Best Shopify Marketing Agencies [2026]: 10 Compared by Specialty, With Pricing
Your Shopify store has traffic, a theme that converts well enough, and an email tool that sends. Growth has settled into a line that no longer climbs on its own, and nobody on the team owns the next move.
“Shopify marketing agency” covers five different jobs, and the agencies that rank for the phrase mostly sell one of them. Their websites show a partner badge and a wall of logos, quote only after a call, and rarely say which number they answer for.
The sections below sort that out: which of the five jobs you need, what each costs in 2026, ten questions for the first call, and ten US agencies grouped by job, each with cases from 2024 to 2026. The guide also prices the option most lists leave out for the retention half: a platform that comes with its own marketer.
Quick Verdict on Shopify Marketing Agencies
The best Shopify marketing agencies for US e-commerce brands in 2026 are Hawke Media, Lunar Solar Group, and adQuadrant for paid media; 20North and Optimum7 for SEO; and Netalico, Avex, Roswell NYC, Anatta, and Future Holidays for Shopify Plus builds with conversion and retention work. Published retainers start at $2,700–$5,000 a month before apps and ad spend. For the retention half, a less obvious option is Maestra: the platform comes with a Forward Deployed Marketer and starts at $2,000 a month.
- Hawke Media – best for one outsourced team across paid and owned channels · 250+ people · rated 3.0 on Clutch.
- Lunar Solar Group – best for ads, lifecycle, and the store from one group · four agencies under one roof · rated 4.5 on Clutch.
- adQuadrant – best for paid media aimed at Shopify revenue · a team of about 30 · rated 4.8 on Clutch.
- 20North Marketing – best for organic search on a Shopify store · 50+ people · no Clutch reviews yet.
- Optimum7 – best for SEO on large catalogs · 50–249 people · rated 4.6 on Clutch.
- Netalico – best for the store build and Klaviyo from one in-house team · 85% of clients on retainer · rated 4.9 on Clutch.
- Avex – best for conversion work from the agency that built the Plus store · 50+ people · rated 5.0 on Clutch.
- Roswell NYC – best for a Plus build and a Klaviyo program in one place · 70+ merchants · rated 5.0 on Clutch.
- Anatta – best for enterprise migrations onto Shopify · 85 people · no Clutch reviews yet.
- Future Holidays – best for food and beverage brands past $5 million online · a team of 24 · rated 5.0 on Clutch.
What a Shopify Marketing Agency Actually Does
A Shopify marketing agency brings customers to a Shopify store and brings them back for the next order. The work splits into five jobs, and most agencies are built around one or two of them:
- Paid media. Campaigns on Meta, Google, TikTok, and Pinterest. The number is new-customer revenue against acquisition cost.
- SEO and content. Technical fixes, collection and product pages, and articles. The number is organic sessions and the revenue behind them.
- Conversion work. Landing pages, product-page tests, and checkout changes. The number is conversion rate and revenue per session.
- Store development. Theme builds, migrations onto Shopify Plus, apps, and integrations. The number is the launch date and site speed.
- Retention. Email and SMS flows, campaigns, loyalty, and on-site personalization. The number is repeat purchase rate and returning-customer revenue.
Shopify’s own guide to hiring an agency starts there too: “establish your objectives and decide what role a digital agency will play in helping you achieve your goals” before you outsource anything.
Agency websites lead with their partner badge, so it helps to know what it means. Shopify’s partner program has five tiers: Registered, Select, Plus, Premier, and Platinum. The tiering guide for the last quarter of 2026 sets them on commercial impact. Select needs at least $100,000 in new referral and co-sell revenue or $500,000 in revenue from existing merchants. Platinum needs $5 million or $25 million, plus a minimum number of Plus or Enterprise merchants brought to Shopify. Only Plus and above appear in the partner directory, tiers update every quarter, and credentials are waived for 2026. The badge measures the Shopify revenue an agency brings or manages, not how it will treat your store. The older Shopify Plus Partner badge was retired in December 2024 and the Shopify Experts Marketplace in December 2023, so an agency still showing either is quoting a program that no longer exists.
