Strategy · Entry point
Shopify Plus audit
Ten working days with one senior developer inside your store, ending in a written report on what it is doing, what it is paying for, where the conversion rate is leaking, and what to fix first. A fixed fee, credited against the build if there is one.
- Fixed fee
- £2,500
- Working days
- 10
- The report
- Yours to keep
Why an audit first
Most Plus stores are held together with workarounds, apps doing a Function’s job, and code in someone else’s account.
Nobody plans it that way. The store grows, a feature is needed on a Friday, an app gets installed, an agency comes and goes, and after four years nobody can say with confidence what the store is actually doing or what it costs to keep doing it.
Every build on these pages starts with the same step: a pass over what is running before anything is proposed. The audit is that step on its own, so you can buy the looking without committing to the doing. If the answer is that the store is fine, the report says so.
The report
One document, written to be acted on.
The first page is the whole store on a single sheet: eight areas, each marked working, idle or needing attention, and the three things to do first. The other twenty-odd pages are the evidence.
It is written for the person who approves the budget and checkable by the person who reviews the code. Both tend to read it.
Store audit · yourbrand.com
Page 01 / 24
Where the store stands
Theme and performance
Mobile LCP 4.1s. Three apps injecting render-blocking scripts.
Needs attention·P1
Conversion and the path to purchase
Reported rate 1.4%. A third of sessions are bots; the real rate is 2.1%. Checkout loses 38% at shipping.
Needs attention·P1
Checkout and Functions
Default checkout. Two Scripts still running a promotion that ended in 2024.
Paid for, idle·P2
Apps and subscriptions
31 installed, 19 in use. £1,140 a month, two doing the same job.
Needs attention·P1
Integrations
ERP sync healthy. Nobody is alerted when it fails.
Working
B2B and Markets
Three regional stores where one with Markets would do.
Paid for, idle·P3
Data and discoverability
Structured data present. Product feed missing 40% of variants.
Working·P3
Code and ownership
Theme lives in an agency repository. No one in-house has access.
Needs attention·P1
First three fixes
- 01Move the theme into your own GitHub account and document the deploy.
- 02Remove or replace the eleven apps not earning their fee.
- 03Filter the bot traffic out of analytics, so the conversion rate you steer by is the real one.
Illustrative. Every store scores differently.
Eight areas
Each one answers a question your team has probably asked already.
01
Theme and performance
Is the storefront fast, and who can change it?
Core Web Vitals on real devices, the Liquid and JavaScript underneath, and how the sections are built. Whether the marketing team can do a landing page without a developer, and what breaks when they try.
02
Conversion and the path to purchase
Where does the funnel leak, and is it the site or the traffic?
Sessions to add-to-cart to checkout to order, by device and by traffic source, with bot traffic taken out before anything is judged. Whether paid traffic lands on pages built to convert it, what the checkout asks for that it does not need, and what the mobile experience is doing to the number.
03
Checkout and Functions
Is Plus being used, or just paid for?
What checkout extensibility has been touched, which Scripts are still running and what each one does, and where discount, shipping and payment logic lives. Usually in an app doing a job a Function should be doing.
04
Apps and subscriptions
What is each app for, and what does it cost?
Every installed app, whether it is in use, what it charges, what it injects into the page, and what overlaps. The monthly total is often the first number in the report anyone reacts to.
05
Integrations
What happens when something fails?
ERP, PIM, subscriptions, loyalty, reviews, email and the awkward ones. How data moves between them, where it is transformed, and who finds out when a sync stops.
06
B2B and Markets
Is international or wholesale being done the hard way?
Separate stores that should be one store with Markets. B2B run through a second theme or a workaround. Currency, language and pricing set per market, or not set at all.
07
Data and discoverability
Can search engines and AI agents read the catalogue?
Product data quality, structured markup, feeds, redirects and what the last migration left behind. The same things that decide whether a shopping agent recommends you.
08
Code and ownership
If your developer vanished tomorrow, what would you have?
Where the code lives, who holds the keys, how it is deployed, and whether any of it is written down. This is the section brands most often did not know they needed.
The ten days
Access on a Monday. The report a week on Friday.
Day 01
Access
Collaborator access, the repository if there is one, analytics, and an hour with whoever runs the store day to day.
Days 02 to 05
Reading
In the code, the admin, the app list and the analytics. Nothing is changed. Everything is noted with where it was found.
