Shopify store maintenance and support

Why a hosted store still needs maintenance

Shopify hosts the store and serves it through a CDN. Nobody patches a server. What does need looking after is everything that is specific to your store, because the platform under it keeps moving.

If your store used Scripts, the Scripts to Functions migration guide covers what replaced them.

What a monthly plan includes

The plan is sized by three things: how much custom code the store has, how many integrations money or stock depends on, and how many small changes you ask for in a typical month. The general terms are on the support and maintenance page.

How requests are handled

1. One channel. Requests come to one place, in writing, so nothing depends on who saw a message.
2. Each request is given a severity. The store cannot take orders; something is broken but orders continue; a change is wanted.
3. The response target follows the severity. WavX does not publish a response-time or uptime commitment. The targets are written into each engagement, within working hours of Monday to Saturday, 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM IST.
4. Sale periods are planned. If you need someone available outside those hours during a sale, it is scoped in advance, not assumed.
5. Every change is recorded. What was changed, in which theme or app, and how to reverse it.

Whoever you hire, ask the same questions: who is the named person, what are the hours, what counts as urgent, what happens to unused hours, and how the arrangement ends.

Access and ownership

Shopify's collaborator access lets an outside developer work in your admin. You share a request code, the developer requests the permissions the work needs, and you approve or reject it. Collaborators do not count towards the store's user limit, and you can limit a collaborator's role to specific permissions, apps and channels.

Everything else stays in your company's name: the Shopify account, the payment gateway, the domain, the app subscriptions, and the repository that holds any custom code. A maintenance provider who holds those for you is a risk, not a convenience.

What it costs

WavX does not publish a monthly price for Shopify maintenance. It is quoted after scoping, as a fixed monthly fee, time and materials, or a mix; the engagement models page explains each.

For budgeting, two WavX guides print planning ranges. They are market figures, not a WavX quote.

Shopify's plan fee, app subscriptions and gateway fees are separate and paid to those providers.

What maintenance is not

• New features. A product builder, a loyalty scheme or a new integration is a project with its own scope. See custom Shopify feature development.
• A redesign. Changing sections and copy is maintenance. A new theme is not.
• Marketing operations. Uploading products, writing descriptions and running campaigns are your team's work, though a plan can include hours for it if you ask.
• A fix for a store that is already failing. If pages are slow or orders are going missing today, that is diagnosed and repaired first. Start with why a Shopify store is slow if speed is the complaint.

When you do not need a retainer

A store on an unedited Theme Store theme, with a few well-known apps and no custom app or integration, is maintained by Shopify and by the app developers. Pay for changes one job at a time when you need them, and check the web performance report yourself once a month.

A retainer earns its place when the store has custom code, an integration that orders, stock or accounts depend on, or a steady flow of changes. Below that, it is money spent on being available.

Maintenance is one part of Shopify and app development at WavX.