Most conversations about going headless stall on price before they get anywhere useful, because the number is vague. Vagueness here loses meetings, so this is the direct version: what a full replatform costs, what it costs every month afterward, what people forget to budget, and when the honest answer is not to do it at all.

The build

A full replatform, meaning a custom storefront built to replace a theme entirely, starts from $15,000, fixed. If your theme is largely fine and the problem is narrower, targeted performance work starts from $4,000. Both are quoted in writing before work starts, and both are flat fees, not estimates.

Nothing in this practice is billed hourly, at any point, on either kind of engagement. Scope is written down up front. If something comes up that is genuinely outside that scope, it gets quoted separately, in writing, before it starts, not added to a running tab.

What actually moves the build fee is the number of templates the storefront needs and how much of the product experience gets rebuilt: a home, collection, and product page is the core of it, but a full replatform usually also covers cart, search, account, policy pages, and the error states around all of them. Two rounds of design revision are standard, with feedback consolidated into a single response per round, so the fixed scope stays clear for everyone.

Hosting is a new line item, and it should be stated up front

This is the part that surprises people, and it shouldn't, because it is simple once someone says it plainly. Shopify hosts a theme for you as part of the plan you already pay for. A custom storefront is not a theme, so Shopify does not host it. Hosting becomes a real, new monthly cost, and the honest thing to do is put a number on it before you sign anything, not let you discover it at launch.

That number starts from $200 a month. It is not a markup on server space. It covers a specific set of things a storefront actually needs to stay fast, secure, and online:

• Production hosting on a global edge network, which is where most of the speed improvement over a theme comes from
• SSL, domain, and DNS management
• Deployment infrastructure and a staging environment, so changes get reviewed before they go live
• Uptime and error monitoring, with alerting
• Security patching and dependency updates
• Automated backups and rollback capability

Ongoing support is separate

Separate from hosting, and not required, ongoing development support is scoped after launch based on the work your team actually needs. It can cover content and layout changes, seasonal campaign pages, flow and tracking upkeep, and priority response during your busiest season.

Most brands don't start this at launch. They start it after their first season, once they know what kind of ongoing work they actually need instead of guessing at launch.

What people forget to budget

The build fee and the hosting fee are the two numbers people ask about. The three that get forgotten are photography, copywriting, and the internal cost of your own time: reviewing design rounds, giving consolidated feedback, and getting access and source files to whoever is building the site on schedule. None of those are line items on an invoice, but all three affect the timeline and the outcome as much as anything that is.

Photography and copywriting matter here specifically because a headless build removes the excuse a theme used to provide. A template could hide inconsistent photography inside a rigid grid. A custom storefront built for your product will show exactly how consistent, or not, your source material actually is. Budgeting for a shoot alongside the build, rather than after it, is usually the difference between a launch that looks considered and one that looks rushed.

When headless is not worth it

Headless is not worth it for every store. It is not worth it if your catalog is small enough that a theme's limitations never actually surface. It may not be the right next step if you are not running meaningful traffic to the store, because much of the return on speed and control shows up at scale. And it is not worth it if your current theme is working well. A theme that is working is not a problem to solve.

The numbers together

Full detail on scope, timeline, and what stays the same in Shopify is on the headless commerce page, and the published floors are on pricing. If you are not sure which side of this you are on, the teardown is the place to find out before either of us commits to anything.