budgeting
How to compare three agency quotes that aren't comparable
A $22k quote and a $70k quote for the same brief usually describe different projects. How to normalise them onto one page and find out which.
Guides
Written for store owners about to spend real money on development work. No listicles, no affiliate padding — the things we get asked in briefs, answered properly.
budgetingseooperationshiringplatforms
seo
How to replatform without losing your search traffic
Migrations lose traffic for one of four reasons, and all four are preventable. The redirect map, the URL audit, the staging leak and the launch-week panic.
operations
What an ecommerce agency retainer should actually cover
Most retainers quietly become hosting-and-hoping. What to buy instead, how to size it, and the three questions that tell you whether yours is working.
hiring
What to check before you sign an ecommerce agency contract
Ownership, access, scope, payment and exit — the five clauses that decide what happens when a build goes well, and what happens when it doesn't.
budgeting
What ecommerce development actually costs in 2026
Real price bands for Shopify and BigCommerce work — theme customisation through to headless replatforms — and what changes the number.
hiring
How to write an ecommerce project brief agencies can quote from
The eight things every agency needs before they can give you a real number — and the three things you should leave out.
platforms
Shopify or BigCommerce: which one should you actually be on?
An honest comparison for store owners choosing a platform — where each genuinely wins, and the switching costs nobody mentions.
hiring
Nine red flags when hiring an ecommerce agency
The warning signs that reliably predict a bad project, drawn from the briefs and post-mortems we see.