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Five eCommerce agency quotes are comparable only when they cover substantially the same work. Without the original proposals and project details, there is no sound basis to report five prices, rank agencies, or claim a winner. The useful way to compare them is to normalize scope, responsibilities, delivery evidence, and ongoing costs before weighing the totals.
Why five totals may describe five different projects
Agencies can interpret the same brief differently: one may include migration, testing, training, or launch support while another treats those items as optional or leaves them to the client. A lower fee can therefore mean a narrower scope or more work for your team, rather than better value. As Robin Laseur of Flatline Agency puts it, “Three proposals can answer the same brief while pricing different projects.” The comparison is meaningful only after those differences are made visible.
This distinction matters even when each document appears to address the same project. A proposal total is a price for its stated assumptions and deliverables, not a reliable measure of the cost of delivering every requirement in your brief.
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Use the same requirements as rows and the five agencies as columns. Mark each item included, excluded, optional, assumed, or unclear. Add a note for material differences and ask the agency to resolve important unknowns in writing. Shopify’s proposal guidance similarly emphasizes that the scope should make clear what is and is not included in the price (Shopify Partners proposal guide).
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| Requirement to check | What to establish |
|---|---|
| Design | Whether research, UX, visual design, revisions, and implementation are included, and what deliverables the agency will provide. |
| Build and integrations | Which storefront features, systems, and integrations are covered, and what work depends on another vendor or the client. |
| Migration | Whether product, customer, order, content, and other relevant data migration is included, along with responsibility for validation. |
| Quality assurance | What testing is planned, who performs it, and who resolves defects before launch. |
| Training and launch | Whether staff training, launch planning, launch-day support, and post-launch fixes are part of the quoted work. |
| Support | What support follows launch, for how long, and whether it is included in the quoted fee or separately priced. |
These are items to verify, not promises that every project needs every service. The BigCommerce RFP template can help organize project requirements, scope, budget, timeline, and stakeholders (BigCommerce eCommerce RFP template).
Clarify ownership and the effort expected from your team
A proposal can appear complete while assigning essential work to the client. For each major workstream, record who leads it, who supplies decisions or materials, and who coordinates dependencies. Include architecture, design, development, data, QA, project governance, and launch where they apply.
- Identify the client inputs the schedule depends on, such as access, content, product data, approvals, and subject-matter expertise.
- Establish who coordinates other vendors and resolves issues across systems.
- Check whether the proposed project manager has authority to manage dependencies and communicate risks.
- Record post-launch responsibilities on both sides, including support escalation and ownership of any outstanding work.
Translate substantial client effort into the comparison rather than treating it as free. A proposal that requires your team to manage migration or coordinate integrations may have a lower agency fee but a different operational cost and risk profile.
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Adjectives such as “expert” or “full-service” do not establish that an agency is suited to your project. Ask for the platform-specific experience relevant to the proposed technical approach, examples of comparable work, and details about the people who would actually deliver the project. Shopify’s enterprise RFP guidance recommends asking about agency experience, team, success measurement, and reporting (Shopify Enterprise eCommerce RFP guidance).
- Team: Are the key roles and account team identified, and will those people work on your project?
- Relevant evidence: Can the agency explain work comparable in platform, complexity, or business requirements?
- Approach: Does its technical plan address your actual requirements and dependencies?
- Governance: Is there a credible process for decisions, status updates, risks, and changes?
- Measurement: How will success be defined, measured, and reported?
- Timeline: Does the schedule identify client inputs, dependencies, and decision points rather than only a target launch date?
Compare the commercial exposure beyond the initial fee
Read the pricing model and contract terms alongside the scope. Agency arrangements can be project-based, retainer-based, performance-based, or hybrid; their totals are not directly comparable unless you understand what each covers and when payment is due. Shopify’s agency-selection guidance discusses these pricing structures and contract and offboarding considerations (Shopify UK agency selection guide).
- Assumptions and exclusions: Note any conditions that could add work or cost if they prove untrue.
- Change control: Find out how a requested change is assessed, approved, scheduled, and priced.
- Recurring and third-party costs: Separate ongoing support, platform or app charges, and other vendor fees from one-time agency work.
- Payment terms: Compare milestones, deposits, recurring commitments, and any conditions tied to payment.
- Exit and handover: Establish what happens to access, documentation, work in progress, and support if the engagement ends.
Do not add a generic market price range to explain the five quotes: no project amounts, currencies, or comparable scope details are established here. The quoted figures and their tax basis, payment model, and proposal dates would need to come from the actual documents.
Make a fair decision after the proposals are normalized
- Start with the same brief. Confirm that all agencies priced the same goals, requirements, constraints, and launch expectations.
- Mark scope status. Complete the matrix for each proposal and resolve consequential unclear or assumed items in writing.
- Map responsibilities. Record agency ownership, client inputs, vendor dependencies, and post-launch duties.
- Assess fit and delivery. Compare the actual team, relevant evidence, technical approach, governance, timeline, and measurement plan.
- Reconcile the commercial terms. Separate one-time fees from recurring and third-party costs; review change and exit terms.
- Explain the remaining differences. Only then compare totals, noting what each price buys and what additional effort or exposure remains with your business.
This method does not produce an evidence-based winner unless the five proposal documents and the buyer’s priorities are available. It does give you a defensible way to identify which proposal best fits those priorities, rather than mistaking the lowest initial fee for the lowest-risk choice.
What the available figures do—and do not—show
Shopify’s enterprise RFP article reports that 91% of surveyed enterprises said low total cost of ownership was important when changing eCommerce platforms; Shopify says it commissioned the research from an independent consulting firm, but the retrieved passage does not identify the study year or original study. That finding is about surveyed enterprises considering platform changes, not a comparison of agency prices or proof that one proposal is cheaper over time. The same article mentions 67% of companies changing or planning to change commerce architecture, but the underlying study and year are not identified in the passage, so it should not be treated as an independently verified market-wide statistic.
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