You Didn’t Hire a Developer for Maintenance
When you engaged a developer, the intention was not to entrust them with plugin updates. Rather, you sought their expertise to cultivate features that would propel your business forward.
Yet somewhere along the journey—amidst the installation of a myriad of plugins and the emergence of multiple security vulnerabilities—maintenance became the predominant task.
This includes rectifying plugin conflicts, rigorously testing security patches, and troubleshooting why the checkout process faltered on mobile devices after a recent update.
This often deviates from the original plan, morphing into a quotidian reality.
Kyle, Vice President of E-commerce at Dollar Shave Club, divulged that his team allocated an estimated 40% of their development time solely to upkeep when operating on their custom platform.
This was not an endeavor of innovation or a quest to build new features, but rather a relentless cycle of maintaining the status quo.
If this predicament resonates, you are far from solitary. This scenario is commonplace for brands utilizing custom platforms, and the associated costs extend far beyond mere developer hours—encompassing lost opportunities, unbuilt features, diminishing competitive edges, and innovations languishing in the backlog.
The silver lining? Transitioning to a new platform may be less formidable than anticipated. Research indicates that migrations to Shopify are 36% faster, 56% more cost-effective, and 74% more likely to reach completion on schedule compared to custom platforms.
Beyond the migration lies a palpable transformation; an examination of the actual costs of maintenance reveals what becomes achievable when development time is redirected toward growth.
Curious About This Transformation?
Engage with our comprehensive dialogue featuring teams from Dollar Shave Club and Arhaus as they recount their migration experiences, including the innovative developments that unfolded once their teams shifted focus from maintenance to breakthrough advancements.
The Real Cost: What’s Escaped from Your Development Roadmap
While your team dedicates efforts to preserving existing functionalities, an array of opportunities languishes in the backlog:
- Checkout optimizations are poised to diminish customer acquisition expenses.
- Conversion enhancements that would safeguard your profit margins.
- Personalization features that competitors rolled out last quarter.
- Mobile experience enhancements are perpetually relegated to the priority list.
- New sales avenues like AI platforms are reshaping product discovery.
Do you aspire to market through ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Microsoft Copilot as these platforms evolve into product discovery mediums?
Developing those integrations independently could entail months of labor for each platform, continuous maintenance, and robust infrastructure to manage increasing traffic.
In contrast, Shopify’s Agentic Storefronts facilitate this process within mere clicks—permitting your products to be discovered in AI conversations with customers ready to checkout.
The opportunity cost is evident in subtler forms as well. Consider how much of your team’s time is consumed constructing internal tools merely for performance analytics, generating product content, or diagnosing issues.
Shopify’s AI assistant, Sidekick, executes these tasks instantaneously, reducing what previously demanded bespoke development to straightforward inquiries. Since January 2025, it has facilitated nearly 100 million merchant conversations.
Ryan Donahue, Shopify Practice Lead at CQL, recognizes this trend among the brands his team assists: We refer to it as the 80/20 rule, wherein you can often fulfill 80% or more of what you need using third-party applications and built-in functionalities.
Implementing Apple Pay on Shopify is a checkbox; on a custom platform, however, it’s a multi-month undertaking involving adept engineers.
This opportunity cost extends beyond individual features. It encompasses the potential market positioning, experimental avenues, and innovations that perish within the confines of someone’s mind due to a lack of available bandwidth.
The Compounding Challenge and Potential Solutions
The crux of the issue is unequivocal: Commerce innovation progresses at a pace surpassing that of any singular enterprise.
Ryan succinctly articulates this: “Regardless of your team’s caliber, the market will invariably advance quicker than your company.”
This predicament arises when significant development resources are diverted towards the upkeep of custom platforms, rather than pioneering new capabilities.
While your team focuses on maintaining last year’s creations, rivals are introducing features not yet on your radar: expedited checkouts, adaptable payment options, and AI-driven personalization—innovations essential for converting browsers into buyers.
Consumer expectations are shaped not by your site, but by the premier shopping experiences individuals have encountered, irrespective of the platform. This standard elevates every quarter, and when your development bandwidth is consumed by maintenance, you inevitably lag further behind.
You are not merely contending with other businesses utilizing custom stacks; you are up against entities whose commerce platforms afford them a six-month head start on every new capability.
A shift in mindset is as critical as the time savings. Transitioning from “Can we develop this?” to “Should we develop this?” enabled swifter timelines for experimentation instead of months-long cycles.
The Nurturing Framework of Shopify
Shopify adeptly supervises the infrastructure, security, and baseline commerce functionalities, absolving your team from these obligations. The platform’s built-in advantages include:
Inherent Security and Compliance
Security and compliance within custom platforms mandate dedicated resources: audit cycles, manual patching, vulnerability monitoring, and specialized expertise. Conversely, Shopify offers platform-managed infrastructure.
