Custom build
Custom Shopify builds for when the problem doesn’t fit a package.
Most agency service menus describe the work the agency already knows how to do. The interesting problems don’t fit any of it — a CRM that matches how you actually sell, a dashboard nobody sells off the shelf, two systems that were never meant to speak to each other. That’s what this is for.
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At a glance
Custom build, in plain terms.
Everything below is answered in detail further down the page.
- What it is
- Bespoke software development for commerce businesses — custom CRMs, internal tools, merchant dashboards, and integration between systems that don't have an off-the-shelf connector.
- Who it's for
- Brands and operators who have already been told "we can't build that" — by an agency, by a SaaS vendor, or by their own roadmap. Typically multi-location, multi-system, or operating a model the standard tools don't model.
- What we build
- Custom CRM · internal tools and admin dashboards · API and system integration (ERP, POS, booking, warehouse) · public and private Shopify apps · middleware and data pipelines.
- How it's scoped
- A paid discovery produces a written technical specification with a fixed price before any build begins. You own the spec whether or not you continue.
- Investment
- Most custom builds land in the $25,000–$50,000 range. Larger multi-system platform work runs $50,000–$100,000+. Fixed scope, milestone billing.
- What you get
- Your repository, documented. Source code, deployment, and a handover that means the next developer is not us by necessity.
- Who provides it
- Aqsa Shahzad Official LLC — an independent Shopify Plus and custom development agency in the United States. Senior engineers only, no offshore handoff.
When this is the right call
You've probably already been told no.
Custom is the wrong answer most of the time — if an app does it, buy the app. These are the situations where it isn’t.
- Your CRM doesn't match how you sell — You're paying for a platform built for a different business, and half your process lives in spreadsheets beside it.
- The report you need doesn't exist — Your data is split across commerce, booking, ads and finance, and no single tool can join it.
- Two systems refuse to talk — There's no connector, the vendor won't build one, and the workaround is a person doing manual entry.
- An app store solution gets you 70% there — And the missing 30% is the part that actually matters to your margin.
- Staff are doing something a computer should — Any repeated manual step with a defined rule is a build waiting to happen.
- Another agency declined it — Usually because it's real API work with real edge cases rather than a theme change.
We'll also tell you when custom is the wrong answer. If an existing app solves 95% of it, the honest recommendation is to buy the app and spend the budget somewhere it compounds — and we'd rather say that in the discovery than eighteen months into maintaining something you didn't need.
What we don't do is quote a number on a call. Custom work priced from a conversation is how projects end up half-finished. Every build starts with a paid discovery that produces a real specification.
Scope
Four kinds of custom work.
Custom CRM development
A CRM built around your actual pipeline rather than a vendor's idea of one — the stages you really use, the fields you really need, and the automations that fire on your rules.
Custom CRM developmentInternal tools & dashboards
The reporting layer no platform sells you: revenue, spend, service and retail joined into one view, with the numbers your team argues about settled in one place.
Internal tools & dashboardsAPI & system integration
Connecting systems that were never designed to meet — ERP, POS, booking platforms, warehouses, payment providers — with retry, error handling and alerting that tells you before your customers do.
API & system integrationShopify app development
Public and private apps built on App Bridge and Polaris, embedded in the admin your team already uses — so the custom capability lives where the work happens, not in another tab.
Shopify app development
Proof
A phone photo in. A catalogue asset out.
Client name withheld · NDA
The custom app we built for a fine jewelry house
Their constraint wasn't the storefront — it was imagery. A jewelry catalogue turns over constantly, studio time is slow and expensive, and the result was a product grid where no two pieces matched. Nothing off the shelf solved it: background removers destroy specular highlights on metal and stone, which is the entire point of the photograph.
So we built them an embedded Shopify admin app. A staff member photographs a piece on a phone, in the store, under whatever light there is. The app isolates the subject through chain and prongs, normalises white balance to a brand reference so metals read true across the catalogue, rebuilds the specular handling, applies the collection's locked framing preset, and returns the full set — PDP hero, grid crop, zoom asset, social and email — written back to the product as media with generated alt text through the Admin GraphQL API.
Brand presets are locked per collection, so output is consistent whoever took the photo and whenever they took it. It runs in bulk across an existing catalogue as well as on new pieces.
This engagement is covered by a non-disclosure agreement, so the client is not named and commercial figures are not published. We can walk through the technical detail on a call.
How it runs
Nobody quotes custom work from a phone call.
A fixed price on a problem nobody has defined yet is how custom projects end up abandoned. The discovery exists so the number we give you is one we can hold.
Discovery
Paid, time-boxed. We map the systems, the data, the edge cases and the constraints. Output is a written technical specification.
Fixed proposal
Scope, price and timeline against that specification. If the honest answer is "buy an app instead", this is where we say so.
Build in stages
Milestone billing, staging from day one, and a working demo every week. You see it running before it's finished.
Handover
Your repository, documented, with deployment and runbooks. No key-person dependency — including on us.
You own everything
This is the part most agencies leave vague.
- Source code
- Yours, in your repository, from the first commit — not handed over at the end if the relationship ends well.
- Infrastructure
- Deployed to your accounts under your billing. We don't hold your production hostage.
- Documentation
- Architecture, deployment and runbooks written for the next engineer, whoever that turns out to be.
- Ongoing work
- Optional. Available as a development retainer if you want us, and unnecessary if you don't.
Straight answers.
How much does a custom build cost?
Most custom builds land in the $25,000–$50,000 range. Larger multi-system platform work runs $50,000–$100,000+. Those are typical ranges rather than quotes — the actual number comes out of the paid discovery, against a written specification, and it's fixed once agreed. Milestone billing, no hourly surprises.
Why do you insist on a paid discovery?
Because a fixed price on an undefined problem is either padded to cover the unknowns or it's wrong, and both end badly. The discovery produces a real technical specification — systems, data model, edge cases, constraints — and you own that document whether or not you build with us. You can take it to another agency and get comparable quotes, which is the point.
Can you build a CRM instead of us buying one?
Sometimes. If HubSpot or Klaviyo or a vertical CRM does 95% of what you need, buy it — we'll tell you that. Custom makes sense when your process genuinely doesn't fit the model the vendors built, when the licence cost at your seat count exceeds the build, or when the data has to live somewhere you control. The discovery answers which of those applies to you.
Who owns the code?
You do, from the first commit, in your repository. Infrastructure deploys to your accounts under your billing. The handover includes architecture documentation and runbooks written for whoever maintains it next. We don't build key-person dependencies, including on ourselves.
Do you work outside Shopify?
Yes. Most of this work sits alongside commerce rather than inside it — CRMs, dashboards, integration layers, internal tools. Shopify is where most of our clients transact, so it's usually one of the systems in the diagram, but it isn't a requirement.
What happens after launch?
Nothing you're obliged to buy. The handover is designed so your team or another agency can maintain it. If you'd rather we stayed on, a development retainer gives you senior engineering hours each month with an agreed response time — but the build stands on its own without it.
Shopify Plus experts
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An accredited Shopify Plus agency that designs, builds, migrates, supports and grows stores for brands that have outgrown templates. Ready when you are: talk to an engineer about the project.
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