Agencies sell this work in two shapes. A project ends with a handover: a store build or a migration onto Shopify Plus, a one-time flow setup, an audit of the ad accounts or the email program. A retainer is the ongoing work, billed monthly against a number: campaigns and creative for paid media, a content and link plan for SEO, a testing program for conversion work, and flows, campaigns, and segments for retention.
Some agencies bundle two or three jobs, most often paid media with retention, or store development with conversion work.
Ad platforms and Shopify now automate much of the production agencies used to bill by the hour. Meta Advantage+ applies AI across a campaign’s audience, placement, and budget. Google’s Performance Max moves budget in real time toward the best-performing inventory across Search, YouTube, Gmail, and Maps. Shopify’s assistant, Sidekick, comes with every plan and drafts product copy and an email campaign from a prompt. What is still worth paying an agency for is judgment: which customers to acquire, what each of them should see next, which test to run, and what to do when a number drops.
Shopify sells marketing tools of its own. Shopify Email includes 10,000 free emails a month on every plan, then charges $1 per 1,000 up to 300,000. Shop Campaigns runs ads across the Shop app and partner networks and charges only when a customer converts, at an acquisition cost you set. Shopify Audiences builds ad audiences for the major ad platforms, for Plus stores in the US and Canada that use Shopify Payments. Shopify Plus itself starts at $2,300 a month on a three-year term. None of it comes with a person who owns your marketing calendar, which is the gap an agency or an in-house marketer fills. For email alone, here is how Shopify Email compares with Klaviyo.
What a Shopify Marketing Agency Costs in 2026
Shopify agencies that publish prices start their retainers at $2,700 to $5,000 a month for one job, and senior or multi-job teams run $10,000 a month and more. Paid media is often billed as a share of ad spend instead, and builds and migrations are quoted as projects. The ranges below come from agencies’ own rate cards and Shopify’s partner directory, checked in October 2026.
| Pricing model | Typical range in 2026 | What it usually covers | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | From $2,700 a month at Netalico; paid media or retention from $5,000 and growth strategy from $10,000 at Darkroom | Strategy, the channel’s production work, and a monthly report | Lower retainers often buy production only; ask how many strategy hours the fee includes |
| Percentage of ad spend | 10–20% of monthly spend or a flat fee, whichever is higher, in Darkroom’s 2026 pricing guide | Paid media management | The fee grows with spend, not with profit; ask for a lower rate above a spend threshold |
| Project or setup | Website development from $60,000 at Darkroom; store builds and migrations from $5,000 to $50,000 in Shopify’s partner directory | A one-time build or setup with a handover | Who maintains the work after launch, and at what rate |
| Hourly | $100–$199 at most US agencies on Clutch | Audits, fixes, second opinions | Hours are not outcomes |
| Revenue share | A share of attributed revenue, usually on top of a base fee | “Pay for results” | The attribution window is a setting, and the agency usually has access to it |
Budget the retention half as software plus a retainer. At 100,000 profiles, a typical Shopify retention stack costs about $6,100 a month before SMS: the Klaviyo Email plan at about $1,380, Yotpo Loyalty from $199, Rebuy at $534 for upsells, and Nosto at about $4,000 for on-site personalization. A retainer of $4,500–$8,000 brings that half to $10,600–$14,100 a month, and Shopify Plus adds $2,300 if the store runs on it. For an email-only mandate, see what a Klaviyo agency costs.
Question any fee tied to attributed revenue. Shopify’s marketing reports credit a sale to the last non-direct click by default, and Klaviyo’s attribution counts email orders within a five-day window that anyone with account access can lengthen. Widen a window and attributed revenue rises with no extra orders behind it, which gives an agency paid on that number a reason to widen it.
For the retention half there is a third way to buy the work, and it rarely shows up in agency price lists.
A Shopify Retention Platform That Comes With Its Own Marketer
Shopify brands usually staff retention like any other job: install the apps, then pay an agency or a hire to run them. Maestra takes a different route. It is one platform for email, SMS, on-site personalization, and loyalty, plus, well, a marketer.