Shopify is PCI DSS Level 1 compliant—the pinnacle designation—alongside certifications SOC 1, 2, and 3, and ensures automatic PCIv4 compliance as regulations develop.
Security upgrades, compliance certifications, vulnerability remediation, SSL encryption, fraud deterrence, and DDoS safeguards are managed at the platform level.
Maintaining PCI compliance within custom implementations necessitates annual audits, quarterly scans, manual patching across core systems and plugins, and ongoing documentation.
The resources that traditionally support security endeavors can be redirected to pioneer revenue-generating features, as what once required specialized teams and ongoing resource allocations is now integrated into the platform.
Enhanced Usability, Agility, and an Exemplary Partner Ecosystem
Shopify’s expansive ecosystem of over 10,000 applications is not a haphazard assembly of plugins. Each undergoes rigorous evaluation prior to publication, conforming to performance and security standards while being sandboxed to avert conflicts.
These applications are crafted by specialists dedicated to addressing specific commerce challenges, continually tested across a multitude of implementations.
Steve from Arhaus articulated this advantage: “The extensive community of developers catering to varying business sizes ensures that we can keep our platform updated and continually enhance the consumer experience.”
Ryan from CQL provided a tangible illustration: When utilizing platforms like Klaviyo or Yotpo, an individual may require a custom integration, a process that could span months.
In stark contrast, implementing Apple Pay is a checkbox on Shopify, while it would entail a three-month project requiring top-tier engineers and extensive testing on a custom platform.
With thousands of brands engaging the same platform, shared solutions arise from common challenges, allowing for collaborative learning rather than reinventing solutions from the ground up.
Rapid Deployment and Fiscal Efficiency
During your assessment of migration options, you are likely weighing multiple platforms beyond just Shopify. Data consistently illustrates Shopify’s superior performance.
According to time-to-value research commissioned by Shopify and disseminated by EY in October 2025, migrations to Shopify, when juxtaposed with custom platforms, demonstrate:
- Implementation is 36% swifter.
- There is a 74% greater likelihood of punctual completion.
- Overall costs are 56% more manageable.
- Staying within budget is 1.9 times more probable.
Furthermore, total cost of ownership data reveals that Shopify delivers, on average, a 33% superior TCO, 23% lower platform costs, and 19% diminished operational and maintenance expenses compared to competitors such as BigCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and Adobe Commerce.
Transitioning from Defensive to Offensive Strategies
Kyle from Dollar Shave Club recounted their evolution: “Initially, we were primarily focused on defense. However, we have since shifted to thoughtfully constructing a roadmap designed to enhance consumer satisfaction and bolster key performance indicators related to retention.”
Steve from Arhaus conveyed their current concentration: “My primary objective now is to advance initiatives yet unseen within our sector.”
Such inquiries become feasible when maintenance ceases to dominate your available capacity.
Real Results from Brands That Embraced Change:
- MakerFlo transformed a 5-10 month loyalty program implementation into mere days or hours, yielding a $120,000 annual savings now redirected to revenue-generating innovations.
- Lull overhauled a decade of custom infrastructure within six months at a cost under $10,000, achieving a 25% reduction in infrastructure expenses, a 25% decrease in payment processing fees, and expediting product launches from months to mere minutes.
- Peter Sheppard Footwear tripled its conversion rates while granting business users autonomy in merchandising, freeing developers to focus on strategic initiatives.
- Arhaus achieved national scale with a uniform customer experience, experimenting with industry-first innovations unencumbered by platform limitations.
Kyle articulated the equilibrium: “It’s akin to a pendulum. A completely custom approach means every aspect is your decision; however, a purely out-of-the-box strategy lacks character. The balance we have struck with Shopify allows us to utilize existing solutions while imprinting our unique identity.”
Ryan from CQL proposed guidance: “Numerous distinctive features and touchpoints warrant additional time and budget to achieve precision; prioritize those singular investments. However, a superior overall experience need not stem from bespoke customizations.”
The Path Forward
This discourse transcends the simple comparison of WordPress against Shopify. It centers on the balance between your strategic roadmap and the looming maintenance backlog.
Reflect on these pivotal questions:
- What initiatives have been stagnant for six months due to a perceived lack of resources?
- Which features are competitors launching that remain unattainable for your team?
- What innovative ideas has your marketing team proposed that never advanced beyond “we will investigate”?
- How do you intend to adapt when selling through AI chatbots becomes a standard procedure?
- If your developers had an additional 40% capacity, what would be your primary focus?
Eduardo Fris, Field CTO at Shopify, encapsulated the prevalent transformation: “Many elements we’ve built were born of capability rather than necessity. Over time, we may have lost sight of these motivations, which are not always relevant.”
A migration serves as an opportunity to discern between what genuinely propels your business and what constitutes merely accumulated complexity.
Source link: Shopify.com.
