ServicesShopify Speed
Shopify speed optimization, fixed in the theme.
Shopwell does Shopify speed optimization for premium brands — Core Web Vitals work in theme code rather than another app, measured on the mobile devices your customers actually use.
View Our Work →Trusted by Left on Friday, Milk Makeup, Wealthsimple, Obagi, and Hemlock Hat Co.
Core Web Vitals
Three numbers Google uses. All three fixable.
These are the field thresholds Google considers good — measured from real visitors, not a lab test on office wifi.
LCP< 2.5s
Largest Contentful Paint
How long until the main image or headline actually appears. On product pages this is usually the hero image.
INP< 200ms
Interaction to Next Paint
How quickly the page responds when someone taps add-to-cart or opens a filter. Heavy scripts are the usual cause.
CLS< 0.1
Cumulative Layout Shift
How much the page jumps while loading. Late-loading banners and unsized images make people tap the wrong thing.
Reviews
What it's like to work with us.
“Shopwell had a true understanding of our brand & vision. Working with them felt like an extension of our own team in how we collaborated together and brought it to life. Their breadth of expertise, level of communication, and commitment to our success is unmatched. They had a high level of execution on all projects and initiatives, and continually brought new ideas to the table to explore, keeping our business’ best interest in mind at all times. The Shopwell team has been imperative to our growth YOY.”
What slows Shopify down
It's rarely Shopify. It's what's been added.
App scripts on every page
Reviews, upsells, popups, loyalty, chat. Each loads JavaScript sitewide, including on pages where it does nothing.
Third-party tags
Ad pixels, heatmaps, and tag managers stacking up over years, often duplicated and rarely audited.
Oversized imagery
Full-resolution product and lifestyle photography served to phones, in formats a decade out of date.
Render-blocking theme code
CSS and JavaScript loaded in the head that stops the browser painting anything until it finishes.
Font loading
Multiple custom weights loaded before first paint — invisible or shifting text while the page waits.
Sections nobody scrolls to
Below-the-fold carousels, videos, and embeds loading eagerly and competing with content people can see.
What we help with
Faster where it counts: the first paint and the tap.
Performance audit
Lab and field data together — what your real visitors experience by device, not one score from a desktop test.
App & script remediation
Every app and tag inventoried against its cost, then deferred, scoped, or removed with your sign-off.
Theme performance engineering
Critical CSS, deferred scripts, lazy loading, image formats, and font strategy implemented in the theme itself.
Monitoring & maintenance
Ongoing field-data monitoring, because every new app, campaign, and tag quietly gives some of it back.
What's included
Engineering, not an app install.
Scoped from a real audit of your theme and scripts — and usually paired with conversion optimization, Shopify SEO, or ongoing development.
Our process
Measure, cut, rebuild, hold.
01
Measure
Field data from real visitors plus lab testing per template — establishing where you actually stand.
02
Cut
Apps, scripts, and assets that cost more than they return, removed or deferred with your agreement.
03
Rebuild
Theme-level engineering: rendering path, images, fonts, and JavaScript rewritten to load in the right order.
04
Hold
Monitoring and review, because speed decays with every new app and campaign unless someone owns it.
Why Shopwell
Speed work by people who write the theme.
The difference
Not a speed app. On purpose.
Speed apps & quick fixes
Shopwell
An app that promises speed
Fixes written into the theme
Optimizing for the lab score
Optimizing field data for real visitors
Desktop test on fast wifi
Mid-range phones on mobile networks
One-off cleanup
Monitoring, because speed decays
Speed measured in points
Speed measured in conversion and revenue
FAQ
Deciding questions, straight answers.
Why is our Shopify store slow when Shopify hosts it?
Shopify's infrastructure is fast. What slows stores down is everything added on top: app scripts loading on every page, third-party tags, oversized images, custom fonts, and theme code that blocks rendering. Almost all of it is fixable, and almost none of it requires leaving Shopify.
What is a good Shopify speed score?
The score is a diagnostic, not the goal. What matters is field data: Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds, and Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1 for real visitors on real devices. A perfect lab score with failing field data helps nobody.
Will speed work break our apps?
Not if it's done carefully. We inventory every app and script, identify what each contributes and costs, and change loading behaviour on a staged theme with testing before anything ships. Where an app can't be made fast, we say plainly what removing or replacing it would take.
Do we need to go headless to be fast?
Almost never. A well-built Shopify theme with disciplined scripts, sensible images, and clean code is fast. Headless replaces a performance problem with a maintenance problem unless you have other reasons for it.
How much revenue does speed actually affect?
Enough to matter, especially on mobile — slower pages mean more abandonment before the page even renders. Rather than quote generic industry figures, we measure your own before-and-after against conversion and revenue, by device.
Is this a one-off project or ongoing?
Both exist. A remediation project fixes what's broken now; performance then decays as apps, tags, and campaigns accumulate. Most clients keep speed under review as part of an ongoing development partnership.
Related services
Work that compounds together.
Speed is a means, not an end. These are the services it most often unlocks.
Not sure where to start? Tell us what's stalling and we'll point you at the work that matters first.