Frequently asked questions

Braun Design Co designs, builds, migrates and supports Shopify and Shopify Plus stores for brands that already sell. We are a Shopify Plus Partner based in Austin, Texas, founded in 2016 by Jason Braun, and we make the stores we work on accessible and easy for AI search to read. Every service and its starting price is on our services page.

Braun Design Co is based in Austin, Texas. Work is remote-first, and we work with clients across the United States. In Austin, we can meet in person at your office or another place that is convenient for you. More on working with us in Austin. Mailing address: 7310 Menchaca Rd #150651, Austin, TX 78715.

A senior developer who works in the code leads every project. We are a small team on purpose, so the people you talk to are the people building your store.

Starter builds on a premium theme start at $5,000. Plus builds, where we customize a theme's design and functionality around your brand, start at $12,000. Fully custom Premium builds start at $20,000. Catalog size, integrations, and how much custom design you want are what move the number. A 30-minute call is usually enough for a realistic range.

Book a 30-minute call (booking is through Google Calendar). We will go through goals, scope, timeline, and budget. You leave with a realistic sense of the project and the cost.

We do both: we design Shopify stores and build them, so the look and the code come from one team. That includes redesigning stores we built years earlier. We moved Baby Trend to Shopify Plus in 2019 and redesigned it in 2026. Read the Baby Trend case study.

Our clients include KT Tape, Baby Trend, ecoNugenics, Urban Body Jewelry and The Symphony Store, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's official shop. We have also worked with New Canaan Farms, Gossamer Gear, Derma E, 1928 Jewelry, Dorai and Saalt. Our case studies show the work.

Yes, Braun Design Co is a Shopify Plus Partner, listed in Shopify's Partner Directory. Jason Braun also holds Shopify's Selling Shopify Fundamentals, Marketing Fundamentals and Solution Planning Fundamentals verified skills badges, shown on our certifications page.

Client reviews are on our ShopExperts profile. Our case studies describe projects in detail, with dates and results.

Migrations to Shopify start at $15,000, monthly store support and AI search audits each start at $2,500, and accessibility audits start at $350. Every service and its starting price is on our services page.

Catalog size, integrations and the amount of custom design move the price most. A catalog of thousands of SKUs or a NetSuite connection takes longer to build than a branded premium theme, and the proposal says so before we start.

Yes, small projects such as theme customization, fixes and troubleshooting start at around $500, and they are a good way to see whether we are the right fit for each other. Send us a message about what you need.

Yes, the fee for an accessibility or AI search audit is credited toward any project you book within 60 days, whether that is the fixes, a redesign or something else.

Starter builds typically take 2 to 3 weeks, Plus builds 4 to 6 weeks, and Premium builds 6 to 8 weeks. Timelines depend on how quickly we receive content, product data, and feedback. Current lead time to start is about one month.

We send a written proposal with the scope and one price for it, and the work starts once you approve it.

Yes, we build on an unpublished copy of your theme, so you can review every page on your own store, with your real products, before anything goes live. Your current store keeps selling the whole time.

We plan every launch so it doesn't: we build the new store alongside your current one and switch over only when you approve it. We moved Baby Trend from Magento to Shopify Plus in 2019 and relaunched their store on a new theme in 2026. Read the Baby Trend case study.

We plan every migration to keep them, and at launch every old URL redirects to its new page. Urban Body Jewelry's links from its 2020 Magento store still lead to the right pages on Shopify today. Read the Urban Body Jewelry case study.

A main contact who can make decisions, your content and product data, and feedback at each review. How quickly those arrive affects the timeline more than anything else.

A collaborator account, which you approve in your Shopify admin, with access to only the parts of the store the work needs. It doesn't take one of your staff accounts, we never need your password, and you can remove it at any time. To request it, we ask for the 4-digit collaborator request code in Settings > Users > Security. When we set up Google tools for you, such as Search Console, they belong to your business and we are added as users.

Every build includes support after launch, and then you can keep us on monthly store support or a lighter maintenance plan. We recommend a level once the store is live, and you can change it later.

Store support covers regular development, updates and priority response, from $2,500 a month. The lighter maintenance plan covers theme and app updates, security and performance checks and a small block of hours, for stores that mostly need upkeep.