Every account gets a Forward Deployed Marketer, a Maestra employee assigned to your brand. Your marketer moves the flows, segments, and templates off the current apps, then builds what the store never had time for: post-purchase and win-back flows, on-site pop-ups, loyalty prompts, and a new test for each weekly call.
The marketer carries around 15 brands and works in no other platform, so a fix found for one Shopify store reaches the rest. Nothing in the job depends on billable hours or setup fees. Maestra bills month to month on purpose, and a brand that gets no value can leave the next month, so the marketer’s job is to agree goals with your team and reach them.
On a Shopify store, the platform side removes the connectors between apps. Email, SMS, loyalty, product recommendations, and on-site personalization all read one customer profile synced from Shopify. A points balance can appear in an abandoned-cart email, and a shopper who skipped a win-back email can meet the same offer on the product page.
Here is the retention half at 100,000 active profiles. The paid-media agency stays in both columns.
| What you pay for | Shopify agency plus a typical app stack | Maestra with a Forward Deployed Marketer |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly total | $10,600–$14,100, plus SMS messages | $4,775, plus SMS messages |
| Klaviyo Email plan, $1,380 a month | Customer data platform plus unlimited email, $2,000 a month, first 100,000 active profiles included | |
| SMS | Klaviyo or Attentive, billed per message | SMS module, $250 a month plus $0.0035 per US message |
| Loyalty | Yotpo Loyalty, from $199 a month | Loyalty for Shopify module, $1,010 a month |
| Recommendations and upsells | Rebuy, $534 a month | Included in the base |
| On-site personalization | Nosto, about $4,000 a month | On-site personalization module, $1,515 a month |
| The person running retention | Agency retainer, $4,500–$8,000 a month | Included in the platform |
| Paid media | Your agency, unchanged | Your agency, unchanged, with audiences synced to its ad accounts |
Switching means two to seven weeks of migration, run by your marketer while the old apps keep sending. Klaviyo’s app ecosystem stays behind. Maestra is built for mid-size and enterprise brands, so a store with a few thousand profiles will pay less on Shopify Email or a basic Klaviyo plan.
Sena, a motorcycle and cycling gear maker, ran separate Klaviyo accounts for its US and EU markets. Its marketer merged them into one Maestra account in two weeks, with every flow routed by language. Total revenue across both markets grew 2.2 times year over year.
Coolibar, a sun-protective clothing brand on Shopify, left Klaviyo when its segmentation could no longer group or nest conditions the way the team needed. Its marketer ran the migration in the brand’s slow season, rebuilt the flows, and added price-drop and abandoned-collection flows. Revenue from email and SMS campaigns grew 33.6% year over year.
If an agency still gets the retention half, or any of the other four jobs, the questions below are for the first call.
How to Choose a Shopify Marketing Agency: a 10-Question Vetting Checklist
Most of what decides a Shopify agency engagement can be heard on the first call. Below are ten questions, each followed by the answer worth hearing.
- Which of the five jobs are you taking on, and which stay with us? A written split of the five jobs, with one owner for each number. An agency that says “all of it” for a four-figure retainer is spreading one strategist thin.
- Who will run my account, and can I meet them before I sign? The person who will open your store on Monday joins a call before the contract does. Maestra’s Forward Deployed Marketer sits in the pre-sale calls for the same reason: the person who writes your plan is the one who will build it.
- How many stores does that person carry? A number, said plainly, and a week where your store is the job rather than one line on a sales target. At Maestra that number is around 15 brands per marketer.
- Which Shopify partner tier do you hold, and how many Plus stores do you run today? The tier shown in Shopify’s directory, and if you are on Shopify Plus, named Plus clients with checkout, B2B, or multi-store work you can look at.
- What will you look at before you touch the store? Margins, repeat purchase rate, acquisition cost by channel, and what sells to whom. A proposal that arrives before those questions is a template.
