Arcline – Soundtrack and Japanese Vinyl Store
2026Music & Entertainment
Shopify theme development
Themes written by hand not assembled in a builder
A custom Shopify theme built in Liquid: your sections, your data model, your checkout path. No page-builder app between your storefront and the people buying from it — and none of the weight one adds.
Fixed-price projects from$3,000 CAD3–10 weeks · fixed price
- Ecommerce projects
- 180+Ecommerce projects
- In-house specialists
- 12In-house specialists
- Verified Clutch reviews
- 11Verified Clutch reviews
What Shopify theme development means
Shopify theme development is building the storefront layer of a store in Liquid, Shopify’s templating language — the templates, sections and blocks that decide what a shopper sees and how they move from a product page to a completed order. A custom theme is written for one store’s catalogue and merchandising; a customized theme starts from a purchased theme and changes it. Both are distinct from app development, which changes what a store can do rather than how its storefront works.
Custom theme, customized theme, or neither
Custom theme
Built from scratch for your catalogue.
Right when your merchandising does not fit a template: configurators, complex variants, B2B pricing, unusual collection logic. You get sections your team can reorder in the theme editor without calling a developer.
Theme customization
Start from Dawn or a paid theme, change what matters.
Right when the theme is 80% there. We rewrite the product page, the cart and the sections that carry the revenue, and leave the rest alone. Cheaper and faster than a rebuild, and honest about it.
Neither — yet
Sometimes the theme is not the problem.
If the store converts badly because of the offer, the speed or the traffic, a new theme will not fix it. We will say so on the call rather than sell a rebuild that changes nothing.
What the build includes
- Hand-written Liquid — templates, sections, blocks and snippets
- Theme editor sections your team can reorder without a developer
- Metafields and metaobjects for content the admin does not model
- Online Store 2.0 architecture, not a 1.0 theme retrofitted
- Core Web Vitals budget: LCP, CLS and INP measured before handover
- Tested against WCAG 2.2 AA: keyboard paths, focus and contrast
- Mobile-first, built against real devices rather than a viewport toggle
- Structured data on product, collection and article templates
How a theme project runs
Audit what exists
The current theme, its speed, and where the funnel loses people. A rebuild that repeats the old storefront’s mistakes in better type is not worth paying for.
Fixed-price proposal
One number in CAD against a written scope, agreed before the build starts.
Design and build
Sections built in a development theme you can preview at any point, on your own store’s real products.
Launch and support
Published with redirects and analytics intact, then 3 months of post-launch support included.
Why hand-written Liquid
A page-builder app puts a rendering layer between your storefront and your shopper, and you pay for it twice: monthly, and in load time on every page view. We have shipped 180+ ecommerce projects without one.
- No page-builder subscription and nothing to re-license
- Theme code you own and any Shopify developer can read
- Sections your team edits in the theme editor, not a locked template
- Performance budget measured on the store, not claimed in a pitch
Shopify theme development questions
- How much does Shopify theme development cost?
- Fixed-price theme projects start at $3,000 CAD and typically run 3–10 weeks, quoted against a written scope after a 30-minute call. Customizing an existing theme costs less than a custom build; the scope decides which you need.
- What is the difference between a custom theme and theme customization?
- A custom theme is written from scratch for your catalogue and merchandising. Theme customization starts from an existing theme — Dawn or a paid one — and rewrites the parts that matter, usually the product page and cart. Customization is faster and cheaper; a custom theme is the answer when your merchandising does not fit any template.
- Do you use page builders like Shogun or PageFly?
- No. A page builder adds a rendering layer between your storefront and your shopper, charges monthly, and costs load time on every page view. We write Liquid, and build theme-editor sections so your team can still reorder and edit pages without a developer.
- Can you customize a theme I already bought?
- Yes, and it is often the right call. We rewrite the templates and sections carrying the revenue and leave the rest alone, which is faster and cheaper than a rebuild. If the theme is genuinely fighting your catalogue we will say so before quoting.
- How long does a Shopify theme build take?
- 3–10 weeks for most projects, depending on how many templates are in scope and how quickly content and product data are ready. Theme customization is usually at the shorter end of that range.
- Will the theme work with the apps I already use?
- We check every installed app during the audit and carry across the ones you keep. Apps that inject scripts into the storefront are the usual source of speed problems after a rebuild, so we name them early rather than at launch.
Send us your store
We will look at the theme you have now, tell you whether it needs a rebuild or a rewrite of three templates, and quote a fixed price for whichever it is.
Recent builds
