Shopify speed · service

Shopify speed optimization that gets you under 2.0s LCP.

A focused engagement that drops your store's Largest Contentful Paint under 2.0s, INP under 200ms, and CLS to near-zero — measured on real devices, on the templates that actually drive revenue. Works on any Shopify theme; no rebuild required.

Book a 20-min scope call → See selected work

◆ Real-device measurements · before/after Lighthouse + RUM · Core Web Vitals 2026

Why most stores are slow

Where Shopify actually loses time.

Five places I find the time hiding when I audit a slow Shopify store. Most "speed optimization" services treat one of them. A real engagement treats all five.

01 ◆

Apps. Twelve installed apps inject thirty-plus scripts, half of them blocking, most of them on every page including checkout. The single biggest LCP and INP regressor on the platform.

02 ◆

Hero image. Theme uses Shopify's default image_url filter at 2000px wide and serves it at 800px. Discount preload tags fire too late. LCP eats the difference.

03 ◆

Liquid bloat. Sections that loop through every product on the site, then render a <code>{% capture %}</code> the customer never sees. Server-side render time bleeds straight into TTFB.

04 ◆

Third-party fonts. Three font families, four weights each, loaded with display: block. First-paint blocked for 800ms before the page even tries to render.

05 ◆

INP killers. Carousel libraries that bind 200 event listeners on load, search auto-complete that runs on every keystroke without debounce, popup apps that do layout-thrashing scroll math.

What I do

What's in scope.

A complete speed engagement covers every layer below. Real-device measurement before, work, real-device measurement after. You get the numbers in writing and a 14-day RUM window confirming the improvement is stable.

◆ Diagnostic — Lighthouse, WebPageTest, PageSpeed Insights on five priority templates (home, collection, product, cart, checkout entry).
◆ App audit — every installed app, what it costs in load time, what it costs in subscription, what should stay vs. go vs. be replaced with native code.
◆ Image pipeline — responsive image_url widths matched to actual rendered sizes, srcset, sizes, AVIF where supported, lazy below-fold, eager + fetchpriority="high" for LCP.
◆ Liquid refactor — kill heavy section loops, defer non-critical capture, paginate where the section is rendering all 600 products.
◆ JS budget — defer non-critical scripts, async where safe, code-split via Shopify's asset_url, remove jQuery if the theme can survive without it (most modern themes can).
◆ Font loading — preload one variable font, font-display: swap, subset to Latin only.
◆ Third-party audit — defer Klaviyo, lazy-init chat widgets, server-side Meta CAPI to remove Pixel render blocking, kill unused tag-manager containers.
◆ INP work — debounce search, virtualize long lists, replace heavy carousels with lighter equivalents.
◆ Real Device verification — Moto G4 emulation + 3G fast on every measurement. No cherry-picked desktop wins.
◆ 14-day RUM monitoring after launch via your Shopify analytics or a Cloudflare RUM script. Written before/after report.

Packages

Three speed packages.

Diagnostic only

$399

Delivery 3 days

Lighthouse + WebPageTest on five priority templates
App audit with replacement difficulty + monthly savings
Prioritized fix list with effort estimates
Loom walkthrough of the report
No rebuild — diagnostic only

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Standard rebuild Most chosen

$2,400

Delivery 2 weeks

Diagnostic + 4-6 highest-ROI app replacements
Image pipeline overhaul
Font loading + JS deferral
INP fixes on top 3 templates
Real-device before/after measurement
14 days post-launch RUM monitoring

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Catalog-scale

From $5,500

Delivery 4-6 weeks

50K+ SKU stores with collection-page or PDP performance issues
Liquid refactor across all section types
Custom Shopify CDN tuning + edge caching strategy
Headless front-end recommendation if warranted
30 days post-launch RUM
Optional retainer for ongoing CRO + speed work

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Process

How a typical project ships.

Diagnostic

Lighthouse + WebPageTest + RUM read on your top 5 templates. App audit. I send you the prioritized fix list with projected savings.

Approve scope

You see the full plan before we touch code. Anything you don't want done, we drop. Anything you want extra, we quote as a delta.

Rebuild

Work happens on a duplicate theme. Live theme is untouched until we publish. Daily updates, weekly demo of measurable wins.

Verify + monitor

Real-device measurement after, RUM script monitors for 14 days, written before/after report. If LCP regresses for any reason in the first 30 days, I fix it free.

FAQ

Speed-engagement FAQs.

No fluff — the specifics buyers want before booking a call. If yours isn't here, ask on the call.

What LCP / INP / CLS targets do you commit to?

LCP under 2.0s on real devices (Moto G4 + 3G fast emulation), INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.05. If your theme has a hard architectural problem (Page Builder shortcodes everywhere, for example), I'll flag it during diagnostic and we revise the target. I don't commit to numbers I can't hit.

Will I lose features when you replace apps?

No — that's the whole point of native replacement. Reviews stay (re-rendered server-side from exported data), wishlist stays (theme code with localStorage + customer-account API), sticky cart stays. The customer sees the same store, faster. The app sidebar is gone.

Will this break my Klaviyo / Meta / GA4 tracking?

No — tracking integrity is a hard requirement. I keep Klaviyo, GA4, Meta Pixel + CAPI, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest. What I move is rendering — Pixel becomes server-side via CAPI, Klaviyo onsite scripts become deferred. We verify every conversion event still fires correctly before publishing.

Will it work on Dawn / Impulse / Symmetry / Prestige / Empire?

Yes. The diagnostic identifies theme-specific bottlenecks — Dawn is fast out of the box but apps slow it down; Impulse and Empire have heavier sections that need refactor. The work plan is theme-aware.

Do I need to be on Shopify Plus?

No — most of the speed work is theme + app + image pipeline, which is identical on Advanced and Plus. The Plus-only items (Functions for checkout-side perf, Checkout Extensibility) come up only if your bottleneck is in checkout, which is rare.

How is this different from buying an "all-in-one speed app"?

Speed apps install another script that promises to optimize everything else. Sometimes they help; often they make things worse and add their own LCP cost. A real engagement removes apps and refactors code, not adds another app on top. The blog post on /how-we-cut-480-monthly-shopify-app-spend/ has a real example.

How long do the gains last?

Indefinitely if you don't install another wave of apps. I include a 14-day RUM window and a written "do not install these without checking with me" list. Most clients pick a $299/mo retainer for ongoing CRO + perf monitoring after the initial engagement.

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