Over the past five years, customer acquisition costs have increased by over 222%. This increase has not deterred the majority of brands from evaluating their marketing agency partners with outdated vanity metrics and fictitious performance metrics.
In this guide, we will dismantle the generalized claims created by agencies claiming to dominate the market as a full-service agency and explain how leading Shopify marketing agencies establish their operations, conduct their creative testing and determine their fees.
By exposing the variables and the basic limitations of how a real business can operate within the set frameworks of agencies, we will redefine the vendor list used to identify partners that generate ecommerce growth by analyzing how a company has generated measurable ecommerce revenue using proven ecommerce partners.
Choosing Shopify Marketing Agencies
The overwhelming majority of search results for ecommerce partner listings show lists that do not provide truthful information. Most contain generic terminology (i.e., full-service, DTC-centered) without providing any real proof or evidence of their ability to create results.
The ecommerce industry has made an honest change over the last 12 months.
With Meta and TikTok now placing a much larger emphasis on creative diversity rather than niche targeting, the market has shifted from targeting narrowly to the production of creative content on a regular basis. If a vendor is unable to produce and test 10 - 20 creative concepts each month, they will dramatically inflate your account with the costs associated with creating and testing creative content.
While there are certainly risks when hiring an external team to generate ecommerce revenue, we have seen many brand partners receiving junior account managers the day after they sign the contract.
In addition, contracts can hide penalty clauses for brands that do not deliver results, which can leave a merchant stuck paying for results that do not meet expectations.
The Most Important Part of Ecommerce Growth
The velocity of creative production. Will a marketing agency be able to deliver enough unique advertising creative to negate the rising cost of advertising as it continues to grow?
The Top 23 Shopify Marketing Agencies
1. Zoronto
Driven by the potential for increased lifetime value, as customer acquisition costs continue to increase month after month, Zoronto focuses on businesses with strong LTV and repeat purchase potential while also offering an approach that starts with the owner of the brand.
With an estimated average monthly pricing of around $2,500, Zoronto only takes on a few select clients to ensure that the team will be able to dedicate enough resources to the client's needs.
2. SIXGUN
Dedicated to only search marketing and not a generalist shop, SIXGUN specializes in local, e-commerce, enterprise, and international search engine optimization for brands looking to reduce their dependence on paid advertising.
As such, they are best suited for businesses with large product catalogs. Pricing for an initial engagement starts around $1,300 USD per month.
3. The Lifecycle Labs
The Lifecycle Labs begin by providing a diagnostic audit of your company's current retention efforts using a strict five-step framework called the 5S Framework.
Instead of using vague metrics to guide the article, the Lifecycle Labs uses a standardised $497 price for an audit before moving into ongoing retainer agreements for brands using Klaviyo and Shopify, which range from $2,500 to $4,500 USD per month.
4. YourStoreMatters
By leveraging their partnership with Klaviyo, YourStoreMatters uses the Shopify Plus platform for both development and retention marketing growth.
They target brands within the beauty, wellness and fashion sectors that generate between €1,000,000 and €20,000,000 in year revenue. The minimum size of a project for the YourStoreMatters team starts at €5,000.
5. eCommerce Today
eCommerce Today is a Klaviyo Master Platinum Partner that provides complete development and email marketing automation services in one integrated experience for growth-stage businesses.
Email setups for brands assigned to eCommerce Today begin at around $2,500, with retainers beginning at 20 hours of work per month.
6. Velstar
They operate as a varsity-level agency. They have a division model that serves both B2B and B2C businesses.
They focus on high-volume DTC and B2B businesses who are using Shopify Plus. Customised pricing models are designed according to each brand's specific requirements.
7. Optimum7
They are a Shopify Plus Partner, with clients generating over $1 billion annually.
They have 200 original Shopify related case studies published. Their combined dev/marketing retainers are between $5K - $20K / month.
8. OnlyGrowth
They specialize in conversion rate optimisation (CRO) via a structured testing approach.
They increased one of their direct-to-consumer clients’ orders by over 60% and improved their conversion rate by 39% in 2 months. Retainers are approximately $3,000 / month.
9. NP Digital
Operating as a multi-channel operator with over $6.1 million of monthly ad spend, they were awarded Performance Marketing Global Agency of the Year for 2024, and their clients receive an average of a 259% return on investment.
Retainers typically average $5K - $25K / month.
10. Inflow
Operating as an ecommerce agency with a very high retention rate of 97%, they work heavily with SEO and PPC.
Recently, they helped Seltzer Goods generate a revenue increase of 785% within 30 days. Retainers start around $3,000 / month.
11. Single Grain
This agency utilises proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) tools to optimise campaigns and scale content. For Peet's Coffee, they produced a revenue increase of 455% and an increase in order volume of 676%. Monthly retainers range from $5,000 - $15,000.
12. Stryde
They are a women-led team that focuses on organic search marketing for consumer products. They claim an average annual client growth of 35%, specifically within the fashion, home and lifestyle categories.
