Loading…
Your Full-Service Digital Agency & AI Strategy Partner
Real strategists. Real AI tools. Real growth. — 1Digital® since 2012
Workspace by 1Digital® — the agency platform we built. Coming to select agencies. Join the early-access list →
Custom, Headless & Composable Commerce
Headless storefronts, MACH architectures, and composable commerce stacks — built on Next.js, Medusa.js, commercetools, Shopify Storefront API, BigCommerce Catalyst, and headless CMSes. Shipped since 2012.
Trusted by 400+ Brands · Certified Partners
Of results, scale, and quality at the enterprise level.
Specialists across SEO, AI SEO, PPC, design, dev, and strategy.
US core team for clear communication; vetted global specialists for international client work.
Rated 4.9/5 across 941+ verified client reviews.
Reviewed by the 1Digital® Development TeamLast updated:
Most merchants don't need custom. Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, and Adobe Commerce will out-ship a custom rebuild on TCO and speed-to-market nine times out of ten. But when SaaS hits its ceiling — checkout extensibility caps, multi-channel commerce, B2B + B2C in one cart, content-led DTC, or sub-1.5s LCP as a competitive moat — custom, headless, and composable architectures become the right answer.
This page is the platform-choice hub. If you already know you're building custom, jump to custom development or custom design. WCAG 2.2 AA compliance is engineered into every storefront — see ADA compliance. Strategy-led engagements start at eCommerce strategy services, with downstream conversion optimization and digital marketing programs that compound the platform investment. If you're preparing for agentic surfaces (ChatGPT Shopping, Perplexity Shop, Gemini), see agentic commerce.
When custom is the right call
When it isn't
Not the right fit? Start with our SaaS platform hub— we'll match you to the right backend before you spend a dollar on custom.
Headless & composable stacks we ship
Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless. Pick the commerce engine, then compose the rest.
Shopify as the commerce engine, Next.js (Vercel) as the storefront. Hydrogen + Oxygen when you want first-party tooling.
Open SaaS backend, fully custom front-end. BigCommerce Catalyst as the reference architecture for headless on BC.
Open-source headless commerce engine. Maximum control, plugin-based, runs on AWS / GCP / Azure / Vercel.
API-first commerce platform for global enterprise — multi-currency, multi-channel, B2B + B2C in one platform.
Headless commerce framework purpose-built for complex B2B and multi-vendor catalogs.
WordPress as a content engine behind a Next.js storefront — for editorial-led DTC brands with deep content libraries.
Headless CMS layer
The CMS is the half of the stack editors live in. Pick it carefully — it ships content velocity for the next five years.
How we build
Six phases. Feature-flagged throughout. Revenue keeps running on the legacy stack until parity is proven.
Quantify the SaaS ceiling: where it blocks revenue today, what custom unlocks, TCO over 3 years vs SaaS baseline. Honest no-go is on the table.
Commerce engine, CMS, search, identity, payments, observability, CI/CD. Composability matrix with swap costs documented for every vendor.
Ship a real storefront against a real catalog in 8–14 weeks. Feature-flagged, behind a canary domain, no production risk.
Migrate categories, customer cohorts, or geographies progressively. Revenue keeps flowing through the legacy stack until parity is proven.
URL mapping, 301s, schema parity, AI-crawler accessibility (llms.txt, GPTBot, ClaudeBot), analytics baselines, CWV monitoring.
SLA-backed retainer: dependency upgrades, vendor API bumps, CRO, SEO, agentic-commerce readiness. Composable stacks decay without active care.
Hybrid: SaaS engine + custom storefront
Keep the SaaS backbone (checkout, payments, tax, PCI, inventory). Replace the storefront with custom. This is the sweet spot for most mid-market and enterprise brands — 80% of the custom upside at 30% of the TCO.
Shopify owns checkout, inventory, payments, and tax — Next.js + Hydrogen owns the customer-facing experience. Best of SaaS reliability and custom UX.
Open SaaS commerce engine behind a fully composable Next.js storefront with Makeswift visual editing — ideal mid-market hybrid.
Magento's catalog depth and B2B price-list engine, decoupled from a React PWA storefront for performance and re-platform optionality.
Request a proposal
Share your current platform, the constraint you've hit, and your roadmap. A senior architect replies within one business day with a scoped estimate, candidate stacks, and a draft phase plan.
Every custom and composable build is scoped to the project, so we don't publish fixed price bands. The cost is driven by which commerce engine you pick, the depth of B2B / multi-region / multi-channel requirements, the number of ERP / OMS / PIM integrations, and whether you're rebuilding the storefront only or the engine too. Contact us with your current platform, the constraint you've hit, and your roadmap — a senior architect replies within one business day with a scoped estimate.
Headless storefronts over an existing SaaS backend ship in 12–20 weeks. Composable / MACH builds with new microservices, search, and CMS layers run 20–36+ weeks. We ship an MVP first, then iterate behind feature flags so revenue is never paused for the rebuild.
You do. Repos, infra, vendor accounts, CI/CD, and CMS workspaces are provisioned in your name. No proprietary lock-in to the agency, no recurring license for the storefront layer, and a clean handoff to in-house teams whenever you are ready.
Less than monolithic SaaS, but it is real. Each vendor (commerce engine, CMS, search, payments) becomes a swappable module — but every swap has a real migration cost. The mitigation is API-first contracts, anti-corruption layers between vendors, and a documented composability matrix we deliver with the build.
Vercel and Netlify for Next.js storefronts (edge-rendered, ISR, image optimization). Shopify Oxygen for Hydrogen builds. AWS, GCP, or Azure for self-hosted Medusa.js / Vendure backends. We provision in your cloud account so cost, observability, and security policy stay under your control.
Composable stacks need active stewardship: dependency upgrades, vendor API version bumps, performance budgets, observability, and a roadmap for the swappable layers. Our retainer covers SLA-backed support, CRO, SEO, and continuous iteration so the platform compounds value rather than decaying.