Build & Migrate
Headless Commerce
Hydrogen builds, when the case holds.
(opens in a new tab) Headless solves real problems and creates new ones. We build on Hydrogen and the Storefront API where the case holds, and we will tell you when a well-built Liquid theme is the better answer, which is more often than the pitch decks suggest.
The brands we build, run and answer for.
Certified, not badge-only Choosing a headless shopify agency is mostly a decision about who maintains it in year two.
Read the case studiesA decoupled storefront buys render speed you cannot get from a theme, a front end your team can build in without touching Liquid, and content that can come from anywhere. It also buys a second codebase, a build pipeline and a class of bug no Shopify support agent can help with.
Our servicesHeadless commerce agency
Why headless is the wrong answer more often than the right one
We say yes to it less often than the phrase headless commerce agency would suggest, because for most stores the honest recommendation is a fast theme. The examples that justify it look alike, and if none of them describes you, a headless build is a way to spend a rebuild budget on infrastructure instead of on conversion.
The cases that hold
- Heavy editorial alongside the catalogue
- One content source serving several brands or markets
- Product configuration too complex for a theme to model
- In-house front-end developers who are currently blocked
Probably not this, then
- Speed is the whole reason, and nobody has measured the theme yet
- The store depends on apps that inject into the theme
- Your marketing team edits the site themselves
- Nobody internally would own the front end afterwards
When the question is live
Two stores whose requirements sit squarely on the checklist above, and what we built instead.
Headless commerce agency
Product rules a theme could not model, on a theme
Black Sand came to us in 2022 with no storefront at all. Deals were quoted and closed in a WhatsApp thread, which works until prices move by buyer, by volume and by market, and have to stay confidential. Per-buyer catalogues are the third item on the checklist above, and it is the item that most often arrives described as a headless requirement.
It was not one. We built a trade store where each buyer sees their own catalogue and their own prices, with a qualifying funnel deciding who sees what, on standard Shopify with customer tags rather than a decoupled front end. We still run its search, lead generation and paid ads. A headless build would have bought the same behaviour and a second codebase to keep it in.
Knack Snacks
UK and US markets, subscriptions
Headless Shopify development
Two markets and one admin, without a second codebase
Knack Snacks sells high-protein chocolate snacks to customers in the UK and the US. People buy them again and again, which makes it a subscription business whether or not the store is built as one, and serving two markets from one content source is the second item on the checklist.
We built it subscription-first on Horizon, with the subscription choice inside the product page, then took on the paid ads, email and day-to-day support behind it. Markets handles the second storefront natively. The version of this brief that needs a decoupled front end is the one where the markets diverge in content rather than in currency, and this one did not.
Headless Shopify development
What a headless Shopify build with Hydrogen includes
Three groups, and the third decides most projects. We name what you give up before a decision rather than after it.
The front end
Hydrogen, not a bespoke stack
Shopify native, which keeps you closer to the platform than a framework nobody else on your team has seen, and makes the maintenance burden survivable.
Server rendering first
Pages render on the server before JavaScript runs. That is the whole of the SEO answer, and it is a decision taken on day one or not at all.
Oxygen hosting
Shopify hosts it, so the deploy pipeline and the edge are theirs rather than a third bill and a third support queue.
The back end you keep
Storefront API
Products, collections, carts and customer data come from the same admin your team already uses. Nothing about merchandising moves.
Checkout stays Shopify
The part that takes money is not rebuilt, which is the single biggest reason to go headless on Shopify rather than off it.
Content from anywhere
A separate CMS behind the storefront, where editorial genuinely outweighs catalogue. This is the case that justifies the build more often than speed does.
What you give up
Most of the app ecosystem
Apps that inject into a theme stop working. Named explicitly before a decision, with what replaces each one and what that costs to build.
The theme editor
Your team stops arranging sections and starts raising tickets. This is the change people underestimate, because it is a change to how the business works rather than to the site.
A permanent owner
A headless front end without somebody responsible for it degrades quickly. We say who that is before the build, and it is a real answer or we do not start.
When the theme wins
The brief that arrives with a decoupled front end already assumed, and the store we test every architecture decision on first.
Nour Hammour
Build, CRO and ongoing support
Headless ecommerce agency
A luxury storefront that had to feel the way the coat does
Nour Hammour makes leather and tailored outerwear in Paris. At that price point a brand is judged on its site before the product ever arrives, so the storefront has to feel the way the coat does. This is the brief that arrives most often with a decoupled front end already assumed, on the grounds that a theme cannot carry it.
We built it, tested it, and we keep it running day to day on a retainer, so the store is looked after by the people who know how it was made. The editorial weight sits on the theme. What a headless build would have added here is a front-end maintenance burden, for a brand whose team edits content rather than components.
Headless ecommerce development agency
Where the cost of owning a front end is ours
Powerlete is our own sportswear brand, built and scaled from launch, and the store every change is tested on before it reaches a client. When an architecture decision costs money, it costs ours first, which is most of the reason the recommendation on this page is worth anything.
It is the reference point behind the performance argument too. Every build here is held to a Core Web Vitals budget set before the design starts, measured rather than asserted, because speed is the reason given for most headless projects and it is the one claim that can be checked cheaply on a theme before anybody commits to a rebuild.
