Hiring a Shopify developer: FAQ
These are answers to what clients ask before hiring me, from my $45 hourly rate and payment terms to how I cover US and EU working hours from Lahore.
19 questions
$45 an hour. Every quote is hours x $45, agreed in writing before I start. Typical starting points: the store audit is $450 fixed, speed work starts at $540, Shopify Plus work at $675, a migration at $1,350, a custom theme at $2,700 and a headless build at $7,200. Monthly support starts at $225.
An audit takes 5 working days and speed work 1 to 2 weeks. Shopify Plus jobs run 1 to 4 weeks, migrations 2 to 4 weeks, custom themes 3 to 5 weeks and headless builds 8 to 12 weeks. Small fixes usually take 1 to 2 working days. Your quote gives a date for your project.
Yes. I'm in Lahore (PKT, UTC+5) and I set my working day to match yours. A full UK or EU business day falls in my afternoon and evening. For US clients I work a late shift: 9am to 5pm Eastern is 7pm to 3am in Lahore in winter, and I can cover Pacific hours the same way.
By email, Slack or the project tool you already use, including Jira, Asana and ClickUp. I reply within 24 hours, join video calls in your working hours and send short Loom videos when something is easier to show than to write.
In US dollars, by Wise, Payoneer or direct bank transfer, or through Upwork if you prefer its contracts. Fixed-price projects are 50% to start and 50% on delivery, the audit is paid up front, support plans are billed at the start of each month, and hourly work is invoiced weekly.
Yes. I'll sign your NDA before you share code or designs, and every project runs on a short written agreement that covers scope, price, payment and ownership. US clients can get a W-8BEN form from me.
You do, once the work is paid for. Third-party themes and apps stay under their own licences. I only show your project in my portfolio if you're happy for me to.
Fixed-price builds include two rounds of changes against the agreed design and scope. After that, or for anything new, I quote the extra hours at $45 before doing them. On hourly work, changes are simply more hours.
I fix bugs in my own code for free for 30 days after launch. After that you can book hours when you need them, or take a monthly support plan from $225 for 5 hours.
Yes. I've built checkout UI extensions and Shopify Functions at Louise Carter, and done Plus theme, subscription and performance work on the John Masters Organics UK store. If your discounts or shipping rules ran on Shopify Scripts, which stopped running on 30 June 2026, I can rebuild them as Functions. Plus work starts at $675.
Usually not. A well-built Liquid theme can be just as fast, costs less and keeps the theme editor and theme apps working. Headless makes sense for app-like or content-heavy storefronts and for teams that already work in React. I build headless stores on Next.js or React Router with Shopify's Hydrogen library, from $7,200.
Usually, yes. The common causes are leftover app code, render-blocking scripts, oversized images and heavy Liquid. I measure with Lighthouse and Core Web Vitals before and after; the Louise Carter flagship scored 98 with 47,000+ reviews on its product pages. I won't promise a score until I've measured your store. Speed work starts at $540.
I can audit it and fix what the audit finds. The EAA has applied since 28 June 2025 to online shops selling to consumers in the EU, with an exemption for micro-enterprises (under 10 staff and no more than 2 million euros in annual turnover or balance sheet). The usual benchmark is WCAG 2.1 AA, and my $450 audit shows where your store fails it. I'm a developer, so take legal questions to a lawyer.
Yes. I build themes, fixes and speed work under your agency's brand, sign your NDA, work in your repo and tools, and don't contact your clients unless you ask me to. Agency work is $45 an hour, per ticket or as a monthly block of hours.
I'm a developer first. I build from your Figma, Adobe XD or PSD files, or work alongside your designer. If you have no design yet, a good Theme Store theme adapted to your brand with a few custom sections is often the cheaper route, and I can set that up. For a brand or visual identity from scratch, hire a designer.
Yes. A lot of Shopify work is changing a theme you already have, whether that's Dawn or a premium theme: custom sections and blocks, bug fixes and speed work. One custom section starts at $135.
Yes. A single fix or one new section is fine. Small jobs are billed by the hour at $45, and you get the estimate before I start.
Yes. The reviews page has 60 client reviews: 41 from Upwork, where I'm rated 5.0 across 81 jobs with 100% Job Success, and 19 from the DesignDeck profile on Fiverr. My Upwork profile is public, so you can check them there too.
Email nabeel@nabeelyaseen.com, use the contact form or book a call. Send your store URL, what you want done and your deadline, and I'll reply within 24 hours with questions or a fixed quote. For an audit, the store URL is enough.
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If your question isn't here, send it with your store URL. I reply within 24 hours.