Moving to Shopify Plus is rarely the hard part. The hard part is finding a partner who can carry a nine-figure catalogue, a wholesale channel, three regional storefronts and an ERP integration through a migration without breaking trading. Hundreds of firms claim Shopify Plus capability. A far smaller group holds accredited partner status, and a smaller group again has shipped enough complex builds to be predictable under pressure.
This list covers twelve Shopify Plus agencies working at that level in 2026, across the UK, North America and mainland Europe. Each entry explains what the agency is genuinely built for, so you can shortlist on fit rather than on logo walls.
Shopify Plus Agencies At A Glance
| Agency | Headquarters | Platform track record | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swanky | Exeter, UK (plus Australia and France) | Founded 2010, Shopify only since 2012 | DTC subscription brands and replatforms |
| We Make Websites | London and New York | Founded 2009, 15+ years on Shopify | Multi-region and cross-border storefronts |
| Diff | Montreal, Canada | On Shopify since 2011 | North American enterprise builds |
| Vaimo | Stockholm, Sweden | Shopify Plus one of several practices | Multi-market programmes needing regional teams |
| Velstar | Liverpool, UK | Founded 2016 | Brands wanting build and trading in one team |
| Eastside Co | London, UK | On Shopify since 2012 | High-volume migrations and long-run support |
| Barrel | New York, USA | On Shopify since 2009, Plus partner since 2017 | CPG brands selling DTC, retail and wholesale |
| Underwaterpistol | London, UK | Trading since 2001 | Subscription and retention-led lifestyle brands |
| Charle | London, UK | Founded 2018 | Design-led premium DTC storefronts |
| Blend Commerce | Sheffield, UK | Founded 2017 | Conversion rate optimisation on live stores |
| Absolute Web | Miami, USA | Certified Shopify Plus partner | Replatforms and headless frontends |
| Groove Commerce | Baltimore, USA | Founded 2007 | Mid-market brands needing build plus marketing |
Best Shopify Plus Agency Options In 2026
1. Swanky — One Of Europe’s First Plus Partners, Built Around Subscription Commerce
Swanky was founded in 2010 and has worked exclusively with Shopify since 2012. In 2016, it became one of the first three agencies in Europe to hold the Shopify Plus Expert accreditation, and it now carries Shopify Platinum Partner status. The agency runs teams in the UK, Australia and France, with its headquarters in Exeter.
Its reputation sits in subscription commerce. Swanky has built and optimised recurring revenue models for brands including HelloFresh, Wilkinson Sword, Pasta Evangelists and WhiskyLoot, with concentrations in food and drink, pet care, and health and wellness. Alongside design and development, it runs in-house CRO, paid media, email, SMS, data and internationalisation teams, which is why a lot of its work turns into multi-year retainers rather than single builds.
The agency also took a £7.6m investment from YFM Equity Partners, giving it more delivery capacity than most independent UK shops. Choose Swanky if you are replatforming a subscription business from Magento, BigCommerce or WooCommerce and want the same team to run growth afterwards. It is a heavier engagement than a boutique studio and priced accordingly.
2. We Make Websites — Cross-Border Storefronts And Shopify Markets At Scale
Founded in 2009 with offices in London and New York, We Make Websites has spent more than fifteen years on the platform and is a certified Shopify Plus partner. Its clearest differentiator is international commerce. The team moved early on Shopify Markets and now runs multi-region, multi-currency and multi-language storefronts for brands selling into five or more territories.
That work covers checkout localisation, regional tax and duty handling, language-specific SEO and cross-border fulfilment routing, which are exactly the areas where a generalist build tends to come apart at the second or third market. The portfolio includes Hasbro, Pangaia, Good American, Dryrobe and John Hardy, the last of which moved from Salesforce Commerce Cloud onto Shopify Plus.
The bi-coastal setup means European and North American brands get coverage in their own time zone, which matters on an enterprise migration where a cutover window is measured in hours. This is a premium option. If you sell in one market and have no near-term plans to expand, you will be paying for capability you do not need yet.
