The most underrated niche in web design is Shopify. Here's why
- Shopify is web design's least crowded niche: there are roughly 7.5 Shopify designers per 1,000 Shopify stores, versus around 40 on Webflow and 11 on Squarespace (my 2025 BuiltWith count).
- Shopify runs nearly a third (and growing) of US online stores, so demand for specialists stays healthy year after year.
- A Shopify store is business infrastructure directly tied to revenue. So, owners hire pros earlier on and highly value the work that they do.
- You don't need to code in order to specialize in Shopify if you have the right pre-built section library at your disposal. With this, it becomes more of a positioning decision than a technical skill one.
- Most Shopify design work sits in the $2,500 to $15,000 range, and ongoing retainers are where the real income stability comes from.
Shopify is the most underrated niche in web design because it has the lowest designer competition of any major platform while serving one of the biggest, hungriest client bases online.
When I counted the amount of stores on a particular platform vs. the amount design studios designing on that platform (using BuiltWith's 2025 data), Shopify came out to roughly 7.5 designers for every 1,000 stores.
This was the lowest of anything I looked at, which is cool given that Shopify runs close to a third of all US online stores. There's huge demand, a short line of specialists, and clients whose whole business depends on their Shopify site.
I didn't start out as a Shopify specialist, nor did I come from a "traditional" web development background.
After getting into branding, I dipped my toes in the web design waters building sites on Wordpress and Squarepsace for service-based businesses like hairdressers (and my 2017-era wanna be travel blog, lol).
Then, a branding client asked me if I could build her a custom gift-boxing site on Shopify. I said yes (yay, I get to try out a new platform!) and opened its backend for the first time.
Cue the existential crisis that happened when I came to realize that Shopify's designer was...different from Squarespace, to put it mildly.
There was a lot going on in there. I had to detangle how the Theme is separate from the pages are separate from the backend data (and this was back in the days before Shopify 2.0 when you couldn't even design layouts on non-Home pages without custom code).
It doesn't actually take THAT long, or THAT much brainpower, to find your away around the Shopify admin, but your first couple of hours in it feel a bit scavenger hunt-y.
This slight learning curve is where the Shopify design opportunity lies, though.
Not to toot my own horn, but if someone who's very techie like me felt way in over their head when opening the platform for the first time, the store owners feel it much more. This is a big reason so many of them who are moving off marketplaces like Etsy and onto Shopify are looking for help.
Shopify has the lowest designer competition of a LOT of our favorite platforms
Here's the part I don't see anybody talking about: Shopify is the least crowded niche in many of the big web design players today. There are millions of stores and relatively very few designers who focus on them. Most designers feel more comfortable staying generalists and treating eCommerce as just one of the offerings on their menu of services.
When I ran the numbers through BuiltWith, there were roughly 5 million Shopify stores and only around 40,000 design studios serving them.
That works out to about 7.5 designers per 1,000 stores, lower than every other platform I checked. One caveat to note (that actually makes my point hit home even harder): Shopify's partner count lumps in app developers and tech partners, so the real design-studio number is fuzzy and probably even thinner than it looks.
| Platform | Designers per 1,000 sites | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify | ~7.5 | Least crowded of the major platforms |
| WordPress | ~9 | Premium work pays, commodity work races to the bottom |
| Squarespace | ~11 | Plenty of freelancers, but most owners just DIY |
| Showit | ~34 | Tiny pond, packed with template shops |
| Webflow | ~40 | Lots of designers chasing the same sites, competing on quality |
There's an old analogy I love for this. Let's say you woke up tomorrow and for some reason HAD to sell a million hot dogs this year. It'd be a silly mistake to obsess over the branding of your hot dog stand when it's really about where you park the damn thing.
Basically, you want to plant yourself where the crowd is hungry. Shopify is that spot: a big, hungry client base with a shallow pool of designers to choose from.
Shopify Stores Are Business Infrastructure, So Owners Hire Sooner
A Shopify store is business infrastructure (you can kinda liken a Shopify storefront to a literal cash register).
It's in charge of a whole bunch: inventory, checkout, merchandising—not to mention potentially 100% of a client's revenue—so the stakes are at a totally different level from a service-based site that acts more like a brochure to drive leads.
Because the store is their revenue, owners care more about the details: things like conversion rate, product discovery, checkout friction, and average order value. So, they hire a pro sooner and view them more as a trusted partner, because there's serious money riding on whether the work sells.
Drag-and-drop website platforms are generally more surface-level than Shopify. Think of a Shopify store like an iceberg where the storefront design is the tip (the part everyone sees). Under the water you'll find a bigger-than-expected system of apps, inventory, and data. Store owners are more likely to want to reach out for help when there's this magnitude of complexity.
It also helps that Shopify goes far beyond just a DIY crowd. Squarespace, Wix, and to some extent Showit are built and marketed for do-it-yourselfers.
While still somewhat DIY-friendly, Shopify is complex enough that a lot of founders decide it's worth bringing someone in.