Headless ecommerce agency
What the second codebase actually costs
| Capability | Liquid theme | Hydrogen headless |
|---|---|---|
| Front-end code | Liquid, in the theme | A second codebase, in React |
| Hosting and deploys | Shopify, nothing to run | Oxygen, with a build pipeline |
| Theme editor | Your team rearranges sections | Developers ship changes |
| App ecosystem | The full App Store | Only what has an API |
| Checkout | Shopify checkout | Shopify checkout, unchanged |
| Content model | Metaobjects and metafields | Any CMS you choose |
| Who fixes a front-end bug | Shopify support, or us | Only whoever owns the code |
If you came looking for a headless ecommerce development agency or a headless ecommerce agency rather than a headless Shopify one specifically, the checklist above still applies: the question is whether headless earns its cost, not which platform runs underneath it. We answer that question for Shopify because it is the only platform we build on, and we would rather send you elsewhere than stretch the same answer across a stack we do not run.
Headless ecommerce development agency
How we decide whether to go headless at all
Four steps, and the first one can end the project. An assessment that recommends a theme is a complete piece of work, not a failed sale.
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Assess
What you are trying to achieve, and whether headless is the cheapest way there. Sometimes the outcome is a recommendation not to.
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Architect
Stack, hosting, CMS and the integration points, with ownership agreed.
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Build
Hydrogen build against the Storefront API, with performance budgets enforced in CI.
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Own it
Documentation and handover, or an ongoing arrangement. A headless front end without an owner degrades quickly.
Reviews on the Shopify Partner Directory
Merchants, in their own words.
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From start to finish, they were incredibly easy to work with. They understood the brief perfectly and delivered to a very high standard. Communication was excellent throughout, with quick and clear responses to any questions I had.
Tacky And Upsetting Store build or redesign · April 2026
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The things [the team] have put in place and recommended for us have paid immediate dividend. We wish we had come in contact with [them] sooner.
ARTMARTIAL Store build or redesign · April 2026
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I can’t recommend [the team] enough, [they] helped us with everything from product design, supplier communication to website building and SEO. We were able to build a brand off the back of all [their] information and help.
Reveliér Studios Business strategy guidance · April 2026
How we work with you
The assessment
A fixed-price read on whether headless is the cheapest way to what you are actually trying to achieve. Sometimes the deliverable is a recommendation not to, and that is a complete piece of work rather than a failed sale.
Fixed scopeHydrogen build
A fixed scope with a launch date, where the case holds: architecture, the CMS decision, the integration points, and the ownership question answered before any code.
ProjectThe theme answer
The other outcome, and the more common one. A rebuild or a rework on Liquid, held to the same performance budget, at a fraction of what owning a front end costs. What Black Sand, Knack Snacks and Nour Hammour run with us.
Project or retainerKeep reading
Everything around the decision
What we would probably build instead
If the case does hold
Partners
Tools we have already run on our own stores
The apps around a Shopify store decide as much as the theme does, and choosing between thousands of them is most of the work. We are a Shopify Plus Partner and we integrate the tools that sit around the platform. Every one of them runs on our own two stores before it reaches a client, so the recommendation you get comes from having paid for the thing and lived with it. When a brand already runs a stack that works, we integrate with it rather than rebuilding it to suit us.
How we use them
Straight answers
What happens to SEO in a single page application build?
It survives if it is designed in and dies if it is assumed. The classic failure of seo in single page application builds is content that only exists after JavaScript runs, so crawlers index an empty shell. Headless done properly renders pages on the server first, which is why we build on Hydrogen rather than bolting a storefront onto a client-side app, and why every headless project here ships with the same metadata, structured data and redirect discipline as a standard build.
Are you a headless Shopify agency, or a headless commerce agency?
Both phrases describe the same team, as would a headless ecommerce development agency. We build on Shopify and nowhere else, so the honest version is that we answer the headless question for Shopify merchants rather than selling a stack across platforms we do not run.
How often do you actually recommend going headless?
Rarely, and we would rather say so here than at a retrospective. Most stores that ask for it are asking for speed, or for a design a theme is assumed not to carry, and both are usually cheaper to solve on Liquid. The cases that do hold are the four listed above.
Will a headless build make the store faster?
Usually yes, and usually not by enough to justify it on its own. A well-built theme held to a Core Web Vitals budget gets most of the way there for a fraction of the cost, and the difference is measurable before anybody commits. If speed is the only reason, we will show you the theme number first.
What happens to our apps?
Most of them stop working, and this is the part that surprises people. Anything that injects into a theme has nothing to inject into. Anything with a real API can be rebuilt into the front end, at a cost we name per app before the decision rather than after it.
Can our marketing team still edit the site?
Only as far as you build for it. The theme editor is gone, so content editing moves to a CMS somebody has to choose, configure and pay for. Teams used to rearranging sections themselves feel this within a fortnight, and it is worth deciding deliberately rather than discovering.
Do you use Hydrogen, or another framework?
Hydrogen, on Oxygen. It is Shopify native, which keeps the build close to the platform and the hosting on the same bill, and it means the next team to touch it is reading something documented rather than something we invented.
What does a headless build cost to own, rather than to build?
A front-end codebase needs an owner, a deploy pipeline and somebody on call for a class of bug no Shopify support agent can help with. We put a number on that before the build, because the ownership cost is where these projects are regretted, not the launch.
We already have a headless storefront and it is not working. Can you help?
Often, and the first job is a diagnosis rather than a rebuild. Sometimes the fix is rendering, sometimes it is the CMS, and sometimes the honest answer is that the store should come back to a theme. We will tell you which one it is before quoting for any of them.
Tell us what the store needs to do
Send the store URL and what is in the way. We reply personally, and if the honest answer is that a theme gets you there, that is the reply you get.
Stores we build and grow
Start a conversation
Ask us whether you need this.
Send the store URL and the reason headless came up. We will come back with what we would change first, what it would take, and whether a second codebase is any part of the answer.
Get in touch