- How do you price, what sits outside the fee, and what are the exit terms? A fixed monthly fee, the minimum ad spend if the fee is a percentage of it, and a list of the licenses and apps you pay for separately. If they want a share of revenue, ask for a base fee plus a bonus that starts above a revenue floor. Exit terms should be month to month or 30–60 days’ notice; some published SEO plans carry a six-month commitment, so ask before you sign.
- Which numbers will you report, and from which system? Store revenue from Shopify next to the platform-attributed figure, with the attribution window left at its default.
- Who owns the ad accounts, the email platform, the theme code, and the data? You do. Shopify’s own hiring guide asks the same: “Ask who owns the ad accounts and data, what access you’ll have, and what happens if you end the relationship.” The agency works as a staff member inside your accounts, and offboarding means removing access rather than requesting an export.
- What ships in the first 30 days? An audit, a plan with dates, and the first live work: a campaign structure for paid media, a rebuilt flow for retention, a running test for conversion work. A single flow takes a couple of hours to build on a modern platform, so a quote of a week per flow deserves a question.
- How will we work week to week, and what happens when something breaks? A standing call, a channel between calls, and a named person with a written response time. Ask what that time was the last time a client’s checkout broke or a sending domain got flagged. At Maestra that is a standing weekly call plus a Slack channel the marketer reads daily.
Red Flags
You can spot each of these before signing. A single one may have an innocent reason. When a pitch has three, expect a store that gets looked after rather than grown.
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| 🚩 A fee set as a share of attributed revenue | The agency can grow its invoice by widening the attribution window, without a single extra order |
| 🚩 A package pitched before anyone asks about margins or repeat rate | The work was decided before your numbers were |
| 🚩 No Plus stores in their published work when you are on Plus | Your checkout, B2B, or multi-store questions will be their first |
| 🚩 ROI claims with no period and no client name | Marketing copy, not a result you can check |
| 🚩 Ad accounts or the email platform opened under the agency’s name | Leaving means starting from zero |
| 🚩 Reporting only in their own deck | You cannot verify the number, and the deck decides which number you see |
Shopify Marketing Agencies Worth Shortlisting
Ten US agencies whose main business is growing Shopify stores, grouped by the job they are built for. Each was checked in October 2026 on its own site and case pages, in Shopify’s and Klaviyo’s partner directories, and on Clutch, a directory where clients rate agencies. Every case below dates from 2024 to 2026. Use the cards to start calls, not to rank the market.
| Agency | Specialty | Shopify tier | Pricing | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hawke Media | Paid media, email, and SEO as an outsourced CMO | Premier | Custom; $5,000 minimum on Clutch | One team across paid and owned channels |
| Lunar Solar Group | Paid media via MuteSix, lifecycle via Enkore, Shopify via No Sleep | Not listed | Custom; $5,000 minimum on Clutch | Ads, lifecycle, and the store from one group |
| adQuadrant | Paid media on Meta, Google, YouTube, and TikTok Shop | Plus | Custom; $5,000 minimum on Clutch | Consumer brands scaling toward $100 million in revenue |
| 20North Marketing | SEO and paid search | Premier | From $10,000 in Shopify’s directory | Organic search growth for a Shopify store |
| Optimum7 | SEO for large catalogs | Plus | SEO from $4,000 a month | Stores with large or industrial catalogs |
| Netalico | Store builds and Klaviyo from one in-house team | Premier | Retainers $2,700–$10,000 a month | Plus stores that want the build and email in one team |
| Avex | Plus builds, conversion tests, and Klaviyo | Platinum | From $10,000 in Shopify’s directory | Conversion work from the agency that built the store |
| Roswell NYC | Plus builds and retention marketing | Platinum | Custom; $10,000 minimum on Clutch | A Plus build and a Klaviyo program in one place |
| Anatta | Enterprise Shopify migrations and conversion work | Platinum | Custom; $100,000 minimum on Clutch | Brands at $50 million and up moving onto Shopify |
| Future Holidays | Lifecycle, conversion, and Shopify development as one program | Plus | Custom; $50,000 minimum on Clutch | Food, beverage, and consumer brands past $5 million online |
Paid Media and Growth Agencies for Shopify Brands
These three buy traffic and grow first orders, and each runs some lifecycle work next to the ads. Common Thread Collective, Darkroom, and Power Digital sell the same work to DTC brands on any platform and are compared in the DTC agency guide.
