Magento Development for brands that need more than Shopify can give them.

Magento builds vary widely in cost, far more than Shopify, because the scope itself varies widely. A Hyva theme rebuild on an existing Magento 2 store is a different conversation to a full B2B Adobe Commerce build with ERP integration. Every Discovery call results in a fixed-price quote tailored to the actual scope, so you know exactly what you are committing to before any work starts.

Most Magento 2 development projects run 12-18 weeks from kickoff to launch. Hyva migrations on existing stores are faster, typically 6-10 weeks. Full Adobe Commerce B2B builds with custom modules and integrations can run 16-24 weeks depending on complexity. Migrations from Magento 1 add 2-4 weeks for data, redirects, and SEO work.

It depends on complexity. Shopify is the right answer for most brands under £5m turnover with relatively standard product catalogues. Magento makes sense once you need genuine B2B, multi-store, complex catalogue logic, or ERP integration that Shopify cannot do cleanly. I work with both platforms, so I will give you an honest answer rather than steer you toward whichever one I want to build.

Hyva is a frontend framework that replaces Magento's default Luma theme. It loads dramatically faster, can score 90+ on Lighthouse where Luma often struggles, and ships with significantly less code to maintain. If you are on Magento 2 with Luma, you should be looking at Hyva because the performance gains usually translate into better conversion, better rankings, and a calmer development workflow.

You should not be. Magento 1 has not received official security patches since June 2020, which creates PCI compliance issues, increased fraud risk, and incompatibility with newer payment gateways. Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration is a significant share of my work. The hard bit is not simply moving data, it is protecting existing rankings, customer data, and operational workflows on go-live.

Magento Open Source is free to license; Adobe Commerce is the paid enterprise version. Adobe Commerce includes stronger B2B features, content staging, customer pricing, account hierarchies, quoting, AI-powered product recommendations, and Adobe's official support. Most £1m-£10m turnover brands can run Open Source perfectly well. Adobe Commerce typically pays back where the B2B and content features genuinely earn their keep.

Yes. Most clients stay on a flexible monthly retainer covering development, security patching, performance monitoring, module updates, and often paid media. Magento needs more ongoing care than Shopify because security patches ship every 3-6 months and require proper testing before release. You cannot set and forget a serious Magento store.

Yes for content, products, pricing, categories, CMS blocks, and promotions. No for code-level changes, which is true of any Magento build. A well-built Magento store has a clear separation between the things marketing can change and the things that need a developer, such as modules, theme code, integrations, and deployment. I set that boundary clearly during the build.

Yes, and I will happily tell you whether you should. For brands that have outgrown Magento's overhead but do not have the complexity to justify it, migration to Shopify Plus is often the right call. The migration itself is manageable; the strategic question, whether you should migrate at all, is what the Discovery call is for.

Book a Discovery call from this page. It is 30 minutes, no pressure, and no obligation. We will talk through your project, what is possible, what is risky, and whether Magento is the right fit. If the fit is right, I will send a proposal within 48 hours.