Here are the monthly fees you can expect to pay for your Shopify store under each agency's plan, listed in ascending order:
13. seoplus+
Very transparent, with an emphasis on technical optimization. Over 100 verified client reviews, with a 4.9 star rating. Shopify SEO plans start at around $3,000/month.
14. Cake Commerce
An eCommerce-only strategy and consulting firm. They accept no non-eCommerce clients. Their prices for substantial platform-level consulting/advice are in the range of $4,000-$15,000/month.
15. Lounge Lizard
Established in 1998, these are the longest-running agency on this list, bringing 27 years of knowledge and experience to the table in user experience/website design (UX/D) to assist with your store's branding issues. Pricing for projects typically runs from $5,000-$15,000/month.
16. Mobiteam
A small team of 14 people who are highly engaged in their work and take great pride in their success as an agency.
They have three startups launched on Shopify, two of which have successfully exited to international buyers. Pricing for services is based strictly on a project-by-project quote.
17. Y'all
A Shopify Plus Partner, boasting expertise in only creative performance and media buying.
Utilizing a disciplined framework for systematic creative testing has proven successful, with one case study yielding a 73% decrease in CPM for one wellness company. Monthly service pricing generally falls between $15,000-$20,000.
18. Forge
The first to offer early-stage performance marketing pricing to small brands with ad spend levels of $5,000-$25,000/month to allow easier entry for businesses without large corporate resources.
19. Common Thread Collective
Stresses extreme financial rigor, creating and maintaining a strict focus on contribution margin and using forecast-based growth plans. They are credited for coining the term 'Marketing Efficiency Rate' and the associated metrics. Average monthly fees begin around $25,000.
20. Hawke Media
Hawke Media offers flexible, à la carte services on a month-to-month basis, thereby eliminating risks associated with long lock-in contracts.
They cater to clients that typically spend between $10,000 and $100,000 per month on advertising, with pricing for services ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 monthly.
21. MuteSix
MuteSix is a sister company of Dept and has been known to deploy its senior-level account managers across many channels. They have a minimum project fee of $25,000. They exclusively work with companies advertising with a spend in excess of $50,000 per month.
22. NoGood
They create fully cross-functional growth squads that include paid media, SEO, CRO, and content marketing.
They believe it is essential to maintain an experimentation culture in order to serve growth-stage companies effectively. Their monthly retainers generally are above $20,000.
23. Structured
Structured is an established performance marketing agency with a dedicated team of senior operators managing their client accounts every day.
They do not allow the common junior account management handoff. They only work with clients who can commit a minimum of $30,000 per month in advertising.
How to Protect Your Profit
You cannot hide poor unit economics with flashy presentation materials. The blended ecommerce CAC is currently between $53-$91 across most major verticals, while the median ROAS from ads on the Meta platform is stuck at 1.86x across major verticals.
The margin for error is non-existent; therefore, companies must demand actual contribution margin reporting. If your cash position and ROAS do not match, do not rely on ROAS from the platform as an indicator of your business' health.
In 2025, AI-based discovery platforms like ChatGPT Shopping, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity are likely to completely transform how consumers shop online. A company's partner must be validating the channels they use for advertising and marketing, not simply sticking to traditional search engine marketing.
It's unwise to lock yourself into a long-term agreement without exit provisions based on clearly outlined performance metrics. The top companies in this area of advertising offer agreements that permit a month-to-month basis due to the daily posting of results that encourage continued participation.
Questions to Ask Shopify Marketing Agencies
How Do You Measure Creative Speed?
While success might involve only producing attractive videos, it is actually more about how many different ad formats can be created, tested, and removed from consideration within a 30-day time period.
Therefore, it is critical that Shopify marketing agencies have methodologies in place that will identify winning ads quickly so as to ensure that an advertising budget does not get depleted due to high CPM rates.
What Are the Signs of Bad Pricing Models?
Most ad agencies that charge a flat fee percentage, or a flat monthly fee based on a percentage of spend, operate with the expectation that their best chance to grow will be based on the total revenue generated from organic means.
To be successful, the most effective systems tie the fees they charge back to actual profit, or use a combination of monthly retainer fees along with explicit performance gates for success. If a team cannot quantify your customer acquisition cost (CAC) cap based upon your true product margins, you should discontinue consideration immediately.
Why Are Traditional Case Studies Limited?
Most Shopify marketing agencies demonstrate the success of their products as an arbitrary percentage of revenue increases, where they do not include details regarding starting sales volume, the period for which the revenue increase took place, or what attribution models were utilized.
Vendors need to provide baseline metrics in order for their products to be evaluated appropriately. An appropriate case study will provide an overview of the exact retailer, the actual creative assets used to promote the product, the specific time periods, and the unit economics associated with the product.
How Do AI Shopping Apps Change Store Setup?
Shopping applications developed on platforms such as ChatGPT Shopping and Google AI Overview gain access to data residing within the architecture of a store. If your store has only been optimized based on traditional text rules, it will not appear as recommended by AI applications.
Therefore, if you are a business owner with a team of technical developers responsible for creating and optimizing products to enable them to be read, parsed, and recommended to customers, your store's architecture must be modified to provide easy access for AI applications to evaluate your store's product categories.