That combination is rare: low designer competition, a giant base of stores, and owners who keep investing in the site because it makes them money.
It's why I'd point any designer considering where to specialize toward eCommerce, and specifically toward the platform behind so many $100k-per-year Shopify stores.
You Don't Need to Code to Specialize in Shopify
Here's the myth that keeps designers out: that Shopify means needing to learn how to code.
Although knowing a bit of HTML/CSS with a sprinkle of Liquid can certainly help your Shopify capabilities, you no longer need to know how to code to win high-end Shopify projects.
Because of this, specializing in Shopify boils down to positioning. It's you saying "this is what I do" and marketing your studio as the one who solves this problem. Client resonate with this way more than how much Liquid you know.
Most designers coming from more of a graphic or general web design background and get started in Shopify end up in what I (not so) lovingly call theme jail.
You pick a theme, style it, maybe add a custom font with a little CSS, and you're stuck with whatever sections that theme comes with.
It's a valid approach, but there's friction and a lot more restrictiveness than what you're used to on a drag-and-drop builder.
Custom sections are how you make your prison break from theme jail. They're unique layouts that go beyond theme defaults, and used to require knowledge of HTML/CSS/Javascript/Liquid to get up and running.
Now, a pre-built section library changes that requirement. With it you can copy, paste, and reuse fully custom sections without touching Liquid, so you can hand a client a totally custom store that no other brand has.
It's why I built The Section Studio: a library of custom-coded Shopify sections you copy, paste, and reuse, so you can build a totally custom store without writing code or hiring a developer. Pair it with Shopify's free Dawn theme and theme selection stops mattering (all while saving $$ on each project).
Clients love this, because paying thousands for a designer and getting a lightly styled theme is...kind of a bummer.
Telling them "this is a totally custom site, no one else will have this" is a strong selling point.
Shopify Design Is Harder for AI to Replace
If AI has you nervous about the future of design work, specializing is what's going to help you rest easy at night.
AI is coming for the generalists before the specialists. It can spit out a layout that functions and looks kinda good, but it has no taste and no real subject-matter-expert point of view.
A platform like Shopify, with its own architecture, apps, and conversion patterns, is much harder for a general AI model to fudge than a five-page service site.
Where the Money Is in Shopify Design
Most Shopify design work (for first-time founders, marketplace migrators, and small businesses) lives between $2,500 and $15,000 a project. Big-agency projects can be many, many multiples of this, but are fewer and further between.
You can build a steady and strong income in this range way before you take on a $20,000-plus enterprise build.
| Client type | Typical budget | Why they're worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| First-time founders | $1,500-$6,000 | The biggest group by volume, but they need the most hand-holding |
| Marketplace migrators (off Etsy or Amazon) | $4,000-$10,000 | Proven product, photos and copy ready, easy to prospect |
| Refresh / redesign | $6,000-$15,000 | Existing store, existing revenue, quick wins |
| Scaling brands | $15,000-$30,000 | They know what they want and invest in growth |
| Enterprise / Shopify Plus | $25,000-$100,000+ | The big kahunas, with the most pressure to get it right |
The trick to staying profitable here is scope.
Getting started in Shopify, you should be clear on the fact that you only touch the frontend design. "Backend warehouse" stuff like inventory, shipping, taxes, and payments stay with the client.
Think of yourself as the interior designer for the store. It'd be weird for you to go start printing shipping labels in the back.
You can most definitely (and probably should) start to layer more adjacent Shopify services into your offerings like bulk product management, app installs, and even email flows, but for the beginning focus on mastering one area before you spread yourself too thin.
On your first few Shopify discovery calls, make it clear to the client that you only touch the design built into Shopify, and refer out or separately quote anything operational.
Two things I never touch: taxes and payments. Sales tax runs on state-by-state nexus rules, and payments means handling someone's bank details, so I say a (way more polite) "heck no" to these each time.
Then, you've got the chance to build some real income stability after launch. A store is a living business, so there's always a next season, or a new collection, or a conversion tweak to make. Booking clients for ongoing retainers to support them with these items means your business doesn't restart from zero every time a project ends, and you can even turn your process into digital products you sell on Shopify for a second income stream.
How to Start Specializing in Shopify
Getting into Shopify design doesn't take a bootcamp or a developer background. Here's the path I'd take if I were starting over in 2026.
Make Shopify your thing
Say it loud and proud: you're the Shopify person. Positioning is what turns strangers into referrals, and people start sending you eCommerce work once they know it's your specialty.
Build with Dawn plus a section method
Skip the coding headache and learn Shopify's free Dawn theme and a copy-paste section workflow so you can build an abundance of custom sites without writing Liquid.
Make two or three portfolio stores
Design and fully build a few marketplace-migrator-style stores. Clients hire what they can see, so your eCommerce work generally has to exist before the first client does.
Scope front-end-first, then add retainers or add-ons
Package a fixed build, keep operations out of scope, and seed the benefits of ongoing work from day one so retainers feel natural at launch.
