Choosing a Shopify Plus agency is not primarily a comparison of design portfolios. You are selecting a team that may influence revenue, customer experience, operational risk and the pace of commerce development for years.
The best choice depends on the work. A strong creative studio may not be the right integration partner. A technically capable team may not be equipped to lead customer research or international operating-model decisions.
This framework helps make the comparison concrete.
1. Define the problem before naming the solution
Write a one-page brief covering:
- the commercial objective;
- current platform and main constraints;
- markets, brands and business models;
- critical customer journeys;
- ERP, PIM, WMS, POS and other dependencies;
- internal owners and decision process;
- target timing and the reason behind it;
- known budget range;
- what should be measurably better after the work.
Do not begin with “we need a new theme” if the actual problem is slow releases, fragmented markets or unreliable product data.
2. Verify partner status, then keep evaluating
Use the Shopify Partner Directory to verify the current profile and tier where relevant. Growly, for example, is listed as a Shopify Plus Partner.
Partner status is useful evidence, but it does not answer every buying question. You still need to understand who will work on the project, which capabilities are in-house, how the agency handles risk and whether its experience resembles your operating model.
Also remember that a Shopify Plus Partner can work across Shopify plans. The customer should not be pushed to Plus simply because the agency holds that tier.
3. Ask for relevant cases, not the biggest logos
A relevant case shares complexity with your project:
- similar migration risk;
- comparable number of markets;
- B2B and DTC coexistence;
- the same ERP or a similar integration pattern;
- POS and omnichannel operations;
- catalogue size and product complexity;
- a comparable internal team and governance model.
Ask what was difficult, what changed during delivery and what the agency would do differently now. A case without trade-offs is a marketing asset, not enough evidence for a decision.
4. Meet the people who will do the work
Clarify which named people cover:
- commerce strategy;
- UX and visual design;
- Shopify architecture and development;
- integrations and data;
- technical SEO and migration;
- quality assurance and release;
- post-launch ownership.
Ask how much of the work is subcontracted and who remains accountable when several specialists or suppliers are involved.
The chemistry of the sales call matters less than whether you can communicate directly with the people making consequential decisions.
5. Compare architecture reasoning
Give shortlisted agencies the same two or three real scenarios. For example:
A B2B customer has three buying locations, negotiated catalogues and payment terms from ERP. How would you divide responsibility between Shopify and ERP?
You are not looking for a full solution during procurement. You are testing whether the agency asks useful questions, makes assumptions visible and distinguishes verified capability from something that needs discovery.
Be cautious when every requirement receives an immediate “yes” without discussion of plan availability, APIs, data quality, country differences or operational ownership.
6. Examine the migration approach
If an existing store is being replaced, the proposal should cover more than importing products.
Look for:
- a data inventory and transformation approach;
- customer account and consent decisions;
- URL mapping and redirects;
- content and structured-data preservation;
- application and integration replacement;
- test migrations and reconciliation;
- delta migration while the old store keeps trading;
- acceptance criteria and a cutover runbook;
- post-launch SEO and operational monitoring.
No agency can responsibly guarantee unchanged search rankings. It can demonstrate a process for reducing avoidable loss and responding to what search engines do after launch.
Our detailed Shopify migration checklist expands this workstream.
7. Understand the delivery model
Ask how work moves from decision to production:
- Who owns the backlog?
- Where are scope and assumptions documented?
- How are designs reviewed against technical constraints?
- Which environments are used?
- What automated and manual tests are expected?
- Who approves release?
- How are changes communicated?
- What happens when a dependency slips?
Method names matter less than a process that is visible, proportionate and actually used.
8. Make commercial terms comparable
A lower headline price can exclude discovery, content migration, SEO, integration testing, training or launch support.
Compare:
- fixed scope versus time and materials;
- assumptions and exclusions;
- third-party licences and recurring applications;
- client responsibilities;
- treatment of change requests;
- payment schedule;
- warranty and defect definition;
- ongoing support capacity and response expectations;
- ownership of accounts, data and code.
Ask each agency to state the largest uncertainties in its estimate. Honest uncertainty is more useful than false precision.
9. Evaluate the plan after launch
The agency that builds the store does not have to remain forever, but transition and ownership should be clear.
Determine whether you need:
- incident response;
- technical maintenance;
- platform and application updates;
- roadmap development;
- conversion optimisation;
- analytics and technical SEO;
- support for new markets and capabilities.
If ongoing work is important, meet the people who would own it and understand how capacity and priorities are agreed.
10. Use a weighted decision scorecard
Create criteria before the final presentations. An example weighting:
| Criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| Relevant commerce and sector complexity | 20% |
| Architecture and integration capability | 20% |
| Migration and SEO risk management | 15% |
| Delivery team and ways of working | 15% |
| UX and brand capability | 10% |
| Ongoing ownership model | 10% |
| Commercial clarity and total cost | 10% |
Score independently, then discuss why assessors differed. The conversation behind the score often reveals more than the total.
Questions worth asking every Shopify Plus agency
- Which assumptions in our brief concern you most?
- Which capability should we avoid custom-building and why?
- What would make you recommend a Shopify plan other than Plus?
- How do you verify data and redirect completeness?
- How are integration failures detected and reconciled?
- Who will make architecture decisions on our project?
- What does the client need to deliver, and by when?
- Which costs are outside the quoted scope?
- What happens in the first two weeks after launch?
- How would another partner take over the solution later?
The right agency makes the decision clearer
A credible Shopify Plus agency should make constraints and trade-offs easier to understand. It should be willing to recommend less technology when that is the better business decision and able to explain where deeper discovery is still required.
If your shortlist involves international commerce, B2B or connected back-office systems, explore Growly’s Shopify Plus agency service and selected work.