Hawke Media
🏅 Shopify Premier Partner · Klaviyo Platinum Master
📍 Santa Monica, California
Hawke Media started in 2014 and sells itself as an “outsourced CMO”: paid media, email and SMS, SEO, and creative under one contract. Today it has 250 to 999 people, according to Clutch, and its recent e-commerce clients include Purist, Mon Ami, and Gisou.
Pricing: custom; Clutch lists a $5,000 minimum project at $150–$199 an hour.
Real cases:
- Purist – Shopify revenue up 22% year over year.
- Mon Ami – revenue up 188% year over year.
- Gisou – monthly affiliate-program revenue up 150%.
Client reviews: rated 3.0 on Clutch, with reviews from July 2021 to January 2022; the January 2022 reviewer asked for better project scoping. No reviews yet in Shopify’s directory.
Lunar Solar Group
🏅 Klaviyo Elite Master
📍 New York, New York
Lunar Solar Group started in 2018 and has grown by buying agencies. MuteSix, acquired from Dentsu in October 2024, runs paid media and creative, Enkore runs email, SMS, and loyalty, and No Sleep builds and tunes Shopify stores. Sharma Brands joined in October 2025. Today the group’s clients include Vita Coco, Health-Aide, and Giant Bicycles.
Pricing: custom; Clutch lists a $5,000 minimum project at $150–$199 an hour, and $25,000 for MuteSix.
Real cases:
- Health-Aide – Meta-attributed revenue up 276% year over year for January–September 2025.
- St. John Knits – average monthly net revenue up 25% after the June 2025 takeover.
- Giant Bicycles – cost per acquisition down 17% in 2025.
Client reviews: rated 4.5 on Clutch from a single review, from March 2020. MuteSix holds 4.3 with reviews from June 2020 to December 2021, several of them about missed timelines.
adQuadrant
🏅 Shopify Plus Partner · Klaviyo Gold Master
📍 Irvine, California
adQuadrant was founded in 2015 and is run by co-founder and CEO Warren Jolly. It buys paid media for consumer brands across Meta, Google, YouTube, and TikTok Shop, with a Klaviyo practice next to the ads, and its site says it works with brands ready to scale past $100 million in revenue. Today its clients include Pier 1, Revelry, TELETIES, and Solvable.
Pricing: custom; the site offers a free commerce strategy audit, and Clutch lists a $5,000 minimum project.
Real cases:
- Redbarn – Shopify revenue up 52% year over year between April and August 2024.
- Pier 1 – revenue up 60% on 7% less Meta spend over BFCM 2025.
- Pet Honesty – $180,279 in TikTok Shop sales between October 2024 and May 2025.
Client reviews: rated 4.8 on Clutch, with every review from March to April 2022; no reviews yet in Shopify’s directory.
SEO Agencies for Shopify Stores
Both agencies below publish organic results with dates attached, and both work with e-commerce stores next to B2B catalogs.
20North Marketing
🏅 Shopify Premier Partner, in the directory since January 2020 · Klaviyo Gold Master
📍 Atlanta, Georgia
20North is an Atlanta agency with more than 50 people and a Shopify practice inside a full-service shop: SEO, paid search, email, web development, and AI search. Today about 14 of its 34 published cases are e-commerce, among them Malta Dynamics, Tommy Docks, and Pants Store.
Pricing: custom; Shopify’s directory lists services from $10,000, and the contact form starts budgets at $5,000 a month.
Real cases:
- Malta Dynamics – organic revenue up 444% year over year, through a 2026 move onto Shopify.
- Tommy Docks – organic sessions up 17.8%, September 2025 against September 2024.
- Pants Store – organic users up 61% since an August 2025 launch.
Client reviews: no Clutch reviews; rated 5.0 in Shopify’s partner directory, with the latest review from July 2026.