3. Diff — Shopify’s Longest-Standing Partner Agency, With North American Enterprise Depth
Diff was founded in Montreal in 2011 by a retailer, and describes itself as Shopify’s longest-standing partner agency. It holds Shopify Platinum Partner status and works from Montreal and Toronto, serving brands across Canada and the United States.
The team combines design and engineering rather than treating them as separate handoffs, and its case studies lean toward complex merchandising problems: product bundling, global expansion, high-SKU catalogues and personalisation. Client work spans Anine Bing, PopSockets, Ardene, Aftershokz, Urban Planet and Effy Jewelry, a roster that mixes fashion, consumer electronics and jewellery.
Its longevity is the practical argument for it. An agency that has been on the platform since 2011 has watched Shopify Plus grow from a niche enterprise tier into an enterprise default, and it has migration patterns for most of what came before. Diff is a strong fit for established North American brands with real operational complexity. Smaller brands will find the engagement shape too large.
4. Vaimo — Global Delivery Teams For Multi-Market Enterprise Programmes
Vaimo is headquartered in Stockholm and runs more than 650 people across over fifteen markets in EMEA, APAC and North America. It is a full-service digital experience agency rather than a pure Shopify shop, with practices spanning Shopify Plus, Adobe Commerce, commercetools, content management and product information management.
That breadth is the point. When a programme needs regional staffing under one delivery model, and when the storefront is only one component alongside PIM, integrations and analytics, Vaimo can put local teams in each market rather than servicing everything from a single office. Its Shopify Plus work includes Elecom’s NESTOUT brand, where the goal was reducing Amazon dependency and improving gross margins.
The agency has also moved away from hourly billing toward fixed-price work items, absorbing its own inefficiencies and publishing delivery data to clients. If your buying committee includes procurement and a global CIO, Vaimo is built for that conversation. If you want a nimble mid-market rebuild, this is more governance than you need.
5. Velstar — Platinum Partner Covering Build, Trading And Growth In One Team
Velstar started in Liverpool in 2016 and now runs hubs in Liverpool, Leeds, Edinburgh and Miami with a team of more than 120 specialists. It is a Shopify Platinum Partner working across both D2C and B2B, and it acquired the ecommerce marketing agency We Influence to bring trading and acquisition in-house rather than referring it out.
The client list is unusually broad for a UK agency of its size, including Nando’s, French Connection, McLaren, AVON, Castore, Tangle Teezer and Euro Car Parts. The French Connection work involved a four-region multi-store Shopify Plus setup, which is a good indicator of how it handles brands operating several storefronts under one organisation.
Velstar suits established businesses that want one partner accountable for the build, the integrations and the revenue afterwards, with UK and North American time zone cover. Brands that already have a strong in-house growth team may be paying for capability they duplicate.
6. Eastside Co — One Of The UK’s Longest-Running Shopify Agencies, Now Platinum
Eastside Co has been building on Shopify since 2012, making it one of the earliest specialist agencies in the UK, and it holds Shopify Platinum Partner status. The team runs more than seventy in-house specialists across UX, design, development, marketing and client services, working from London with additional offices in Birmingham, New York and Hamburg.
Its volume is the differentiator. Across hundreds of Shopify and Shopify Plus builds it has handled migrations from Magento, Shopware, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and bespoke platforms, which means most replatform scenarios are familiar rather than exploratory. The agency also supports brands through the full lifecycle: rebuilding complex stores, launching custom storefronts, integrating business-critical systems and running ongoing CRO programmes.
The client base spans the UK, Europe and the United States, from premium retail brands up to larger enterprise sites. Eastside Co is a sensible pick when the priority is a predictable migration and a long support relationship rather than a headline-grabbing redesign.
7. Barrel — CPG And Omnichannel Commerce, Retail And Wholesale Included
Barrel is a New York agency that has been working on Shopify since 2009 and has held Shopify Plus partner status since 2017. It is a globally distributed, minority-owned business focused specifically on consumer packaged goods brands.
