We are an agency, so take the framing with appropriate scepticism. But we turn down work regularly because the honest answer is that the brand should hire, and the reasoning is straightforward enough to write down.
Hire in-house when
You need daily changes. A brand shipping multiple merchandising and content changes a week has a continuous workload. Paying agency rates for a continuous stream of small tasks is poor value, and the context-switching cost falls on you.
The work is deeply entangled with your operations. If every change requires knowing how your warehouse, your ERP and your buying team actually work, that knowledge takes months to build and you do not want it leaving.
You have reached the volume where it pays. A competent Shopify developer is roughly £50,000 to £80,000 in the UK, more in the US. That is £4,000 to £7,000 a month of capacity. If you are spending that on agency retainer and the work is continuous, hire.
You want the knowledge retained. Everything an agency learns about your store leaves with the engagement unless you insist on documentation.
Use an agency when
The work is project-shaped. A build, a replatform, a headless migration. These need a team with several skills simultaneously for a defined period, and then they do not need that team. Hiring for a project means either over-hiring or carrying people afterwards.
You need expertise you cannot justify full-time. Nobody hires a full-time CRO specialist at £2 million in revenue. Nobody hires a Shopify Plus architect for one Plus migration.
You need it to happen now. Hiring takes three months from decision to productive. An agency starts in two weeks.
You do not know what you need yet. An agency that has seen fifty stores will diagnose faster than a first hire learning your business.
The hybrid that actually works
One in-house person who owns the store day to day, plus an agency for projects and specialisms.
The in-house person handles merchandising, content, small fixes, and knows the business. The agency does the replatform, the headless build, the CRO programme, the integration — the things that need a team for a quarter.
This is what most brands between £2 million and £20 million end up doing, and it is the right structure.
| Situation | What we would do |
|---|---|
| Under £1m, launching | Agency build, then learn to run it yourself |
| £1m–£5m, steady | One in-house generalist, agency for projects |
| £5m–£20m | Small in-house team, agency for specialisms |
| £20m+ | In-house team, agency for surge and specialist work |
| Replatform or headless | Agency, regardless of size |
| Continuous small changes | In-house, regardless of size |
The worst outcome is a part-time freelancer doing project work. Projects need concurrent skills and sustained attention. A single freelancer two days a week on a replatform is how six-week projects become six-month projects.
What to ask an agency that tells you to hire
Nothing — that is the answer you should trust. We say it when the work is continuous and small, because an agency doing that work badly serves nobody and the retainer ends in six months anyway.
What to ask one that does not
Who specifically does the work, what happens to the knowledge when the engagement ends, and what the handover looks like. An agency that cannot answer the third question is building you a dependency rather than an asset.
Talk it through
Tell us the shape of the work.
Continuous and small, or project-shaped with a deadline. We will tell you which answer fits, including when it is not us.
Ask usA real read within one business day — not a sales call.
About the author
Manpreet Singh
Founder of Proscube. Leads the studio's Shopify, headless and CRO engineering, and works directly with founders rather than through account managers.
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