Optimum7
🏅 Shopify Plus Partner
📍 Coral Gables, Florida
Optimum7 was founded in 2007 by Duran Inci, its CEO, and works mostly for e-commerce stores with large catalogs, many of them industrial suppliers. Much of its delivery team sits in Turkey. Its Shopify SEO clients include AVES Hunting, LCE Performance, and Trophy Outlet.
Pricing: SEO from $4,000 a month; Shopify’s directory lists SEO from $3,000, and Clutch a $1,000 minimum project at $100–$149 an hour.
Real cases:
- LCE Performance – purchase revenue up 146.3% to $495,000 a month, December 2025 against December 2024.
- Trophy Outlet – search clicks up from 3,040 to 17,200 between June 2025 and January 2026.
- AVES Hunting – sales up 60% year over year after work began in September 2025.
Client reviews: rated 4.6 on Clutch, with reviews from January 2019 to September 2025. The recurring note is communication across time zones (April and May 2022).
Shopify Plus Agencies for Builds, Conversion, and Retention
These five build and run Shopify Plus stores and keep working on them after launch, through conversion tests, subscriptions, and email and SMS. Most quote by project, with minimums from $10,000 to $100,000. Agencies that sell retention alone, without the build, are compared in the retention agency guide.
Netalico
🏅 Shopify Premier Partner, in the directory since January 2016
📍 Miami, Florida
Netalico was started in 2011 by Mark W. Lewis, then an engineer at NASA. It runs as one in-house team for strategy, design, engineering, and Klaviyo, with nothing subcontracted. Today about 85% of its clients work on a monthly retainer, among them Big Green Egg and Oatly.
Pricing: retainers from $2,700 to $10,000 a month, with the average client at about $4,500. Klaviyo work runs $1,200–$5,000 a month for campaigns and $2,500–$6,000 for a flow setup.
Real cases:
- Milestones – email revenue grew from $13,000 in 2019 to more than $2.2 million in 2024.
- In the Light Urns – 232,355 orders and 206,508 customers moved from Magento to Shopify for an August 2026 launch.
- Big Green Egg – a 12-week move onto Shopify Plus with no drop in traffic, according to the client.
Client reviews: rated 4.9 on Clutch, with reviews from February 2021 to June 2025. The recurring note is communication and updates between calls (2021, 2022, and June 2025).
Avex
🏅 Shopify Platinum Partner, in the directory since March 2012 · Klaviyo Platinum Master
📍 New York, New York
Avex is a New York agency with remote staff, more than 50 people, that builds, migrates, and optimizes Shopify Plus stores. It then runs conversion tests, personalization, and Klaviyo programs on them, for clients such as TYR, Kith, quip, and AriZona Beverages.
Pricing: custom; Shopify’s directory lists services from $10,000, and Clutch a $25,000 minimum project at $100–$149 an hour.
Real cases:
- TYR – revenue up 25% in Q4 2025 against Q4 2024.
- Bonafide Health – $153,000 in revenue attributed to personalized recommendations in Q2 2025.
- LoveShackFancy – total sales up 83% since the partnership began in January 2024.
Client reviews: rated 5.0 on Clutch, but every review dates from June 2016 to August 2018.
Roswell NYC
🏅 Shopify Platinum Partner, in the directory since October 2015 · Klaviyo Platinum Master
📍 New York, New York
Roswell NYC builds Shopify Plus stores and runs retention marketing for more than 70 merchants, with a team of over 40 led by co-founder and CEO Hugh Lim. Today its clients include amika, Supergoop!, Diane von Furstenberg, and Brixton.
Pricing: custom; Clutch lists a $10,000 minimum project at $150–$199 an hour.
Real cases:
- Brixton – Klaviyo-attributed revenue up 122.13% for September–November 2024 against the three months before.
- TYR – Google Ads conversion value up 35% in 2025 on a smaller budget.
Client reviews: rated 5.0 on Clutch, with reviews from May 2020 to September 2026. The recurring note is turnaround time on priority work (May 2021 and April 2024).