The framing matters. Barrel designs around omnichannel rather than pure ecommerce, so DTC, wholesale and physical retail are treated as one system: Shopify POS for stores and pop-ups, Shopify B2B for wholesale buyers, and a DTC storefront that shares the same catalogue and data. Its work covers food and drink, health and beauty, and home and garden, with clients including McCormick.
Services run from migrations off Magento, WooCommerce and Salesforce Commerce Cloud through to CRO, custom apps and headless builds. Barrel is the right call for a brand with a genuine physical footprint or a wholesale channel it wants to bring onto the same platform. For a pure online play with no retail ambitions, its central advantage goes unused.
8. Underwaterpistol — Two Decades Of Retention Work For Subscription And Lifestyle Brands
Underwaterpistol has been trading since 2001, giving it more than twenty years of ecommerce history and one of the longest track records of any certified Shopify Plus partner. The London team pairs custom development with UX and performance work, and holds specialist status with Recharge for subscription implementations.
Its client list leans toward premium lifestyle and consumables: Lounge, NEOM Organics, The Couture Club, Pooch and Mutt, Patou from LVMH, Renais and Jaded London. The common thread is repeat purchase, which shapes how the agency builds. Rather than treating launch as the finish line, it wires Klaviyo, LoyaltyLion and subscription logic into the storefront so lifetime value is designed in rather than bolted on later.
That makes it a strong option for food, drink, beauty and wellness brands where the second and third order carry the economics. Brands selling considered one-off purchases will get less from the retention specialism, though the build quality still stands on its own.
9. Charle — Design-Led Builds For Premium DTC Brands
Charle was established in London in 2018 and is a Shopify Plus accredited agency built around design. Where several agencies on this list lead with engineering, Charle leads with the storefront itself: visual identity, art direction and the shopping experience, backed by split testing and conversion work to prove the design is earning its keep.
Clients include Gilbert Rugby, Cambridge Satchel, Joel and Son Fabrics and Candy Kittens, with strength across fashion, beauty, food and drink, and lifestyle. Its service mix covers web design, Shopify development, A/B testing, CRO, SEO and email, so the same team that ships the design keeps iterating on it after launch.
Charle is a good fit for premium DTC brands where the site has to carry the brand as much as the transaction, and where a template refresh will not do. If your problem is a gnarly ERP integration or a B2B portal, a more engineering-weighted agency will serve you better.
10. Blend Commerce — CRO-First Methodology With A Documented Test Win Rate
Blend Commerce was founded in 2017 and works from Sheffield in the UK, exclusively with Shopify and Shopify Plus stores. It was named CRO Agency of the Year 2026 at the Global Agency Awards and reports an average A/B test win rate of around 59 percent, which is a rare piece of published evidence in a discipline where most agencies show only case study highlights.
The positioning is conversion first. Rather than opening with a rebuild, Blend starts from the existing store, runs structured experimentation and lets the data decide what changes. Its verticals are fashion, beauty, food and drink, and health and wellness, typically for brands in the one to ten million range.
That makes it the right pick when your store already converts acceptably and you want the testing discipline to prove the next increment. It is the wrong pick when you need a full replatform first, because experimentation needs a stable base to run against before it produces anything reliable.
11. Absolute Web — Miami Team For Replatforms And Headless Frontends
Absolute Web is a certified Shopify Plus partner based in Miami, serving mid-market and enterprise brands across a range of industries. Its work concentrates on the technical end of the platform: migrations, custom functionality, UI and UX design, and performance.
Two published examples show the range. It moved furniture brand Modloft off a custom platform onto Shopify Plus while reworking the user experience and site performance, and it took a headless frontend back to Shopify’s native frontend for a client in order to cut operating costs and speed up time to market. That second one is worth noting, because agencies rarely publicise moving away from headless. It suggests a team willing to argue against complexity where it is not paying for itself.
