue: very often the honest mid-market answer.
Shopify is shipping this natively. Don't spend yet; we'll tell you when it flips.
Latest Decisions
Should You Build or Buy a Returns Portal on Shopify?
DEPENDSA returns portal splits by return economics: WAIT on native for simple flows, BUY exchange-first in the mid-market, BUILD at 3PL scale.
Returns & Exchanges
Should You Build or Buy RFQ & Quoting on Shopify?
BUILDRFQ and quoting is a build for most mid-market B2B sellers: draft orders are already Shopify's quote object — the missing half is the form and approval rules.
B2B & Wholesale
Should You Build or Buy Your SAP or Dynamics Integration on Shopify?
DEPENDSSAP and Dynamics integration is the NetSuite DEPENDS with heavier weights: connectors for standard flows, middleware when custom surfaces are the business.
ERP, Accounting & Integrations
Should You Build or Buy Your Shopify Scripts-to-Functions Migration?
BUILDA Scripts-to-Functions migration is a build for any store whose checkout logic still earns money — unported rules have already gone silent.
Platform & Architecture
Should You Build or Buy Server-Side Tracking on Shopify?
DEPENDSServer-side tracking on Shopify splits by data ambition: buy for maintained speed, build to own the event stream.
Analytics & Attribution
Should You Build or Buy Shipping Protection on Shopify?
BUILDShipping protection is a self-insure build for most mid-market Shopify stores past roughly 5,000 orders a month.
Shipping, Delivery & Fulfillment
Should You Build or Buy Shipping Rate Logic on Shopify?
DEPENDSShipping rate logic splits three ways on Shopify: native settings for simple, a Functions build for logic, rules apps for carrier complexity.
Checkout & Conversion
Should You Build or Buy a Shipping Rules Engine on Shopify?
DEPENDSA shipping rules engine is a buy for most mid-market Shopify stores; build a custom carrier-service engine when mispriced rates become a measurable margin leak.
Shipping, Delivery & Fulfillment
Should You Build or Buy SMS Marketing on Shopify?
BUYBuying SMS marketing wins outright: the real decision is your email platform's SMS module versus a standalone platform, never an in-house build.
Email, SMS & Push
Should You Build or Buy Product Options Past Shopify's Variant Limit?
CUSTOMIZEComplex product options are a customize call once an option changes the price: native variants for what fits, metaobjects plus cart transform for the rest.
Product Data, Catalog & Merch Ops