Monthly plan or work on demand: which should a Shopify store choose?

A monthly plan suits stores that change often; work on demand suits those that change little. Shopify already handles hosting, server security and the certificate. What remains is the theme, the apps, backups, access and the changes the platform imposes. A store that sells every day, often adds products or sections and runs ads benefits from a monthly plan: someone follows theme updates and Shopify’s deadlines before they break something. A small store whose catalogue changes little can do without one and pay per job, provided it exports its data every month and has its apps reviewed once or twice a year. Either way, ask for a contract that can stop from one month to the next and that states the response time when a bug occurs.

How do I know whether my tracking codes still work since the Thank you page update?

Place a test order and see whether your measurement tools record it. Since August 28, 2025, Shopify’s additional scripts field has been read-only, and August 26, 2026 was the deadline for stores not on Shopify Plus to move to the new Thank you and Order status pages. Tracking codes pasted into those scripts stopped working after the switch, with no error message. If the test order does not show up in your ad platform or your analytics, tracking has to be rebuilt with the tools Shopify provides, such as pixels declared in the store settings or compatible apps. Run this check before a high-sales period, when every miscounted conversion skews your ad budget decisions.

Should you give your Shopify password to your maintenance agency?

No. Shopify provides collaborator accounts for exactly this. The agency, if it is a Shopify Partner, requests access to your store with a four-digit code you give it, and you choose which sections of the admin it can see. According to the Shopify Help Center, these accounts do not count towards your user limit, and you can remove them at any time. You keep the owner account, and you know who has access to what. Take stock once a year: staff accounts, collaborators, installed apps. Remove access for providers who no longer work for you. If a former provider also holds the theme code in a repository in their name, ask for a copy before the job ends.

How long should an agency take to fix a bug on a Shopify store?

The timeframe should be written into the contract, and it should separate a bug that blocks sales from a display tweak. A cart that no longer opens or an add-to-cart button that does not respond costs orders every hour; a badly set margin on a page can wait until next week. At Sonho, we reply within 24 business hours when a bug affects the store. To compare two offers, ask three things: the response time, the fix time for a blocking bug, and what happens at weekends or during your sales. A contract with no written timeframe lets the provider deal with your broken cart after its other clients. Also ask whether the fix is made on a copy of the theme and tested before it is published.

Shopify store maintenance: what it should cover, and what you pay for nothing

Hosting, security, certificate: Shopify already takes care of them. Store maintenance is about the theme, the apps, backups and access. The list of what we check, and the contract lines that serve no purpose.

The short answer

Shopify store maintenance is not about hosting, server security or the certificate: the platform handles them as part of the subscription. It covers the theme and its updates, sorting the apps and the code they leave behind, backing up your data, which Shopify does not restore, access and the changes Shopify imposes. A contract that bills for server monitoring or plugin updates makes you pay for nothing.

What Shopify already handles, and you should not pay for twice

Many maintenance contracts sold for Shopify are WordPress contracts copied over. They list “security updates”, “server monitoring”, “hosting backups”. On Shopify, these lines match no actual work.

Hosting, the server, platform patches and the certificate that secures your address are included in the subscription. Shopify is certified PCI DSS Level 1, the highest level of the card payment security standard, for every store (Shopify, Charle Agency). Nobody can “update” Shopify on your behalf: the platform takes care of it itself.

An e-commerce manager at a fashion brand told us that, looking at agencies’ hourly rates, she doubted she could afford maintenance at all. That is often the case when the contract bills for what the platform already does. Remove those lines: the remaining budget goes to the work that protects your sales.

Which items should Shopify maintenance cover, and what does each one protect?

On a Shopify store, the useful work comes down to six items. Each one protects something specific.

Item	What we do	What it prevents
The theme	Follow theme versions, carry over by hand any modified code that did not follow, test on a copy before publishing	A theme stuck on an old version, which breaks at the first forced update
The apps	List installed apps, their combined monthly cost, the ones no longer used; clean up the code they leave	Subscriptions paid for nothing and pages that slow down
Backups	Regularly export products, customers and orders, or install a backup app	A catalogue deleted by mistake, with no way to get it back
Access	Give each provider a collaborator account, remove it when the job ends	Shared passwords and former providers who keep control
Shopify’s changes	Read Shopify’s announcements, spot what affects your store, switch before the deadline	Tracking pixels or customisations removed without warning
Fixes	Repair what breaks in the theme: a button, a filter, a section, a mobile layout	Lost sales while the bug waits for a quote

Should you update your Shopify store’s theme?

