Trade portals, credit tools, ERP syncs and point of sale. Built for one store or for the App Store.
Two very different jobs go by the same word. One runs on your store and nobody else's. The other has to survive the App Store.
So we counted. We read 264 apps across seven App Store categories. In the middle category, five apps hold about half the reviews. In two, nearer seven in ten.
Which one you need changes the build, the timeline and what you own at the end. Most settle that too late. It is the first question any Shopify app development company Raleigh brands hire should put to you.
In short
Ecomm Wizards is a Shopify app development company Raleigh brands hire for two things. We build custom apps that run on your own store. We also build public apps for the Shopify App Store, and handle the review and the listing.
Nobody plans the systems they end up with. What works at fifty orders a day holds. At five hundred it stops: a workaround here, a manual export there, a spreadsheet nobody admits to.
By then you have usually stopped looking for an app. The one you need does not exist, or it exists and does nine tenths of the job.
It is rarely the whole system that breaks. It is one step: the way your sizes map to a supplier, or the rule that decides which warehouse ships, or the discount one account was promised years ago. A Shopify app development company Raleigh brands hire should scope that step, not the rebuild around it.
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A custom app is installed on one store. Shopify calls this custom distribution: your store only, or stores belonging to one Plus organization. It never goes near a listing, a review queue or a stranger's shop. It does exactly what you asked for and nothing else.
A public app can be installed by anyone, and has to earn that. Public distribution means any store can install it, which is why it goes through Shopify's app review before it is listed. There is a requirements checklist to clear first, covering prohibited behavior, performance, security and what the listing itself must show.
The build is different, the timeline is different, and the thing you own at the end is different. Most of the work in a public app is not the app itself. Anyone on your Shopify app development company Raleigh shortlist should plan those two jobs apart.
This is the homework a Shopify app development company Raleigh brands hire should do before it takes your brief. We read every app card on the seven top-level category pages in September 2026, 264 apps, and counted how much of each category's reviews the five biggest hold.
| Category | Apps shown | Share of reviews held by the top five |
|---|---|---|
| Finding products | 31 | 70% |
| Store designThemes, page builders and the tools most stores reach for first. | 33 | 69% |
| Sales channels | 36 | 67% |
| Selling products | 36 | 53% |
| Store management | 41 | 50% |
| Orders and shipping | 43 | 40% |
| Marketing and conversionThe most crowded category we counted, and still the top five hold nearly four reviews in ten. | 44 | 39% |
That cuts two ways, and which way depends on why you came. If you want an app to install, you have fewer real options than the page suggests. The gap between what those five do and what you need is where custom work starts. If you want to publish one, you are launching into a category where five apps already hold half the credibility.
Neither of those is a reason not to build. Both change what you should be building, and that is the conversation to have with any Shopify app development company Raleigh shortlist before the scope is set.
A custom app answers to one store. It can assume your catalog, your workflow and your edge cases, because there is exactly one of each.
A public app cannot assume anything. It has to work on a store it has never seen, survive review, and keep working when Shopify changes underneath it.
That is why the two timelines look so different. The feature is often the small part of a public app. A Shopify app development company Raleigh brands keep will scope the rest of it before you commit.
Not sure which of the two you need? Tell us what the app has to do and we'll say.
Get in touch with usSix steps, the same for a custom app and a public one. A public app takes its extra time on the last two. It is the sequence any Shopify app development company Raleigh brands hire should be able to show you up front.
Custom or public, decided on the first call and written down. Most scopes end up smaller than the one people arrive with.
Your products, your orders, your warehouse, your accounting. Most of an app is the joins between them, and we list all of them first.
It reads your store through Shopify's data connection, not a copy. It sits inside the admin your staff already use, and looks like it belongs there.
We build on a development store, never on the shop taking money. You use the working app and tell us what is wrong while it is still easy to change.
A bad address, a sold-out item, two people saving the same order. The failures that matter are the ones nobody planned for.
