Hiring a Shopify developer: what to ask and what to keep

Know which job you are hiring for

Shopify work comes in a few shapes. A fix is one defined problem: a broken menu, an app conflict, a section that will not do what you need. A build or redesign is a store, or a large part of one. A migration moves a store from another platform. Ongoing support is someone checking and changing things every month. Custom work covers apps, integrations with other systems and features the theme cannot do.

Each is priced and planned differently, so write the job down in a sentence or two before you talk to anyone. "The product page needs a size guide that pulls from our sizing table" gets a better answer than "the store needs work". Two things help before that conversation. The free Shopify store review lists the theme and apps a store runs and the usual problems, which gives you words for the brief. And how much a Shopify store costs in Canada lays out Shopify's own fees beside typical project ranges.

Access: a collaborator account, not your password

Shopify has collaborator accounts (opens in a new tab) for exactly this. The developer requests access from their own Shopify Partner account, you approve it, and you choose the role, and with it the parts of the store they can see and change. Collaborators do not count towards your store's user limit, and you can remove the access when the work is done.

Every request needs a four-digit collaborator request code that you give the developer, so only someone you shared it with can ask for access, and you can generate a new code to shut out anyone holding an old one. Only the store owner, or a user with the Administrator role, can approve a request.

A developer who asks for your owner login instead is asking for more than any job needs.

Work on a copy, and see it before it goes live

A Shopify store can hold more than one theme. The safe way to change a live store is to duplicate the published theme, make the changes on the copy, send you a preview link, and publish only when you have approved it. The old version stays in the theme library, so going back is one click.

For larger work, a theme can be connected to a code repository through Shopify's GitHub integration (opens in a new tab), so every change is recorded with who made it and when, including edits made in the Shopify admin. Ask how changes will be recorded; "I edit it live" is not an answer.

What a written scope should say

What the problem is, in plain words. What will change and, just as useful, what will not. The price, and whether it is fixed. What is billed by someone else, such as the Shopify plan, a paid theme or an app subscription. How you will approve the work before it goes live. What happens if something the developer shipped breaks in the weeks after launch. And what you get at the end: a short note of what changed and where the code lives.

If the price depends on things nobody can know yet, a short paid discovery step is reasonable. An open-ended hourly arrangement with no written scope is how small jobs become large invoices.

Questions worth asking

Can I see stores or designs you built, and which parts were yours? Who actually does the work? Will you recommend apps, and do you earn anything from them? How will I know what changed? What happens if you are unavailable for a week? Is there a period after launch in which you fix your own mistakes at no charge?

The answers matter less than whether they are specific. A developer who can explain what an app does to your pages, in words you understand, will usually explain a problem the same way.

What to keep in your name

The store itself, on an owner account that is yours. The domain, registered to you. App subscriptions and the theme, billed to your store; a theme bought from the Shopify Theme Store is licensed only to the store it was bought for (opens in a new tab), so a developer's copy is not yours. The code repository, if there is one. Admin access to analytics and Search Console.

None of this is about distrust. It is what lets you change developer, bring in a second one, or sell the business without anything having to be handed back.