Yes, but not blindly. Theme Store themes receive new versions. According to the Shopify Help Center, settings made in the editor carry over to the update, but code changes only carry over if they do not conflict with the new version; otherwise they have to be copied across by hand (Fuel Themes).

This is where badly done maintenance gets expensive. A store touched by several providers piles up pieces of code nobody knows. At the fashion brand mentioned above, the team described blocks it did not know how to use, kept in a code repository it did not even have the keys to. Every update then becomes a gamble.

The method comes down to three moves: update a copy of the theme, never the one your customers see; check product pages, the cart and the home page on a phone; publish outside your busy weeks. If the theme can no longer keep up, that is a different job, described in our guide to redesigning a Shopify store step by step.

What happens to the apps you no longer use?

Sorting the apps is the most cost-effective part of Shopify maintenance. An app installed for a Christmas campaign often stays active for months afterwards, along with its subscription. The founder of a premium men’s skincare brand asked us, in the very first conversation, to avoid recurring app subscriptions.

Uninstalling is not always enough. The Shopify Help Center warns that some apps add code to the theme that is not removed automatically when you uninstall them. Merchants see it on the Shopify forum: that code keeps loading on every visit. Recent apps plug in through blocks that Shopify removes with the app; older ones wrote directly into the theme.

Review the list once a quarter: what each app does, what it costs, who on the team uses it. Some can be replaced by a section coded into the theme, as we explain in this guide to Shopify without paid apps.

Does Shopify back up your products and orders?

Not in the way you might think. Shopify protects its platform, but it does not offer to restore your store to yesterday’s state if a CSV import overwrites your product pages or someone deletes a collection. The Shopify Help Center points to two options: export your data as CSV files from the admin, or install a backup app. Rewind, which makes one of them, describes the same options.

Exports have limits, written down by Shopify: orders cannot be re-imported from the admin, and neither discount codes nor issued gift cards can be transferred. A backup made only of CSV files therefore covers an incident on your order history poorly.

For a store that sells every day, we recommend an automatic backup app, plus a copy of the theme before every change. For a small store whose catalogue rarely moves, a monthly export of products and customers, kept in a folder in your name, is often enough.

Which changes does Shopify impose on stores, and who should keep track of them?

Shopify keeps changing its platform and sets deadlines. The latest example concerns the Thank you page and the Order status page. Stores not on Shopify Plus had until August 26, 2026 to move to the new versions of these pages. The additional scripts field, where many stores pasted their ad tracking codes, has been read-only since August 28, 2025 (Shopify Help Center, Common Thread Collective).

In practice, the tracking codes and customisations that relied on those scripts stopped working after the switch. A store that checked nothing may have lost tracking of its ad conversions without any error showing up. If nobody has done it for you, place a test order and check that your measurement tools record it.

It is the least visible part of maintenance. When nobody is in charge of reading Shopify’s announcements, the problem surfaces the day the numbers stop adding up.

How do you give a provider access to your store without losing control?

At a real estate agency, the original developer fixed the site’s bugs, and every fix was billed separately. Dependence often starts with access: whoever holds the account and the code decides everything. On Shopify, the tool to avoid this exists: the collaborator account.

A provider who is a Shopify Partner requests access to your store with a four-digit code that only you give them, and you choose which parts of the admin they can see. These accounts do not count towards your user limit, and you can remove them at any time (Shopify Help Center, Shopify developer documentation).

Clean maintenance therefore starts with an inventory: who has an account, who has collaborator access, who holds the theme code. When a job ends, access is removed. The rest of the process is covered in our guide to leaving your web provider without losing your site.

Shopify maintenance contracts: the lines that serve no purpose

Before signing, read the contract line by line. Here are the lines that match no work on Shopify, or work in the wrong place.

“Security updates” or “core updates”. Shopify updates itself. Only the theme and the apps need following up.
“Server monitoring” and “24/7 uptime”. The server belongs to Shopify. If the platform goes down, no agency can bring it back up.
“Hosting backups”. There is no hosting to back up. What matters is your data and your theme: ask how they are backed up.
Photo, price or text changes deducted from the plan. You should be able to make them yourself in the admin. If every tweak goes through a developer, the problem is the theme.
A block of hours where unused hours are lost every month. A brand once turned down a monthly plan with us because it had too little development planned: it was right. For a store that changes little, paying per job costs less.

