Agencies are good at first calls. That is the job of a first call. The problems that cost you six months and a second budget show up later, and almost all of them were visible on the first call if you knew what to look for. These are the nine signs we would tell a friend to walk away from — written by an agency, so we have also listed what is not a red flag, including several things that would make us look bad if they were.
Key takeaways
- The biggest red flag is structural, not personal: the person selling is not the person building. Ask for the builder by name on the first call.
- Anything an agency will not put in writing before the contract — scope, exclusions, price, year-one total, support terms — is the thing you will argue about later.
- Where a team is based is not a red flag. Hiding it is. Say where you are; we are in Sheridan, Wyoming and Lahore, and it took us a while to learn that saying so plainly is the right thing.
The nine red flags
1. The builder is not on the call
You meet a founder or a sales lead, you get on well, you sign, and in week two you are introduced to the project manager who introduces you to the developer. Everyone in that chain is doing their job; the structure is what fails, because the person who scoped your store is not the person who has to build it. Ask, on the first call, who will write the code and whether they are in the room. Our answer is the founder’s, in writing: the engineer who builds your store is the one on your calls and in your Slack. Whatever the agency’s answer is, it should be a name.
2. No written scope before the contract
“We’ll scope it in the first sprint” means you are signing an hourly arrangement whatever the engagement is called. Hourly billing rewards slow work; nobody on the agency side has a reason to shorten a project that pays by the week. A written scope with an exclusions list and one number is the only form of quote you can compare with another. Question four in the hiring guide is the one that sorts the market.
3. The team’s location is vague
“Global team”, “distributed”, a Manhattan address with nobody in it. The red flag is not where the team is — some of the best Shopify Plus engineering in the world is done from Lahore, Lviv, Montreal and Ahmedabad, and some of the worst from expensive zip codes. The red flag is the vagueness, because it tells you the agency thinks you would not sign if you knew. We say Sheridan and Lahore on every page. Ask where the engineers sit and what hours overlap yours, and get the hours into the scope.
4. A logo wall instead of live stores
A grid of brand logos is not proof of anything; brands change agencies, and a logo can mean one landing page in 2021. Ask for two live Plus stores the agency built, one you can open now and one you can phone. If the case studies have no numbers, ask where the numbers went. Ours are on each page — +27% repeat purchases, +63% organic, 1.4-second pages from launch — and any agency worth hiring has the equivalent.
5. The badge is the argument
Platinum, Premier, Plus Partner. They are real tiers in Shopify’s partner programme and they confirm the agency has shipped Plus work. They are also self-reported on the agency’s site, and none of them tells you which engineer you get. When the badge comes up before the portfolio, it is doing the work the portfolio should be doing. Take the answer, then go back to red flag one.
6. “Free discovery” you cannot keep
Discovery that produces a document you own — architecture, integration map, migration plan, scope — is worth paying for, because you can take it to another agency. Discovery that is free but only usable with the agency that ran it is a sales step. Ask whether you own the output. If the answer is complicated, that is the answer.
7. An app for everything
A Plus quote that solves every requirement with an app subscription is cheaper on day one and more expensive every month after: reviews, subscriptions, search, bundles, upsells, each billed by volume, each a script on your product page. Some apps are right; a theme built from apps is not a build. Ask which requirements the agency would build into the theme and which it would buy, and why. Our Plus page says it plainly: no Dawn reskins, no app bloat. The pricing guide shows how the app line changes a quote.
8. The quote is only the build
Shopify’s own Plus plan starts at US$2,300 a month on a three-year term; the apps the build depends on are billed monthly; integrations are engineering; and something has to keep the store current with Shopify’s quarterly changes. A quote that covers the build alone is not dishonest, but it is incomplete, and the missing lines land after you have signed. Ask for the year-one total in the same document.
9. Nothing about month four
If the proposal ends at “launch”, ask what happens after. A retainer with no exit, a block of hours with no response time, or no plan at all are all red flags in different sizes. The healthy version is specific: what is covered, what a P1 costs in hours, how fast it is picked up, and how you leave. Ours: retainers with the response times written down, and 92% renew with nobody locked in — if a month is not worth the fee, you should be able to go.
What is not a red flag
- An offshore or distributed team. Judge the engineer, the overlap hours and the live work, not the passport.
- A small agency. Small means the senior people are on your project because there is nobody else to put on it. It also means a forty-person programme is the wrong fit; a good small agency says so.
- No office in your city. See the Texas guide: almost every Plus specialist ranking for Texas is somewhere else, including the good ones, including us.
- A higher price with a written scope. A $120,000 quote with an exclusions list is safer than a $60,000 estimate without one. The pricing guide explains what the range covers.
- An agency that turns work down. If it is not Plus work, or not a fit, the good ones say so on the first call and point you elsewhere.
A five-minute check before any call
| Check | Green | Red |
|---|---|---|
| Who builds it | Named engineer, on the call | “Our team” |
| Scope and price | Written, with exclusions, before contract | “We’ll scope it in sprint one” |
| Location and hours | Cities named; overlap hours in the scope | “Global”, “distributed”, nothing on the contact page |
| Proof | Live URLs, numbers with sources, a client to phone | Logo wall |
| Discovery | Priced; you own the output | Free; only usable with them |
| Apps | Built where it matters, bought where sensible, listed with costs | An app per requirement |
| Year one | Platform, build, apps, integrations, support in one document | Build only |
| After launch | Terms, response times, exit | Ends at launch, or a retainer with no exit |
Where to go from here
Run the 14 questions on your shortlist; every red flag above has a question that surfaces it. The 12-agency comparison is a starting list compiled from the agencies’ own sites, and the Shopify Plus development page is where you can run all nine checks on us.
