Shopify's first-line support is good for what it is: account questions, billing, theme installation, basic app troubleshooting. It is not, and was never designed to be, deep technical help. Once a problem is unusual enough, the rep escalates to "the engineering team will get back to you within 5–10 business days" — and for a Plus merchant doing serious revenue, that's not a real answer.
The gap between "Shopify L1 support" and "$5,000/month Shopify Plus agency retainer" is where I work. Most Plus merchants don't need a full agency every month; they need someone who can dive into the theme, the Liquid, the Storefront API, the integrations, and the performance — when something specific is on fire.
What "Level 3" actually means here
The tiering nobody explains:
Level 1: "How do I add a product?" Shopify chat handles it. Free.
Level 2: "Why isn't my discount code applying to bundled products?" Shopify Help Center, an experienced merchant friend, or a $50 Fiverr fix.
Level 3: "Our checkout has slowed by 1.2 seconds since we added two apps; one of them is firing 200 requests per page; we need to find which app, why, and either fix or replace it." This is real work, requires deep familiarity with the platform, and is what I do.
If your problem can be solved by a forum post or by reinstalling an app, you don't need me. If it requires reading minified JavaScript at 2am to figure out which third-party tag is the slow one, you do.
The kinds of problems I take on
Specific, because vague service descriptions are useless:
Performance triage. Your Lighthouse score is in the 30s. PageSpeed is showing 4-second LCPs. Core Web Vitals are failing. You suspect apps but you can't tell which. I audit the storefront, find the actual culprits (it's nearly always 3 apps doing 80% of the damage), and either remove them, replace them, or make them async. Typical engagement: 6–15 hours, $300–$750.
Custom theme work beyond Shopify's editor. You need a section that does something the theme doesn't support — a configurator, a quote builder, a product comparison overlay, a custom search experience. Liquid + JS + Storefront API where it makes sense. Typical engagement: 8–40 hours depending on scope.
App integration debugging. You have a stack of apps (subscription, loyalty, CRM, ERP, fulfilment) and they're conflicting. Orders are being duplicated, customer accounts are out of sync, the loyalty app isn't seeing the subscription orders. I trace the actual flow, find the breakage, and fix it — sometimes by reconfiguring the apps, sometimes by writing a small middleware that sits between them.
Migration support. From Shopify to Plus, from another platform to Shopify, or from one Shopify theme to another. The migration mechanics + redirects + SEO preservation. Same SEO-preservation discipline as my WordPress migration work — old-URL redirects, schema markup, image URL handling, the boring critical stuff.
Storefront API work. Custom storefronts, headless setups, mobile apps, kiosk integrations. Read-side work is straightforward; write-side (creating orders, managing carts) is where most agencies' work breaks down. I've shipped both.
Scripts (legacy) → Functions migration. Shopify is sunsetting Scripts; if your store has Scripts that need to become Functions, I do that work cleanly without breaking the existing logic.
Emergency triage. Things have stopped working. The site went down at 11pm. The checkout is throwing 500s. A theme update broke product pages. I'm available for ad-hoc emergencies at $75/hr (1.5x normal rate) — that premium is what you pay for "I'll be on it within an hour" instead of "we'll get back to you Monday."
What I won't do
A few things I turn down on Shopify, in the interest of being useful:
- Theme design from scratch. I'm a developer, not a designer. If you need a new look, hire a Shopify-experienced designer first; I'll happily implement what they design.
- Massive multi-store enterprise rollouts. That's an agency's job. Five stores or fewer, sure. Fifty stores with localised inventory and complex tax — find a Shopify Plus agency.
- Shopify Markets implementation if you have unusual tax/duty requirements. Cross-border tax is a specialist area, not a freelancer area. I'll help you find the right specialist.
- B2B work that needs deep Salesforce/NetSuite integration. I can help on the Shopify side; the ERP side needs that platform's specialist.
The "should I be on Plus at all?" question
About a third of the merchants who reach out about Plus tech support are actually on Plus when they shouldn't be, or not on Plus when they should be. Quick gut-check:
You should probably be on Plus if:
- You're doing $1M+/year revenue and growing
- You need true multi-store with shared inventory or shared customers
- You need wholesale + retail in the same Shopify org
- You're building custom checkouts, custom Functions, or doing significant Storefront API work
- Your stack has 20+ apps and the surface complexity is real
You probably shouldn't be on Plus if:
- You're paying for Plus only because the agency told you to
- You're at $300k/year revenue and the only Plus feature you use is staff accounts
- You don't have anyone (in-house or contractor) who can use the Plus dev features
- The actual problems you have would be solved by switching apps, not by upgrading
If you're considering Plus, I'll give you an honest read in the first call. There's no upsell motive on my end — my hourly rate is the same regardless of which plan you're on.
Pricing
Same as my other work:
- $50 USD/hr for ad-hoc / triage / clearly-scoped work
- $75/hr for emergency / out-of-hours response (within 1–2 hours)
- $500/mo retainer for ongoing 10 hours/month — best for stores with steady backlog
- Fixed-price for clearly-scoped projects (migration, performance overhaul, custom feature) after a paid scoping session
What's NOT charged:
- The first 30-minute call
- Quotes for fixed-price work
- "Quick look" diagnostic time (I'll tell you if I think it's not worth charging for; about 1 in 5 issues turn out to be 10-minute fixes)
Free starting point
Before we even talk, you can get useful diagnostic info from two free things:
- SEOCheck — my free crawler will run your storefront and surface the SEO/performance things that any Shopify dev should fix first.
- Shopify's own Web Performance dashboard — gives you a Lighthouse-style score and identifies obvious culprits.
Run those before our call and we can spend the call on the things that aren't obvious.
How to start
First conversation is free, 30 minutes. Useful to bring:
- Your storefront URL and Plus org name
- A specific problem you want solved or evaluated
- Approximate revenue scale (helps me calibrate the right level of investment)
- Your current app stack (a screenshot of the apps page is fine)
I'll tell you whether I think I'm a fit, give you a rough estimate, and recommend an alternative if I'm not the right person.
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This page is for technical Shopify Plus work specifically. For the broader L3 strategy across all platforms, see Level 3 Tech Support for Businesses Without an IT Team.