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 Payment Rules for Pre-Order and TBYB?
BUYPre-order and try-before-you-buy payment flows come packaged; the Plus-only Payment Customization Function gates methods around them and excludes subscriptions.
Checkout & Conversion
Should You Plan Around Plus's 200-Location Ceiling?
WAITShopify Plus supports adding up to 200 locations per store, a documented ceiling that decides when consolidation stops working and a platform starts paying.
Retail & POS
Will Your Apps Survive a Move to Hydrogen?
BUILDReviews, upsell and personalization apps that render through theme app extensions have nowhere to go on a Hydrogen storefront, because there is no Liquid theme.
Content & Storefront
Can You See Every App's Access Scope in One Place?
BUILDShopify discloses an app's data-access scopes at install and afterward one app at a time from its about page, with no consolidated view across the app fleet.
Trust, Legal & Compliance
Can You Trust Every App Store App to Honor GDPR Deletion?
WAITShopify rejects any App Store app that fails to answer the mandatory compliance webhooks, with a 30-day action window. Custom apps sit outside that scope.
Trust, Legal & Compliance
Should You Plan Around Shopify's B2B Company-Size Ceilings?
WAITA B2B company holds up to 10,000 locations and 10,000 customers, but only 50 customers per location. The 50 is the number that actually constrains you.
B2B & Wholesale
Checkout Extension Network Access: What Shopify Actually Allows
BUILDCheckout UI extensions declare four capabilities in the extension TOML file, and network_access is the one Shopify makes you request before publishing.
Checkout & Conversion
Build or Buy Observability for Checkout Functions on Shopify?
CUSTOMIZEShopify documents 12 function error types and stores each run in the Dev Dashboard, but no default alert tells you a checkout function has started failing.
Platform & Architecture
How Many Bulk Operations Can Run at Once on Plus?
BUILDEach app gets up to five simultaneous bulk query operations per shop on API 2026-01 and higher (verified Sep 2026). Separate apps never share one slot.
ERP, Accounting & Integrations
Core Checkout Steps vs. Thank You: What's Plus-Only?
CUSTOMIZECustom UI on the information, shipping and payment steps is Plus-only; Thank You and Order Status extensions are open on every plan except Starter.
Checkout & Conversion