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
Smile.io vs. LoyaltyLion: Which Points Program Pays?
BUYLoyaltyLion wins the mid-market fee math at less than half Smile.io's Plus-plan anchor; Smile.io wins below Plus scale. The custom lane caps fees past ~$50M.
Loyalty, Referrals & Retention
SparkLayer vs. Native B2B: Is the App Still Worth It in 2026?
CUSTOMIZENative B2B covers core wholesale on every paid plan since April 2026; SparkLayer earns its fee when the 3-catalog cap binds or ordering UX must ship now.
B2B & Wholesale
STOQ vs. Notify!: Which Back-in-Stock App Wins?
BUYSTOQ wins the dedicated back-in-stock job; Notify! wins preorder-plus-alerts consolidation; an owned capture-and-webhook build keeps the demand data yours.
Email, SMS & Push
Elevar vs. a Built Data Layer: Buy Tracking or Own the Pipes?
BUYElevar wins for maintained destination tracking — it runs on 59.4% of analytics-app-using stores; build the web-pixel + tagging-server lane to own the event stream.
Analytics & Attribution
Elevar vs. Littledata: Which Tracking App Wins on Shopify?
BUYElevar wins for ad-destination tracking with 59.4% category share; Littledata wins for GA4-and-warehouse stacks; a custom pixel relay owns the stream.
Analytics & Attribution
Fast Bundle vs. Simple Bundles: Which Wins on Shopify?
DEPENDSSimple Bundles & Kits wins kitted fulfillment; Fast Bundle wins promo breadth; native Shopify Bundles covers fixed sets and multipacks free.
Bundles & Kits
Feedonomics vs. Built Feed Pipelines: Managed or Owned?
BUILDBuilt feed pipelines win at 3–5 channels with a dev bench; Feedonomics earns its managed retainer past roughly 6 channels or when marketplace order sync arrives.
Product Data, Catalog & Merch Ops
Forter vs. Native Fraud Analysis: Do You Need the Platform?
WAITForter is enterprise fraud tooling; Shopify's native Fraud Analysis plus a review-ops loop covers most mid-market stores until fraud pressure scales.
Trust, Legal & Compliance
GemPages vs. Replo: Templates or Testing Tempo?
BUILDBuilding an OS 2.0 section library beats both apps for evergreen pages; GemPages wins template-led campaigns, Replo earns a fenced lane at CRO tempo.
Content & Storefront
GemPages vs. Theme Sections: Rent the Builder or Own the Pages?
BUILDBuilding an OS 2.0 section library beats GemPages wherever dev support exists; template-built pages stay app-locked, sections stay portable JSON you own.
Content & Storefront