I’ve received two offers for upgrading our current Shopify theme to Shopify 2.0. Our current developers quoted $15,000, while another agency offered $650 with an estimated time of 9 hours. I’m curious about the community’s experience with Shopify 2.0 upgrades. Can anyone share insights on the typical time it takes to perform such an upgrade and whether the $650 offer seems realistic or too good to be true? Any advice or experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Topic summary
Evaluating whether a $650, 9-hour quote to upgrade a custom Shopify theme to Online Store 2.0 is realistic versus a $15,000 estimate from existing developers.
Context: The theme is custom. The $650 agency was given backend access to assess scope.
Key effort drivers:
- Extent of customizations and bespoke code.
- App/service integrations and dependencies.
- Lack of version control or migration tools for customized themes.
Perspectives:
- $650/9h deemed unrealistic for a custom theme; feasible only if it’s extremely simple (considered unlikely).
- $15k viewed by one as high, but another says it can be reasonable, reflecting process, support, and team familiarity, offering more certainty.
- One contributor favors the $650 price but calls the 9-hour timeline unrealistic; claims “normal” base theme upgrades are ~$450 (not for custom work).
Advice:
- Secure a detailed contract defining scope and delivery in reasonable working condition.
- Expect limited revisions/QA at the low price, potential bugs, and ongoing polishing costs.
- Allocate time for thorough testing and reviews.
- Weigh business value; a higher-cost, robust migration may be justified if the theme drives profits; also question the necessity of migrating now.
Status: No consensus; outcome depends on specifics not provided.
Hi @HOJ83 , is your current theme custom? I mean, did you have some developers work on it or did you just use some of the themes Shopify offers?
Basically it depends on that. 
If there are too many customizations it will require more time and vice versa.
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Hi Marina
Our current theme is custom. I am confused because of the huge difference between offers. The agency that gave me the $650 offer got access to our backend but I’m just wondering if the offer is too good to be true.
Well, it seems unrealistic to me since the theme is custom. I can only imagine that it will take 9h in total if it’s extremely simple (almost impossible).
On the other hand 15k sounds too much.
OS2.0 migrations for customized themes have too many variables so cannot be fully automated: heavy customization, no version control, app or service integrations etc etc etc.
$15k is reasonable as you’ve omitted a TON of information that would be relevant to any type of estimate, more than likely they have a process and a larger contract with support.
Your paying for process and certainty and presumably people that already understand your theme and business.
If theme generates profits, pay and move forward.
$650 is an amazing deal that’s probably grossly underestimating the work so expect bugs.
Most the savings will be in the complete and utter lack of revisions or bug testing.
Just get a contract for delivery in reasonable working condition, but 100% expect ongoing costs in polishing things and that you yourself will be doing a lot of theme review and testing and emailing.
If your struggling why even migrate.
But of course probably both estimators are middlemen and outsource some the bulk work.
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650$ cost is the best deal for you to choose what I’m worried about is timeline.
timeline is totally unrealistic.
normal charges for theme upgrades and design on a base theme is 450$.
since your is custom and assuming they would have gain access from you to analyse the scope of work.
best of luck…