Shopify development that turns browsers into buyers

Shopify is excellent for small to mid-size businesses looking for a reliable, easy-to-manage storefront with monthly costs starting around EUR 30. Shopify Plus is designed for high-volume merchants who need advanced features like custom checkout extensibility via Checkout UI Extensions, automation with Shopify Flow, B2B wholesale channels, multi-store management from a single organisation, and dedicated support with a Merchant Success Manager. If you process over 10,000 orders per month, need multi-currency storefronts for European markets, or require custom checkout logic, Shopify Plus is typically the better investment. As a Shopify development agency in Malta, we assess your requirements and recommend the right tier based on your growth trajectory.

Hydrogen is Shopify's React-based framework for building custom, headless storefronts deployed on Shopify Oxygen. It gives you complete control over the front-end experience — including page transitions, micro-interactions, and dynamic personalisation — while still leveraging Shopify's backend for product management, checkout, and payments via the Storefront API. Hydrogen is ideal for brands that need unique, highly interactive experiences that go beyond what standard Liquid themes can offer, such as immersive product storytelling, AR try-on integrations, or complex product configurators. However, it requires a larger development investment (typically EUR 25,000+) and ongoing React expertise. Our Shopify Hydrogen development team in Malta helps you weigh the benefits against your budget and goals.

Yes. We develop both public and custom Shopify apps using Shopify App Bridge, Polaris design system, and the Admin API. Whether you need a custom loyalty programme, advanced product configurator with real-time pricing, subscription management with Shopify's native subscription APIs, or integration with your ERP system like SAP or Shireburn Indigo, we build apps that extend Shopify's native capabilities to fit your specific workflows. Every app we build follows Shopify's latest standards including App Embed blocks and Theme App Extensions for seamless merchant experience.

A custom Shopify theme build typically ranges from EUR 5,000 to EUR 10,000 for a Starter package covering a bespoke OS 2.0 theme, up to 5 page templates, SEO foundations, and 30-day post-launch support. Growth-tier projects with advanced customisation, app integrations, platform migration, and CRO optimisation range from EUR 10,000 to EUR 25,000 including 3-month support. Enterprise Shopify Plus projects with Hydrogen headless builds, custom app development, multi-store setups, or complex integrations range from EUR 25,000 to EUR 60,000+, typically with a 12-month retainer. We provide detailed, transparent quotes after an initial discovery session — no hidden fees.

Absolutely. We have migrated stores from WooCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop, Squarespace, BigCommerce, and custom-built platforms to Shopify and Shopify Plus. Our Shopify migration process covers product data (including variants, metafields, and images), customer records with password reset flows, order history for lifetime value analysis, 301 URL redirects for SEO preservation, payment gateway reconfiguration, and email marketing platform re-integration. We plan every migration to minimise downtime — most stores experience less than 2 hours of read-only mode — and protect your search rankings with comprehensive redirect mapping.

Yes. SEO is built into every Shopify store we create as a Shopify developer in Malta. We implement JSON-LD structured data markup (Product, BreadcrumbList, FAQPage, Organisation), optimise meta tags and URL structures, configure canonical URLs to prevent duplicate content, build XML sitemaps with proper priority weighting, implement hreflang tags for multi-language stores, and ensure your site loads fast with optimised images, lazy loading, and minimal render-blocking resources. We also offer ongoing SEO retainers for content optimisation, link-building strategy, Core Web Vitals monitoring, and technical SEO auditing specific to the Shopify platform.

Shopify developer rates in Malta vary based on experience and project scope. Junior developers typically charge EUR 25-45 per hour, while senior Shopify developers and architects range from EUR 60-120 per hour. At Born Digital, we prefer fixed-price project quotes rather than hourly billing because it gives you cost certainty and aligns incentives — we focus on delivering outcomes, not logging hours. Our Starter packages begin at EUR 5,000 and include a complete custom theme, SEO setup, and post-launch support. For ongoing development and maintenance, our monthly retainers start at EUR 800 per month for up to 10 hours of development, theme updates, and performance monitoring.

The choice depends on your priorities. Shopify excels at ease of use, reliability, and speed-to-market — it handles hosting, security, and PCI compliance for you, and its checkout is one of the highest-converting in the industry. WooCommerce offers more flexibility and lower platform costs since it runs on WordPress, but requires more technical management for hosting, security patches, and performance optimisation. For most Malta-based businesses selling online, we recommend Shopify for its lower total cost of ownership and faster time-to-revenue. However, if you already have a content-heavy WordPress site and need deep CMS integration, WooCommerce may be the better fit. We also offer MedusaJS as a modern open-source alternative for brands that want full code ownership with a headless-first architecture.