--- title: "How to Evaluate a Shopify Plus Agency | Couture Commerce" description: "How to evaluate a Shopify Plus agency: what to look for in portfolio, team and process, the red flags to avoid, and the questions to ask before you sign." canonical: https://couturecommerce.com/insights/evaluate-shopify-plus-agency/ --- 1. [Home](https://couturecommerce.com/) 2. [Insights](https://couturecommerce.com/insights/) 3. How to Evaluate a Shopify Plus Agency (Without Getting Burned Again) # How to Evaluate a Shopify Plus Agency (Without Getting Burned Again) - October 8, 2026 - Shopify Plus - 4 min read The pitch meeting is an unreliable indicator of the working relationship. Here is what to look for, which red flags matter, and the questions to ask before you sign. ![Ecommerce strategist planning a store redesign at a bright dining table](https://couturecommerce.com/_astro/strategist-working-at-table.DOa1xNjw_ZF5rKG.jpg) You’ve decided to invest in your ecommerce: a redesign, a migration to Shopify Plus, a retention program overhaul, or all three. Now you need to find an agency to build it. You’ll reach out to five or six, receive polished pitch decks from each, and face the same question every ecommerce brand faces at this stage: how do you tell the difference between an agency that will deliver and one that will disappoint? If you’ve been through an agency relationship that ended badly, you already know that the pitch meeting is an unreliable indicator of the working relationship. Every agency looks good in the pitch. The differentiation happens in the details, and knowing what to look for separates the brands that find the right partner from the ones that restart the search twelve months later. ## What to Look For ### Relevant Portfolio, Not Just Pretty Work Every agency has a portfolio. The question isn’t whether their work looks good. It’s whether they’ve done work like yours. “We build on Shopify Plus” is table stakes. What you want to know: have they migrated brands from your current platform? Have they worked in your product category? Have they built the specific functionality you need (subscriptions, B2B alongside DTC, complex product configurations)? Ask to speak directly with a client whose project was similar in scope to yours. Not a general reference, a specific one. If the agency can’t connect you with someone who had a similar project, that’s a signal. ### Who Actually Does the Work The pitch meeting typically features the agency’s senior leadership: the founder, the creative director, the head of strategy. These are the people who understand your business and give you confidence. The question is whether these people will actually work on your project. Ask directly: “Who will be the day-to-day team on my project? Can I meet them before we sign?” If the answer involves an account manager who coordinates with an offshore development team you’ll never interact with, that’s the model you’re buying, regardless of who was in the pitch meeting. ### How They Scope Projects Good agencies scope based on your business needs, not their service menu. They should be asking about your revenue targets, your current pain points, your customer data, your tech stack and your timeline, not pitching a pre-built package. Watch for agencies that propose a solution before they’ve asked enough questions. If the proposal arrives within days of the initial call, it’s likely a template with your name on it. ### Their Process, Specifically Ask the agency to walk you through their process in detail. Not “discovery, design, development, launch,” because that’s every agency. How long is discovery? What do they audit? How do they handle the redirect map during a migration? How many design rounds are included? What does QA look like? What happens in the first 30 days after launch? The agencies that have done this many times can describe their process with specificity and nuance. The ones who can’t are either new to this work or don’t have a repeatable process. Both are red flags for a complex project. ### How They Handle Failure Every project hits problems. The timeline slips. A migration reveals unexpected data complexity. A third-party integration doesn’t work as documented. What matters isn’t whether problems occur, but how the agency handles them. Ask: “Can you tell me about a project that didn’t go as planned and how you handled it?” An agency that can’t (or won’t) answer this honestly is an agency that hasn’t been tested or won’t be transparent with you when problems arise. ## Red Flags **They pitch before they listen.** If the agency starts the conversation by presenting their services rather than asking about your business, they’re selling a product, not offering a partnership. **They guarantee outcomes they can’t control.** “We’ll increase your conversion rate by 40%” is a red flag. Conversion rate depends on dozens of variables, many of which the agency doesn’t control (product, pricing, traffic quality). Honest agencies describe their process and share comparable results. They don’t make guarantees. **Their portfolio is all one style.** If every site in their portfolio looks identical, you’re hiring a template shop, not a custom design partner. Your brand should look like your brand, not like their last five clients. **The price feels too low.** A Shopify Plus redesign and migration by a competent team with a strategic process takes 10 to 16 weeks of senior effort. If an agency quotes a price that implies they’re spending three weeks on it, the scope or the quality (or both) is being cut somewhere. **They don’t mention what happens after launch.** The redesign is the beginning, not the end. An agency that scopes the project as “deliver site, handoff, done” is not thinking about your business. They’re thinking about their project pipeline. The best agencies plan for post-launch optimization, [lifecycle marketing](https://couturecommerce.com/services/lifecycle-marketing/) and ongoing partnership. If your last agency relationship ended badly, [why brands keep firing their agencies](https://couturecommerce.com/insights/fired-your-agency-again/) is worth a read before you start the next search. ## The Questions to Ask Before signing with any agency, get clear answers to these: 1. Who are the specific people on my team, and what are their roles? 2. How many other projects will they be working on simultaneously? 3. What does your discovery process include, and how long does it take? 4. How do you handle URL redirects and SEO preservation during a migration? 5. How many rounds of design revision are included? 6. What QA testing process do you follow before launch? 7. What does post-launch support look like: duration, scope and cost? 8. Can I speak to a client who had a project similar to mine? The agencies worth hiring will answer these clearly and specifically. The ones that deflect or generalize are telling you something. Looking for an agency that can answer all of these questions? We’d welcome the conversation. [Start a project inquiry](https://couturecommerce.com/project-inquiry/) and we’ll walk you through how we work on [redesign and replatforming](https://couturecommerce.com/services/redesign-replatforming/) projects. ## Frequently Asked Questions How do I tell a good Shopify Plus agency from a bad one? Look past the pitch. Ask for a portfolio of work like yours, find out who will actually do the work, and have them walk through their process in specific detail. The agencies that have done this many times describe their process with nuance. The ones that can't are either new to this work or have no repeatable process. What are the red flags when hiring a Shopify agency? The main ones are pitching before listening, guaranteeing outcomes they can't control, a portfolio where every site looks the same, pricing that implies far too little senior effort, and no plan for what happens after launch. [Related: Redesign & Replatforming](https://couturecommerce.com/services/redesign-replatforming/) [Start a Project](https://couturecommerce.com/project-inquiry/) ## Keep Reading [All Insights](https://couturecommerce.com/insights/) [ ### Is Shopify Plus Worth $2,300+/Month? An Honest Answer. Learn More ](https://couturecommerce.com/insights/is-shopify-plus-worth-it/)[ ### WooCommerce to Shopify: What Breaks and How to Prevent It Learn More ](https://couturecommerce.com/insights/woocommerce-to-shopify-migration/)[ ### Magento to Shopify Plus: The Complete Migration Playbook Learn More ](https://couturecommerce.com/insights/magento-to-shopify-plus-migration/)