Anatta
🏅 Shopify Platinum Partner
📍 Austin, Texas
Anatta was founded in Austin in 2008 and works on enterprise Shopify migrations for brands at $50 million to $2 billion. Today it has 85 people across Austin, Charleston, and Bangalore, with clients such as Vuori, Rothy’s, AG1, and LMNT.
Pricing: custom; Clutch lists a $100,000 minimum project at $150–$199 an hour.
Real cases:
- LMNT – add-to-cart rate up from 10.5% to 11.0% in the seven weeks after its May 2025 changes.
- Willie’s Remedy – average order value up 6.1%, August 2026 against August 2025.
- Clearly Filtered – passive subscription churn down 54% in the 60 days after a June 2026 launch.
Future Holidays
🏅 Shopify Plus Partner · Klaviyo Gold Master
📍 San Diego, California, with a fully remote team
Future Holidays started in 2015 and works with DTC brands selling $5 million or more online, mostly in food, beverage, and consumer goods. A remote team of 24 runs lifecycle marketing, Shopify development, conversion work, and subscriptions as one program. Clients include VitaCup, Echelon, BelliWelli, and Plushie Dreadfuls.
Pricing: scoped per project; Clutch lists a $50,000 minimum project at $150–$199 an hour.
Real cases:
- Plushie Dreadfuls – Shopify revenue up 17% year over year over BFCM 2025.
- Santa – conversion rate peaked at 2.86%, up from 1.41%, in December 2025.
- Echelon – attributed flow revenue up 58% month over month by March 2026.
Client reviews: rated 5.0 on Clutch, with reviews from January 2019 to July 2025. The notes ask for clearer communication, from how hours were used (November 2021) to technical explanations (June 2023).
How to Tell If a Shopify Marketing Agency Is Working
Three checks show whether a Shopify agency is adding sales, and each one runs on reports the store already has.
The agency’s number holds up in Shopify’s own attribution. Shopify’s marketing reports can show the same sales under five attribution models, from last click to linear. Pick one, write it into the contract, and compare it every month with the revenue in the agency’s report. If Meta or Klaviyo claims more than Shopify gives that channel even under the generous any-click model, the extra orders came from somewhere else.
The store gets no slower after each launch. Every app, pop-up, script, and pixel an agency adds loads on the storefront. Shopify’s web performance reports track loading time, responsiveness, and layout shift as real visitors experience them. Check them a week after each launch, and treat a slower store as a cost the agency should fix.
Returning customers grow along with new ones. Paid media and SEO can lift first orders while repeat buying stalls. Shopify’s new vs returning customers report shows both lines month by month. If the returning line stays flat while new customers climb, the store keeps paying for first orders that never turn into second ones.
Shopify Agency vs In-House vs Maestra: the Decision Table for the Retention Half
| What to compare | Shopify agency, retention retainer | In-house retention manager | Maestra with a Forward Deployed Marketer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost at 100,000 profiles | ≈ $10,600–$14,100, app stack plus retainer, before SMS messages | ≈ $17,200–$19,200, one manager with benefits plus the same apps, before SMS messages | $4,775 with the SMS, loyalty, and on-site personalization modules, before SMS messages |
| Who answers for repeat revenue | The agency, on the numbers written into the contract | One person, accountable to you | Your marketer, on goals you set together and a plan you can leave any month |
| Shopify tools | Separate apps on separate contracts | Whatever you license | Email, SMS, loyalty, and on-site personalization on one customer profile synced from Shopify |
| Platform expertise | Deep in the apps it works with most | Depends on who you hire | The only platform the marketer works in |
| Cross-industry input | Yes, if the strategist has time for it | Whatever the hire brings | Yes, from the other brands your marketer carries |
| Ramp time | First rebuilt flows by week three | A hiring cycle, then onboarding | Two to seven weeks, migration included |
| Adding a channel or loyalty | A new scope, often with another app | Training or another hire | Add a module; the same marketer runs it |
| Getting a platform issue fixed | Through the agency to the app vendor | Through the vendor’s support queue | Your marketer takes it to Maestra’s product team |
| What you keep when you leave | Your accounts and templates, if they were in your name | Everything | Your data exports |
The in-house column uses Salary.com’s $121,468 average (September 2026) and Glassdoor’s $103,000 median for an email marketing manager, plus about 30% for benefits and the same $6,100 app stack. A hire who also owns paid media or the storefront costs more, so treat the figure as a floor.
