Fixed price or hourly for a Shopify project — which protects me?

For a defined deliverable — a theme, a store build, a migration — fixed price protects you: the number is agreed up front and the risk of overruns sits with the developer, not you. You know exactly what you'll pay. That's how we quote everything.

Hourly makes sense for genuinely open-ended or exploratory work where scope can't be pinned down, or for ongoing maintenance. The danger with hourly on a fixed deliverable is unbounded cost and no incentive to be efficient. If a project can be scoped, insist on a fixed quote with a clear deliverables list.