---
title: What a Shopify support retainer costs
description: What monthly Shopify support costs, what each level actually buys, and how to tell which one your store needs. Our real prices, not a range.
slug: shopify-support-cost
date: 2026-11-02
updated: 2026-11-02
service: support
faqs:
  - question: How much does Shopify support cost per month?
    answer: Ours runs from £400 a month for monitoring and small fixes, £1,000 for two improvements a month on top, and £2,000 for four. Growth, our subscription for stores with a real backlog, starts at £3,000. Those are the prices, not a starting point for a negotiation.
  - question: Is there a minimum contract?
    answer: No. Every level is month to month with 30 days notice. You can move up, move down or pause. We would rather you left easily than stayed because leaving was hard.
  - question: What happens if we need more than the package in a month?
    answer: Anything beyond the monthly improvements is quoted as a project before it starts, so you see the price first. We can also group improvement time across two or three months when that is the cleaner way to do a bigger job.
  - question: Do you charge for the store review?
    answer: No. Send the store URL and we reply within two working days with three specific fixes. There is no call attached unless you ask for one, and plenty of people take the list to their own developer.
---

Ask most agencies what support costs and you get a range, or a form. The honest reason is that support means different things to different people. Somebody wants a safety net. Somebody else wants a developer who ships something every month. Those are not the same product and they should not be the same price.

So here is ours, written down.

## What we charge

| Level | A month | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Maintain | £400 | A stable store that needs watching, not a programme of work |
| Optimise | £1,000 | A growing store that wants two improvements shipped every month |
| Accelerate | £2,000 | A scaling store that wants four, and a closer rhythm |
| Growth | From £3,000 | A store with a backlog, where unlimited requests make more sense than counting |

Every level includes monitoring, a named developer and email support. Every level is month to month with 30 days notice. Nothing on this page is a starting price.

## What one improvement actually means

This is the number that matters, because it is where the difference between the levels sits.

One improvement is a focused piece of work, about six hours of delivery, agreed with you before anything starts and tested on staging before it goes live. A collection rebuild. A mobile checkout fix. Tracking that finally agrees with Shopify. A new section your team can reuse. A product taxonomy cleanup.

It is deliberately not a pot of hours you have to spend carefully. You pick the job, we scope it, you see it ship. Work that is bigger than six hours gets quoted as a project, with the price in front of you first.

## Which level fits your store

The honest test is not turnover. It is how often someone wants to change something.

Maintain suits a store that is working and is not about to change. Somebody is watching uptime and security, small fixes get done, and you have a developer to call rather than a search to start when something breaks.

Optimise suits most of the stores we look after. There is always something that could be better, nobody internally has the time, and two improvements a month is enough to keep moving without it becoming a project.

Accelerate suits a store where the list is genuinely long and the business is moving quickly. Four improvements a month, a sync every two weeks and releases tested on staging first.

Growth suits a store where counting improvements has started to feel like the wrong conversation. If you find yourself saving up requests for next month, that is the signal.

## What a retainer does not cover

Copywriting, paid media and email marketing are quoted separately, because they are different work done by different people. Major replatforms and custom ERP builds are projects, not monthly work.

We would rather be clear about that now than have the conversation in month three.

## When you should not buy one at all

If the store is stable, nothing is planned, and you have someone in-house who can handle a broken discount code, you probably do not need us monthly. Pay for the work when you need it and keep the money.

A retainer earns its place when the cost of nobody looking is higher than the fee. That is usually true once a store is taking enough that a bad week is expensive, or once the person who built it has moved on. It is often not true before that.

If you are weighing this against hiring, we set out the three options honestly on [hiring a Shopify developer](/services/shopify-developer).

## Where Parallel Commerce helps

We run [Shopify support packages](/services/support) for UK and European stores, with the same people from the first call to the latest release. The person who scopes the work builds it.

If you want to know what we would do with your first month before you commit to anything, send us the store. A [free store review](/store-review) comes back by email within two working days with three specific fixes, and there is no call unless you want one.

If you would rather talk it through, [book a call](/start#book) and we will tell you which level we think you need, including when the answer is none of them.