What does a custom Shopify app cost?

We build a custom app for one store and one problem that no App Store app solves well. The price starts at € 2,999 excl. VAT. That starting amount applies to an app with a small, clearly defined task.

Every app beyond that is priced on two things: how complex the work is, and how much it covers. Below is what decides those two in practice.

• Integrations with other systems. Every ERP, accounting package or PIM has its own API, its own login and its own ways of failing. Every integration is work, and its error handling is often more than the integration itself.
• How much data and how often. Syncing ten orders a day is different from a hundred thousand products every night. Large volumes call for queues, bulk operations and checks afterwards.
• Where the app shows up. Only in the admin is the simplest. If it also has to do something in the store, the checkout or the customer account, we build extensions for that, each with its own Shopify rules.
• Settings and screens. How much the merchant should be able to configure, and in how many languages.
• Customer data. If the app works with customers' names, addresses or orders, there are extra requirements for access and security.

You install a custom app on your own store with a link. There is no Shopify review, no listing and no App Store registration. That saves work and time.

If the app has to go into the App Store, for several stores, requirements are added: billing through Shopify, the mandatory privacy webhooks, a listing with screencast and test accounts, and a review that can take weeks. Decide up front: a custom app cannot become a public app later.

An app is not finished on the day it goes live. Shopify releases a new version of its API every quarter and supports each version for at least twelve months. So an app you do not maintain falls behind within a year. On top of that, the app runs on a server with a PHP version that needs updates, and an integration breaks when the other system changes something.

So besides the build, count on hosting and maintenance. That belongs in the proposal, not in a surprise a year later.

Describe what the app should do, for whom, and which systems it talks to. A few examples from your store's day-to-day say more than a list of features. We turn that into a scope: what the app does, what it does not do, and what it costs. Only when that scope is right do we start building.