Days 06 to 08
Writing
The findings ordered by what they cost you, with effort and impact against each, and a ballpark for anything worth building.
Day 09
Walkthrough
An hour on a call with your team, recorded, going through the report and the questions it raises.
Day 10
Report
The document, the appendix and the recording, in your inbox and in your own accounts.
What you get
- A written report
- Plain English at the front, a technical appendix at the back. Readable by a founder, checkable by a CTO.
- A prioritised list
- Every finding ranked P1 to P3, with the effort to fix it and what it is costing you now.
- A ballpark and a timeline
- For anything worth building, a range and a sequence. Enough to budget with, from someone who would be doing the work.
- A recorded walkthrough
- The hour on the call, kept, for the people who could not make it and the people who join later.
The report is yours. Take it to another developer, or to your own team. Nothing in it depends on hiring the studio.
Fee
Shopify Plus audit
£2,500
Fixed, whatever the store turns out to contain. Credited in full against a build or a retainer that starts within three months of the report.
Scripts audit
£750
Every active Script, what it does, what it maps to in Functions, and a fixed quote for the migration.
AI-ready audit
£500
Product data, structured markup and feeds, checked against what shopping agents need to recommend you.
The narrower checks are one section of the full audit taken on its own, for when the question is already that specific.
When to get one
- The conversion rate has dropped, or never got going, and nobody can say whether it is the site, the traffic or the offer.
- You are moving to Plus, or to Shopify, and want the build scoped by someone who has done it rather than sold it.
- The store is slowing down, breaking under promotions, or nobody is sure what half the apps are for.
- The last agency left with the context, and the code is in an account you do not control.
- There is a proposal on the table and you want a second opinion before signing it.
Not the right fit
- A store that needs a good template theme rather than custom development. The report would say so on page one, and you would have paid for one line.
- A brand that wants a full-service agency with account management and a department for everything.
- Something broken today. An audit is ten days of looking before doing. If the store is down, that is a support call, not an audit.
Questions
Before you book.
Our conversion rate is low. Will the audit tell us why?
It will tell you where the funnel leaks and what is behind each leak: bot traffic distorting the number, paid traffic landing on pages that were never built to convert it, a slow mobile experience, a checkout step asking for more than it needs. Every finding comes with its fix. Where the cause is the offer or the price rather than the site, it will say that too, because that is cheaper to hear from an audit than to learn from a rebuild.
What access do you need?
Collaborator access to the Shopify admin, read access to the theme repository if there is one, and a view of analytics. Plus an hour with whoever runs the store day to day, because the admin never tells the whole story.
Will anything on the live store change?
No. The audit is read-only throughout. Every finding records where it was found, so your team or any developer can go and look for themselves.
Do we have to use you for the fixes?
No. The report is written so that any competent Shopify developer, or your own team, can act on it. The credit against a build is there if you want it, not a condition of the audit.
How is this different from an agency’s free audit?
A free audit is a sales document. This one is paid for so it can say the store is fine, or that you do not need Plus, or that the cheapest fix is one nobody would make money from.
We are not on Plus. Does it still apply?
Yes. The same pass works on a standard-plan store. The Plus-specific sections become a straight answer on whether Plus would pay for itself, and when.
Can it be done faster than ten days?
Sometimes, when the store is small and access arrives on day one. Ten working days is the promise. It is often less, and it is never more without a conversation first.
Brands built with Graftstudio
Next step
Find out what the store is doing before deciding what to do with it.
Send the store URL and a line on what prompted the question. You will hear back within one working day with a start date, or with a reason the audit is not the right next step. Email hello@graftstudio.com.
“We have worked exclusively with Graftstudio on a series of Shopify projects over the past twelve months. As a small team ourselves, we relish working with pragmatic partners and collaborators who are not only brilliant, but also sympathetic to last-minute requests and fast-changing scopes! Richard has been nothing but forthcoming; he’s reliable and quick, even at the toughest of times. I would not hesitate to recommend Richard and Graftstudio.”
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E-Commerce Manager, Miller Harris
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Founder, Brew Tea Co.
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E-Commerce Marketing Manager, Steamline Luggage
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TOG Knives
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Founder, TOG Knives
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E-Commerce Marketing Manager, Paxton & Whitfield
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Founder, The Spirited Club
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E-com Trading Manager, TUTTI
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Jambys
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E-Commerce Manager, Intelligent Change
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Ruth Haldon
Founder, Ruth Haldon Jewellery