Final Verdict: Agency, In-House, or Maestra
Hire a Shopify marketing agency if one of the five jobs has a budget and no owner. For paid media, SEO, and store development, that is usually the right call: Hawke Media, Lunar Solar Group, and adQuadrant fit acquisition, 20North and Optimum7 fit organic search, and the five Plus agencies fit builds with conversion and retention work after. Hold any of them to the checklist above: a named person you have met, a number from your own Shopify reports, a fixed fee, and accounts in your name.
Build in-house if retention already pays like a top channel and you want the person who knows your cohorts on the payroll. Budget about $17,000 a month or more for one manager and the apps.
Choose Maestra if the retention half is the job without an owner and the alternative is an agency on top of four or five apps. Maestra starts at $2,000 a month with the first 100,000 active profiles included. A mid-size or enterprise Shopify brand gets the customer data platform, unlimited email, and a Forward Deployed Marketer who migrates the flows, builds the on-site personalization, and brings the next test to every weekly call. The paid-media agency keeps its job. Start with the pricing page.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Yes, once one of the five jobs has a budget and nobody to own it: paid media without a media buyer, a Plus store without a developer, or a list that gets campaigns and no flows. A store still choosing its first theme and products is better served by Shopify’s own tools and support. Agree one number per job, with a baseline from your Shopify reports, before the contract starts. If the open job is retention, a less obvious option is Maestra, where a Forward Deployed Marketer comes with the platform. Nick Salisbury of Urban Armor Gear says “the weekly strategy calls are the best part.”
- $2,700–$10,000 a month for one job at agencies that publish prices, and more for senior or multi-job teams. Paid media is often billed at 10–20% of ad spend instead, and builds and migrations are quoted as projects. Retention also needs the apps: a typical Shopify stack costs about $6,100 a month at 100,000 profiles, so an agency plus its apps lands at $10,600–$14,100. A cheaper route for that half is Maestra, which starts at $2,000 a month; the same retention setup costs $4,775 plus SMS at that scale, with the marketer included.
- No. Shopify gives you marketing tools, not a marketer. Shopify Email sends 10,000 free emails a month, Shop Campaigns runs ads you pay for only when a customer converts, and Sidekick drafts copy and campaigns from a prompt. Someone still has to decide what to send to whom, test it, and read the result. Maestra covers that part with a Forward Deployed Marketer who works inside the platform. “I have never worked with a team at a SaaS company that was more hands-on and white-glove,” says Jennifer Fenton of JOLYN.
- As a sign of scale, not of service. A Shopify partner tier reflects the Shopify revenue an agency refers or manages, so a Premier or Platinum badge says it has worked on larger stores before. It says nothing about who will run your account or how many stores they carry, so ask for named Plus clients if you are on Plus and meet the person who will do the work. A platform-side marketer can also work next to your build agency. At Blue Q, “our Maestra marketer Julia worked directly with our partner development agency to create a seamless integration.”
- Roswell NYC or Avex, for a Plus store that needs the build and the marketing in one place: both are Shopify Platinum partners and Klaviyo Platinum Masters. For paid media, look at Hawke Media, Lunar Solar Group, or adQuadrant; for organic search, 20North or Optimum7; for an enterprise move onto Shopify, Anatta. If the gap is retention, a less obvious and cheaper option is Maestra, where a Forward Deployed Marketer comes with the platform. Will Palumbo of Enlightened Equipment says the Maestra team “worked with us, strategized, and felt like an extension of our own team.”
- Only for the work that touches Plus features: checkout extensions, B2B, and running several stores. Paid media, SEO, and email run in their own accounts and take the same skills on any Shopify plan. Multi-market retention is where Plus experience pays off: Sena runs its US and EU markets from one Maestra account, merged by its Forward Deployed Marketer in two weeks.