Three options, not two
The usual framing is "Shopify or custom". There is a third option in between, and for a growing store it is often the right one.
Option 1: Standard Shopify
Shopify hosts everything: the storefront, the product catalogue, the checkout, the payments. You choose a theme and customise it.
Good at: launching quickly, taking payments reliably, handling tax, shipping and inventory without you thinking about servers.
Runs out when: you want a storefront design the theme system fights against, pages feel slow because of stacked apps and scripts, or your product needs logic the platform was not designed for.
Option 2: Headless
Shopify (or another commerce platform) still runs the catalogue, orders and checkout — but the storefront customers see is a separate site, typically built with Next.js, talking to the platform through its API.
Good at: speed, design freedom, content-rich pages, and fine control over SEO — while keeping the platform's dependable back office.
Runs out when: you have nobody to maintain a custom front end, or you rely heavily on apps that only work inside a standard theme.
Option 3: Fully custom
You build the storefront and the commerce logic: catalogue, cart, pricing, orders. Payments still go through a provider such as Stripe.
Good at: unusual business models — marketplaces with multiple sellers, complex B2B pricing, bookings, configurable products, subscriptions with rules no platform supports.
Runs out when: your needs are ordinary. Rebuilding a cart and an order system that a platform already provides is expensive, and you then own every edge case.
Side by side
| Standard Shopify | Headless | Fully custom | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to launch | Shortest | Medium | Longest |
| Upfront cost | Lowest | Medium | Highest |
| Design freedom | Within the theme | Full | Full |
| Storefront speed | Depends on theme and apps | Under your control | Under your control |
| Back office | Provided | Provided | You build it |
| Ongoing maintenance | Minimal | A front end to maintain | Everything |
How to choose
Ask these in order, and stop at the first "yes".
- Is this a new store with a normal catalogue? Use standard Shopify. Launch, sell, learn.
- Is the store working, but the storefront is holding it back — slow pages, a design you cannot achieve, content the theme cannot handle? Go headless. You keep your products, orders and customers exactly where they are.
- Does the business model itself not fit a platform? That is when fully custom is justified.
Most stores never need to leave step one. The ones that do usually need step two, not step three.
Moving later is normal
You are not choosing forever. A store can start on a standard theme and move to a headless storefront later without migrating a single order, because the back office stays put. That is a much smaller step than it sounds, and it is one of the most common e-commerce development projects we take on.
Whichever route you take, the checkout is where sales are won or lost — so before spending on anything else, run through a checkout checklist.
Working on something like this? See how we approach e-commerce development.