Other work includes conversion optimisation, product subscriptions and quiz-led merchandising for brands such as Lashify. Absolute Web suits US brands with a migration ahead of them and a genuine technical brief.
12. Groove Commerce — Build And Marketing Under One Roof For Mid-Market Brands
Founded in 2007 and based in Baltimore, Groove Commerce has spent close to two decades on ecommerce builds and now runs design, development, SEO, paid media and email under a single team rather than splitting them across specialists who never speak. It holds Platinum Klaviyo Partner status alongside its Shopify partnership and has collected more than thirty industry awards.
Clients include Dippin’ Dots, the US Open Shop, Cutter and Buck and Monaco Premium Cocktails, the last of which Groove helped build as a DTC business from scratch while running paid media and the CRM. That pattern, launching and then trading the store, is where the agency’s integrated model earns its place.
Groove also works across BigCommerce, so it can give a genuinely comparative view if you are still deciding between platforms rather than committed to Shopify Plus. Mid-market brands without an in-house marketing function get the most from it. Enterprise brands with a large internal team will find the marketing side redundant.
How To Choose A Shopify Plus Agency
Is The Agency Actually An Accredited Shopify Plus Partner?
Plenty of firms describe themselves as Shopify Plus specialists without holding partner status. Shopify publishes tiers in its partner directory, running from Service Partner up through Plus, Platinum and Premier, and the tier reflects delivered volume and proven results rather than marketing claims. Check the directory listing yourself before the first call. In greater London alone, well over a hundred firms claim Plus capability and only a fraction are certified.
Do They Have Experience In Your Business Model, Not Just Your Industry?
A fashion brand selling one-off purchases and a fashion brand selling subscriptions are different builds with different economics. Subscription logic, wholesale pricing tiers, B2B customer accounts and multi-storefront setups each carry their own patterns, and an agency that has shipped yours several times will move faster and price more accurately. Ask for two case studies that match your model, not your sector.
Can They Handle Your Specific Migration Path?
Coming off Magento is a different job from coming off Salesforce Commerce Cloud, which is different again from a bespoke platform. Data structures, URL architecture, customer records and integration surfaces all differ. Ask which platforms the agency has migrated from most often, how they handled SEO continuity, and what the cutover plan looked like in practice.
Who Actually Works On Your Build?
Pitch teams and delivery teams are frequently different people. Ask who your project lead is, how many of the developers are in-house versus contracted, and whether you get direct access to them or everything routes through an account manager. In-house teams are usually easier to hold to a timeline than distributed contractor pools.
What Happens After Launch?
A Shopify Plus store is not finished at go-live. Ask what the support model looks like, whether optimisation is a retainer or an ad hoc arrangement, and what reporting you receive. Agencies that treat launch as the end of the engagement tend to leave brands with a site that quietly degrades over the following year.
Does The Pricing Model Match The Scope?
Shopify Plus engagements vary enormously, from a theme refresh in the tens of thousands to a full enterprise build with B2B and custom integration running into the high six figures. An enterprise consultancy will quote an enterprise number for work a focused studio could ship in six weeks, and a boutique studio will underquote a programme it cannot staff. Be explicit about scope early so the quotes you compare are comparable.
Conclusion
The twelve agencies above are not interchangeable, and treating them as a ranked league table is the wrong way to use this list. Swanky and Underwaterpistol are built for subscription businesses. We Make Websites and Vaimo are built for brands operating across borders. Barrel is built for CPG brands with retail and wholesale channels. Blend Commerce is built for stores that already work and need to work harder. Diff, Eastside Co, Velstar, Absolute Web and Groove Commerce each solve a different combination of build, migration and growth.
Start from your own constraints rather than the shortlist: your migration path, your business model, your internal team, your budget ceiling. Verify partner status in Shopify’s directory, ask for two case studies that match how you actually sell, and get clear on who will still be answering your emails twelve months after launch. That will narrow twelve names to two or three faster than any comparison table.