Your app bill is a code decision, not a subscription
SEK 3 000 a month is SEK 108 000 over three years — mostly features OS 2.0 already gives you, if someone builds them.
- the same bill, over three years
- SEK 108kthe same bill, over three years
- of a typical stack we replace natively
- ~65%of a typical stack we replace natively
A subscription is a decision you keep making
An app is quick to install and quiet to keep. That is the whole problem: nobody re-approves it each month, so a stack assembled over two launches and one agency handover is never priced as the commitment it actually is. SEK 3 000 a month reads as a rounding error on a P&L and as SEK 108 000 on a three-year view.
The comparison that matters is not app-versus-app. It is rent versus own — a licence you pay forever against code that ships once, sits in your theme, and carries no scripts a visitor has to download.
Most of what a mid-sized store rents is a feature Shopify shipped in OS 2.0.
What we replace, and what we keep
- 01Replace: metafield-driven contentSize guides, care instructions, ingredient tables and spec blocks are native metaobjects. An app for them is a monthly fee for a text field.
- 02Replace: bundles and volume pricingShopify Functions do this at checkout, with no script on the storefront and no discount that quietly stops applying.
- 03Keep: reviews, search, and your ESPThese earn their fee — they hold data, moderation queues and deliverability you genuinely do not want to own.
The honest maths
A build costs more than a month of licences and less than three years of them. If a replacement pays back inside eighteen months we recommend it; if it does not, we say so and you keep the app. That is the whole test, and we run it before quoting, not after.