A custom app installs on your store and that is the end of it. A public one goes to Shopify's review queue first, and we take that pass with you.
Four things that hold on a one-store app and an App Store launch. Any Shopify app development company Raleigh brands bring in should commit to all four.
If the job is a feature on your own store, we say so, even when the bigger build was ours to sell.
Your app, your Partner account, your listing if there is one. Nothing sits with us that you would have to ask for back.
Shopify changes its platform on a schedule. You get a handover of what runs, what it depends on, and what will need attention.
If it has to change, you see it and agree before anyone acts on it.
Often there is, and if it fits we will tell you so. The table above is the check: a category is mostly five apps, and those five solve the common case.
Custom work starts where your case stops being common. Any Shopify app development company Raleigh brands trust should run that check before agreeing to build you anything.
Nor do we. Anything only one person can read is a risk to us too.
So the documentation arrives during the build, not at the end. Put it in front of a developer you trust while there is still time to fix what is unclear.
Usually the scope was a product when everyone thought it was a feature. Or the App Store rules arrived late.
Both are planning failures rather than coding ones. A public build carries the review pass in the plan from the start, not as a late surprise.
Less than most people expect. It is usually an hour or two a week from whoever knows the workflow best, because that person is the only one who knows the edge cases.
You do not need a developer of your own. Nobody on your team has to learn anything new.
What we do need is one person who can say yes. A build that waits a week for every decision runs long, and no Shopify app development company Raleigh brands hire can fix that from the outside.
The first conversation is about which of the two you need. It costs you nothing, including when the answer is neither.
Get in touch with usWho can install it. A custom app goes on your store only, or on stores in a single Plus organization. A public app can be installed by anyone, which is why it goes through Shopify's review before it is listed.
Private is the older name for a custom app, so if only your store will use it, that is the one you need. A public app is right when the thing you built is a product other merchants would install.
A checklist you clear before your app is listed. It covers what apps may not do, how fast the app runs, how it handles data, and what your listing has to show. Checkout and post-purchase apps have extra rules. Shopify reviews the submission.
A custom app with a tight scope is usually weeks, not months. A public app takes longer, and the extra time goes on the listing and the review pass, not the feature. Any Shopify app development company Raleigh shortlist should give you both timelines up front.
Yes, and that is usually the reason to build one. A theme changes what the store looks like and how it behaves for a visitor. An app can hold logic, talk to your other systems and keep running when nobody is looking at it.
Yes, and remotely is how it runs. There is no office in the city to visit. Where your office sits does not change how the work is scoped, built or handed over.
You do. The code, the Partner account and the App Store listing sit in your name from day one, not ours. Nothing has to be handed back, because we never held it. Ask that of every Shopify app development company Raleigh brands recommend.
Usually. We read what is there first. Then we tell you whether it is worth continuing or starting again. A build nobody wrote down can take longer to inherit than to replace.
Shopify keeps changing, so something will eventually need attention. Most brands keep us on for that. If you would rather hand it to your own developer, the documentation goes with it.
Shopify's own tools, mostly. The app reads your store through Shopify's connection rather than a copy of your data, and it sits inside the admin your staff already use. There is no second system for anyone to log into.
It can, which is worth asking before you build one. Shopify's rules for listed apps cover how fast the app runs, and we hold a custom app to the same standard. Anything that does not have to happen while a shopper waits gets moved out of their way.
Usually, as long as your existing software will let it. Accounting, warehouse, stock and point of sale mostly have a way in. We map yours in the first two weeks, because an app that cannot reach your other systems is the most common reason a build stalls.
No. A custom app can be installed on a single store on any plan. Plus only matters when you want one app installed across several stores that belong to the same organization.
Next step
The same three questions, answered for your own store.
Tell us what the app has to do and we will come back with:
It stops at the answer, and you can take it to any developer.
No charge, and no follow-up sequence.
A developer replies within one working day. Not a salesperson.