Many do, often for years: we have worked with Baby Trend since 2019, KT Tape since 2020 and Urban Body Jewelry since December 2020, through their migrations, redesigns and new features. Our case studies follow each one.

Yes, we work on stores we didn't build, on stock and custom themes. We start by reviewing the theme, apps and integrations, and we test every change on a copy of the theme before it goes live.

Usually, yes: on an Online Store 2.0 theme your team can add and arrange sections on every page, including product pages, and apps add their features as blocks instead of editing the theme's code. Shopify calls older themes vintage themes and doesn't make you upgrade, but they miss out on these features. Your customizations don't carry over on their own, so we list what the current theme does, rebuild what you still need in the new one and leave out what you don't, on an unpublished copy while your store keeps selling. We rebuilt this site on Shopify's Horizon theme in October 2026.

Yes, we build pages from sections your team edits in the theme editor, and we put product details in fields your team fills in the Shopify admin. New Canaan Farms' team updates its questions and answers, nutrition panels and seasonal landing pages with no code. Read the New Canaan Farms case study.

No. We are a Shopify Plus Partner and a lot of the work is mid-sized brands on Plus, but we also build and support stores on standard Shopify plans. Fit matters more than plan tier. We do our best work with brands that want a long-term development partner rather than a one-time build.

No, we work only on Shopify, but we move stores to it from Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and custom platforms. Migration pricing is on our services page.

Yes, several: Baby Trend in 2019, and KT Tape and Urban Body Jewelry in 2021, each with its catalog moved over and its old URLs redirected. Read the KT Tape case study.

Yes. For KT Tape, we built a separate wholesale store on Shopify for its business buyers, which ran alongside its retail store. Read the KT Tape case study.

Yes. Baby Trend's orders and inventory sync between Shopify and NetSuite, and we build storefront features to work alongside that sync. For KT Tape, we set up the Shopify and NetSuite integration itself.

Yes. That is a specialty. We have built catalogs with thousands of SKUs, complex variant structures, spec tables, downloadable documentation, and compatibility data using Shopify metafields and metaobjects. The structure should be one your team can maintain without a developer, and one search engines and AI assistants can read.

Yes. We measure your store with Google's PageSpeed Insights and Core Web Vitals, fix what slows it down, and recheck on a preview before anything goes live. The usual causes are apps that load scripts on every page, oversized images, theme code that loads more than a page needs, and tracking tags. When an app is the cause, we show you what it costs in speed so you can decide whether to keep it. Speed work can be a small project on its own or part of ongoing support.

Some do: an app that loads its scripts on every page slows down every page, including the ones that don't use it, and some apps leave code in the theme after you uninstall them. A lower speed score doesn't always mean a slower store, though. A lab score, such as the performance score out of 100 in PageSpeed Insights, comes from one simulated visit and can swing by double digits between runs. We judge speed by Core Web Vitals, which Google measures from real visitors in Chrome over 28 days, and we use lab tests to find the causes.

Yes. We list every app, script and tracking tag on your store, check what each one loads and on which pages, and find what is unused, duplicated or left over from apps you removed. We also check that your analytics and ad accounts record each sale once, not twice or not at all. You get a list of what to keep, fix or remove, and we make the changes on a preview before anything goes live. For KT Tape, that meant loading a store locator's scripts only on the page that shows the map, and cutting unused scripts and files.

Yes. We audit Shopify stores against WCAG 2.2 AA, testing by hand with keyboards and screen readers, and fix what we find. Audits start at $350, and the fee is credited toward any project booked within 60 days. Details are on our ADA compliance page.

Every store we build or redesign is tested against WCAG 2.2 AA before launch, by hand with a keyboard and screen readers as well as with automated checks. We fix problems in the theme's own code rather than with an overlay widget.

Yes. Assistants recommend products and businesses they can read and verify, so we structure product data, brand pages, and content to be machine-readable, and we add the schema and FAQ content those systems use. It is included in Plus and Premium builds and available as a standalone project for existing stores. AI search audits start at $2,500, and the fee is credited toward any project booked within 60 days. Details are on our AI search optimization page.

Yes, an AI search audit includes asking ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI answers the questions your shoppers ask, and noting what they get right and wrong. After the work, we recheck the same questions every month. Read how an AI search audit works.