How we handle Shopify store maintenance at Sonho

We have been asked the question on calls: what does the monthly follow-up depend on? The answer comes down to a few commitments, also described on our Shopify store page.

Thirty days of free adjustments after launching a store we built.
Two options after that, your choice: a monthly plan covering fixes and regular changes (a new section, an app to connect, an English version), renewed month to month and stopped whenever you decide; or work on demand, quoted before it starts.
A reply within 24 business hours when a bug affects the store.
Content you can edit yourself: text, photos, prices and the order of sections change in the Shopify admin and editor, without going through us.
Access and code in your name, with a collaborator account you can remove.
No release during your busy weeks: sales, promotions or media appearances, we wait until they are over.

What should you ask a Shopify maintenance agency before signing?

When a maintenance freelancer runs out of steam, the brand usually finds out too late: an e-commerce manager told us about a provider who had doubled his time without getting the job done. With these questions, you spot the risk before signing.

What is included, line by line, and what is Shopify’s job?
What response time is written into the contract when a bug blocks sales?
How are my catalogue, my customers and my theme backed up?
Who follows Shopify’s announcements and the deadlines that affect my store?
Are unused hours carried over? Can I stop from one month to the next?
What access will you have, and how is it removed at the end?
Can I edit my content without you?

Frequently asked questions

Monthly plan or work on demand: which should a Shopify store choose?: A monthly plan suits stores that change often; work on demand suits those that change little. Shopify already handles hosting, server security and the certificate. What remains is the theme, the apps, backups, access and the changes the platform imposes. A store that sells every day, often adds products or sections and runs ads benefits from a monthly plan: someone follows theme updates and Shopify’s deadlines before they break something. A small store whose catalogue changes little can do without one and pay per job, provided it exports its data every month and has its apps reviewed once or twice a year. Either way, ask for a contract that can stop from one month to the next and that states the response time when a bug occurs.
What happens if I delete products by mistake on Shopify?: Without a backup, you will have to recreate them. Shopify does not offer to restore a store to an earlier state: its Help Center points to exporting your data as CSV files from the admin, or to a backup app. With a recent product export, you re-import the file and get your product pages back. Exports have limits written down by Shopify: orders cannot be re-imported from the admin, and discount codes and issued gift cards cannot be transferred. For a store that sells every day, an automatic backup app covers these cases better. Also keep a copy of your theme before every change: duplicating it takes a few seconds in the admin, and you republish the old version in one click if a tweak breaks the display.
How do I know whether my tracking codes still work since the Thank you page update?: Place a test order and see whether your measurement tools record it. Since August 28, 2025, Shopify’s additional scripts field has been read-only, and August 26, 2026 was the deadline for stores not on Shopify Plus to move to the new Thank you and Order status pages. Tracking codes pasted into those scripts stopped working after the switch, with no error message. If the test order does not show up in your ad platform or your analytics, tracking has to be rebuilt with the tools Shopify provides, such as pixels declared in the store settings or compatible apps. Run this check before a high-sales period, when every miscounted conversion skews your ad budget decisions.
Should you give your Shopify password to your maintenance agency?: No. Shopify provides collaborator accounts for exactly this. The agency, if it is a Shopify Partner, requests access to your store with a four-digit code you give it, and you choose which sections of the admin it can see. According to the Shopify Help Center, these accounts do not count towards your user limit, and you can remove them at any time. You keep the owner account, and you know who has access to what. Take stock once a year: staff accounts, collaborators, installed apps. Remove access for providers who no longer work for you. If a former provider also holds the theme code in a repository in their name, ask for a copy before the job ends.
How long should an agency take to fix a bug on a Shopify store?: The timeframe should be written into the contract, and it should separate a bug that blocks sales from a display tweak. A cart that no longer opens or an add-to-cart button that does not respond costs orders every hour; a badly set margin on a page can wait until next week. At Sonho, we reply within 24 business hours when a bug affects the store. To compare two offers, ask three things: the response time, the fix time for a blocking bug, and what happens at weekends or during your sales. A contract with no written timeframe lets the provider deal with your broken cart after its other clients. Also ask whether the fix is made on a copy of the theme and tested before it is published.