For years, enterprise brands defaulted to building and maintaining custom ecommerce platforms. At the time, buying a ready-made solution often meant sacrificing scalability, flexibility, or performance. Building in-house felt like the only way to deliver the experiences customers demanded.

Today, that equation has changed. 

Platforms like Shopify have matured into enterprise-ready solutions that provide global scalability, robust security, and deep extensibility. The decision is no longer as simple as build versus buy. Instead, leaders face a new question: 

Should you keep investing in custom, or replatform to a solution that lets you build your edge and buy the rest?

When Building Still Makes Sense

There are still circumstances where maintaining or extending a custom platform is a rational choice. For enterprises in highly regulated industries, or those with workflows that don’t fit neatly into standard ecommerce models, a homegrown solution can provide unmatched control. The ability to dictate every architectural decision, integrate deeply with legacy systems, and shape technology as part of a brand’s intellectual property can be valuable at scale.

However, the advantages of control often come at the expense of agility. Custom platforms require constant attention to infrastructure, compliance, and security, and every new feature must be built from the ground up. Over time, this creates a drag on both cost and innovation. Industry research shows that two-thirds of global tech spend goes toward maintaining legacy systems, leaving far less room to fund innovation. Businesses that continue to rely on custom solutions also face an average of 20% annual increase in operational costs compared to those on modern platforms.

For brands with large technical teams and the appetite to manage that complexity, while building may still be justified, it’s a path that grows heavier and more expensive over time. 

How Shopify Changes the Equation

Modern commerce platforms have redefined what it means to “buy.” Shopify now delivers enterprise infrastructure that is scalable, secure, and compliant, while still allowing extensive customization. Instead of investing engineering resources into foundational components like checkout, hosting, or data security, enterprises can focus those efforts on the elements that truly differentiate the brand experience.

The economy also changes. Shopify’s total cost of ownership (TCO) has been shown to be up to 36% better than its competitors, with 30% lower platform costs, 23% lower operating costs, and 49% lower implementation costs. By replatforming to Shopify, brands can reallocate budget from maintenance toward innovation, accelerating growth. 

The value of this approach extends beyond efficiency. With Shopify, brands gain access to a constantly evolving ecosystem: new features are rolled out regularly, APIs and flexible frameworks support tailored builds, and a global partner network accelerates innovation. For decision-makers weighing the future of their digital strategy, this shifts the calculation. “Buying” no longer means compromising on flexibility. It means securing a foundation that’s stable, secure, and scalable, while still leaving room to build on top.

Evaluating the Tradeoffs

Choosing whether to keep building or to replatform to Shopify comes down to tradeoffs. Cost is often the most visible factor, but it’s only part of the decision. Leaders should also consider how each option impacts speed, innovation, and scalability over the long term.

From a cost-of-ownership perspective, maintaining custom systems usually means unpredictable and rising expenses for infrastructure, compliance, and ongoing development. Shopify, by contrast, offers a more predictable model with platform, operating, and implementation costs consolidated into a single ecosystem. To help evaluate these differences, Shopify provides a TCO Calculator that allows enterprises to benchmark current spend against projected platform costs.

Speed to market is another critical lens. Custom systems often require lengthy development cycles for even basic improvements, while Shopify’s continuous updates and prebuilt infrastructure allow enterprises to launch new features and expand into markets much faster. This connects directly to innovation capacity. When technical teams spend less time on maintenance, they can focus more energy on creating customer experiences that drive growth, ultimately positioning the business to move faster than competitors who are still tied to legacy systems.

Finally, scalability and resilience must be weighed. Enterprises need platforms that can handle seasonal peaks, rapid growth, and international expansion without requiring a major rebuild. Shopify’s infrastructure is built to scale globally, reducing both the complexity and cost of entering new markets.

By evaluating the decision through these dimensions, leaders can move past a narrow “build versus buy” debate and toward a strategic framework that prioritizes sustainable growth.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Even with clear tradeoffs, the right path depends on your organization’s goals, resources, and risk tolerance. Asking the right questions can help clarify whether continuing to build or replatforming to Shopify is the better long-term strategy:

• Where is our engineering effort going today? Are teams focused on innovation and customer experience, or tied up maintaining infrastructure and integrations?

• How quickly can we respond to new opportunities? If a new market, channel, or customer demand emerges, does our current platform support rapid execution?

• What are we really spending on upkeep? Beyond headline budgets, how much of our tech spend is going into maintenance, compliance, and patching versus growth initiatives?

• Can our platform handle the future we’re planning for? Do we have confidence that it will scale with seasonal peaks, international expansion, and emerging commerce trends like AI-driven personalization?

• What risks are we carrying? From security to technical debt to reliance on specialized talent, are we prepared to manage the long-term burden of maintaining a custom system?

These questions move the discussion from abstract tradeoffs into concrete decision-making. By working through them, leaders can identify whether their current platform is helping—or holding back—the next phase of growth.

The Case for Change

Ecommerce is no longer defined by a binary “build versus buy” debate. The real question is whether your platform can keep pace with growth, adapt to change, and unlock innovation at scale. Enterprise commerce will not wait for legacy systems. Every quarter spent maintaining a fragile custom stack adds cost, drains resources, and widens the gap with competitors.

For leaders exploring this decision further, Outgrown the Homegrown outlines a multi-phased framework designed for high-growth and enterprise brands to replatform quickly, minimize risk, and unlock measurable results. 

Get in touch today, and let’s assess your readiness to replatform.