Fixed scope
Fixed price
against a written scope
- Written scope and acceptance criteria up front
- Fixed price against that scope
- Staged delivery with review points
- Change requests priced separately, never absorbed silently
Custom Shopify sections and blocks
Reusable, schema-driven sections your merchandisers can add, reorder and configure themselves — with limits that keep the storefront on brand no matter who is editing it. The fastest way to stop paying a developer to move a banner.
Sections are how a marketing team stops filing tickets
Every campaign that needs a developer is a campaign that ships late. A good section library turns a two-day ticket into a ten-minute change in the theme editor — without letting anyone ship a 4MB hero image.
Schema is the product
The Liquid is the easy half. The value is in the schema: which settings exist, what their defaults are, what the limits are, and what is deliberately not configurable. A section with forty settings is not flexible, it is unusable.
We design the settings around the campaigns you actually run, then constrain everything else. Image dimensions, character counts, colour choices drawn from the theme palette rather than a free colour picker.
See what we build
Fast by construction, not by cleanup
A section that queries a 400-product collection to render a badge will be slow no matter how well the rest of the theme is tuned. Sections get a performance budget the same way templates do.
Responsive images with correct sizes, lazy loading below the fold, no layout shift as media loads, and no third-party script pulled in for an effect that CSS can do.
Theme development
The Shopify stack sections are built on
Native Online Store 2.0 primitives. Nothing proprietary, nothing that stops working if you change agency.
Section schema
Typed settings with defaults, limits and presets, so the theme editor offers sensible choices rather than raw fields.
Blocks & presets
Repeatable blocks with min and max counts, plus presets so a section arrives pre-configured rather than blank.
App blocks
Sections that expose app block targets, so an installed app can inject its content where it belongs without anyone editing theme code — the difference between an app install and a developer ticket.
Metaobjects
Structured content referenced by sections rather than duplicated into them, so one edit updates every place a testimonial, spec table or badge appears.
Responsive images
Shopify’s image CDN with correct sizes and dimensions, so the browser never downloads a desktop hero on a phone.
Liquid
Server-rendered, commented and structured so the next developer — ours or yours — can find things.
Sections we build most often
A section library is usually assembled over a few rounds rather than all at once. These are the ones that earn their keep first.
Campaign & landing sections
Hero, split feature, editorial band, countdown and promo tiles — the pieces a marketing team recombines every month.
Product page sections
Spec tables, size guidance, bundles, cross-sells, trust content and tabbed detail, driven by metafields.
Merchandising that survives contact with a merchandiser
Every setting has a default that already looks right, a limit that prevents the layout breaking, and a label written for the person editing it rather than the person who built it. Colour comes from the theme palette, not a free picker.
- Typed settings
- Preset defaults
- Enforced limits
Built for Core Web Vitals from the first commit
Correct image sizes, reserved space so nothing jumps as media loads, lazy loading below the fold, and no third-party script pulled in for an effect CSS can do. A section is not done until it holds the budget.
- Responsive images
- No layout shift
- No blocking scripts
Content & social proof
Testimonials, FAQ, logo strips and editorial blocks fed from metaobjects so one edit updates every appearance.
Documentation
Every section documented with what it does, what the settings mean and where it should be used.
Custom sections vs a page-builder app
Page builders are genuinely useful for a landing page in a hurry. Here is the trade you are making.
| Page-builder app | Custom TLX sections | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first page | Minutes | Days |
| Ongoing cost | Monthly subscription, forever | Built once |
| Performance | The builder’s runtime on every page | Only your markup |
| If you uninstall it | Pages break or flatten | Nothing to uninstall |
| Brand consistency | As disciplined as the last editor | Constrained by schema |
| Theme editor | A second editor to learn | Native, where your team already works |
| Developer needed for changes | No | No |
| Best when | A one-off campaign page | Patterns you will reuse every month |
How we work
How a sections project runs
7 stages. Open any one of them.
What are you actually shipping
Campaign patterns, not a wishlist.
We look at the last six months of campaigns and the tickets your team filed, and pick the sections that would have removed the most developer time.
Settings design
The half that decides whether it gets used.
Which settings exist, their defaults, their limits, and what is deliberately fixed. Written down and agreed before the Liquid gets written.
Visual design
States included.
Each section designed with real content at realistic lengths, plus the empty and overflow cases, so nothing breaks the first time somebody types a long headline.
Development
On a preview theme, in Git.
Liquid, schema, presets and responsive images, built on a branch with a preview link you can click.
Hardening
Including the editor experience.
Cross-browser and device coverage, accessibility, Core Web Vitals — plus a pass in the theme editor itself, because a section that is awkward to configure will not get used.
Documentation and training
So your team owns it.
Each section documented with its purpose, settings and intended use, plus a walkthrough for the people who will run campaigns.
Next round
Sections accrete.
Most libraries grow over several rounds as new campaign patterns appear. Retained hours cover that without re-scoping each time.
Ways to engage
Three shapes, depending on how well defined the work is. Every one starts with a scoped written proposal — no work begins on a verbal estimate.
Retainer
Monthly
block of hours
- A block of hours each month
- Prioritized by you, replanned as often as you like
- The same developers month to month
- Reporting on what the hours went to
Time & materials
Tracked time
billed as used
- Billed against tracked time
- Suits discovery, R&D and migrations
- Estimate per ticket before it starts
- Stop or change direction at any point
Rates are quoted against a written scope rather than published as a tier, because the same service costs very different amounts on a five-template store and a five-hundred-template one.
Context
The categories we build for
The mechanics are the same everywhere. Which sections earn their keep first is entirely a function of the category.
Fashion & Apparel
Beauty & Cosmetics
Food & Beverage
Jewelry & Luxury
Home & Outdoor
Electronics
Health & Supplements
Subscription
Sports & Fitness
Multi-region
Marketplace & Multi-store
Questions about custom Shopify sections
Custom Shopify sections are reusable, schema-driven components your merchandisers can add, reorder and configure themselves in the theme editor. TLX Apps builds them on native Online Store 2.0 primitives — typed settings with defaults and limits, blocks and presets, app block targets, metaobjects and responsive images — so campaigns ship without a developer ticket.
Usually yes. Any Shopify Online Store 2.0 theme supports custom sections, and we build them to drop into yours. The caveat is vendor updates: a premium theme vendor can overwrite files when they ship a new version, so we document what was added and where.
That is the entire point. Settings are typed, labelled for the person editing rather than the person who built it, and constrained with sensible defaults and limits, so a merchandiser can run a campaign from the Shopify theme editor without being able to break the layout.
A page-builder app ships its own runtime on every page and stops working the day you cancel the subscription — your pages flatten or break. Custom Shopify sections are just your theme: built once, no ongoing subscription, nothing to uninstall, and edited natively where your team already works.
Yes, and they usually should. Referencing a metaobject rather than duplicating content into each section means one edit updates every appearance — the difference between a section library that stays accurate and one that rots.
Yes. Exposing app block targets in the right sections is what stops every Shopify app install from becoming a developer ticket.
Fewer than most people expect. Six to ten well-designed, well-constrained sections usually cover the campaign patterns a marketing team actually repeats. Forty sections with overlapping purposes is a maintenance problem, not a library.
It scales with the number of sections and how much design already exists, so a fixed number would be meaningless. We scope first and quote against a written scope — fixed price, retainer, or time and materials.
Section libraries grow as new campaign patterns appear. Most clients keep a small On-Demand Shopify Support retainer so sections can be added without re-scoping a project each time.
Stop filing tickets to move a banner
Tell us which changes your team keeps asking developers for. We will tell you which of them should be a section.