Should I Use a Prebuilt or Custom Shopify Theme?

Shopify is the most popular ecommerce platform and one of the best options for most businesses. And with Shopify Plus, this even applies to large enterprise businesses.

Here at Metacake, we’ve built, managed, and optimized hundreds of Shopify and Shopify Plus sites for some of the biggest brands out there. One part of our role is helping brands make technology decisions based on their strategy and needs. And when you’re looking to build a Shopify store or update your current one, questions often arise about the theme and whether it’s better to go prebuilt or with a custom Shopify theme.

In this post, we’re going to help you determine whether to build a theme from scratch or start with a prebuilt Shopify theme and then modify it for your needs.

Choosing a Prebuilt vs. Custom Shopify Theme

A good analogy for this decision-making process is finding a house. You can build a custom home completely from scratch, drawing up a blueprint and making it exactly how you want. Or you can move into a home that’s already built but make it your own with new paint, floors, and lighting.

When it comes to considering your Shopify theme, if you’re doing it from scratch like a custom home, you’ll need to hire a firm or individual to design and build your site exactly to your specifications.

The alternative is starting with a prebuilt theme, providing some structure and even some design elements so you don’t have to build the whole “house.” This baseline allows you to paint, do a little renovation, and move in your furniture without starting from nothing.

The Pros and Cons of a Prebuilt vs. Custom Shopify Theme

Let’s map out the pros and cons of building a custom Shopify theme or using a prebuilt one.

Building a Custom Shopify Theme

Pros: With a custom theme, ideally, you’ll end up with exactly what you want. It’ll also be unique from other prebuilt sites.

Cons: This typically requires reinventing a lot of wheels and maybe developing some new ones. For that reason, building from scratch is slow and expensive. Also, app integrations may need to be manual, causing more work. You’ll also be responsible for future maintenance on the theme you build.

Using a Prebuilt Shopify Theme

Pros: Using a prebuilt Shopify theme is less labor-intensive, quicker, and less expensive. Since you’re building on an existing foundation, there’ll be fewer bugs to work out, and it’ll be easier to manage in the future.

Cons: You may have to make some concessions when it comes to design or functionality — it’s possible not everything you’ve dreamed up for your store is compatible with the theme. For that reason, your site might not look quite as unique as you’d like it to. But you’d be surprised at just how “custom” we can make the prebuilt themes feel!

 

Conclusion: Prebuilt Is (Typically) the Way to Go

For most brands and in most circumstances, we don’t find that building a custom Shopify theme is the way to go. We recommend starting with a good prebuilt Shopify theme and then customizing on top of that. It provides the best of both worlds.

Are you in a place where you’re okay with making a few design concessions in favor of faster and more cost-effective results? For a store that already works well, this tends to be the way to go. At the end of the day, the functionality for the customer and the backend usability for your team are much more important than creating the most unique site out there!

Curious about how our team can help you make the most of prebuilt Shopify themes that end up feeling custom-made for you? Let us know how we can help you today!