Compare · People on a retainer
Liftable vs a CRO agency
A conversion agency brings people: a strategist, a designer, a developer, an analyst. Retainers for founder-led Shopify brands typically run from $2,500 to $25,000 a month for one to five tests, and the good ones are genuinely good.
Liftable is being built to cover the same ground — find, fix, measure — for a flat monthly fee, with our founding team doing the hands-on work for now. It is also new: no live test has run, no receipt has been published, and it cannot do the things only people can do.
The scan is free · results in about a minute
What a CRO agency does well
- Judgement: brand, positioning, and the things a crawl cannot see.
- Design and copy that is yours, not a template.
- A conversation. You can argue with an agency.
Choose a CRO agency if
- You need brand or creative work, not just conversion fixes.
- You want people you can call, and a contract with a name on it.
- You want references from merchants like you.
Where Liftable is behind today
- An agency ships live tests today. Liftable's runtimes are being built.
- An agency can build anything. Liftable drafts from 20 templates.
- An agency has a portfolio. Liftable has no published results.
Side by side, as of today
The Liftable column says what is built, what is built but has not run on a live store, and what is not built. Read the chips before the prose.
| Capability | CRO agency | Liftable today |
|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCost | a CRO agencyTypically $2,500–25,000 a month on retainer, plus a developer where the agency does not build. | Liftable todayNoFlat monthly plans priced on sessions: $125, $400 and $999 a month, 14 days free. The store scan is free for anyone. The free scan stays free. |
| CapabilityTests per month | a CRO agencyOne to five, depending on the retainer. | Liftable todayBuilt, not run liveBounded by traffic, not hours: the power check refuses tests your store cannot read, and the capacity model reports how many can run per surface. Not yet run live. |
| CapabilityDecides what to test | a CRO agencyYes, from audits, analytics and experience. | Liftable todayPartly builtA free crawl of your URL runs 35 of the 39 planned checks and prices each opportunity with a formula it prints on the report. The pixel is built and ships as a Shopify web-pixel extension; until a store installs it, the evidence comes from the crawl rather than from real sessions. |
| CapabilityBuilds the change | a CRO agencyYes, anything, by hand. | Liftable todayPartly builtDrafts theme change sets from 20 fix templates. The runtimes that put a draft on a duplicate theme, Shopify Rollouts or a Shopify Function are being built and have not written to any store. |
| CapabilityBrand, creative, strategy | a CRO agencyYes. | Liftable todayNoNo. Liftable follows brand rules you set; it does not write your brand. |
| CapabilityCalls the winner | a CRO agencyVaries by agency. Ask which method they use and whether they stop tests early. | Liftable todayBuilt, not run liveA sequential test (mSPRT) with a power check that refuses underpowered tests. Verified in simulation (2.3% false positives on A/A data at α = 5% over 1,000 runs); no live experiment has run yet. |
| CapabilityReports the result | a CRO agencyUsually a monthly deck with lift percentages. | Liftable todayNot built yetDesigned as verified revenue against a 10% holdback, measured on Shopify orders. Not built yet. |
| CapabilityApprovals, guardrails, rollback | a CRO agencyWhatever the contract and the working relationship say. | Liftable todayBuiltAn autonomy ladder per surface, guardrails, an approval modal, six reject reasons that become standing rules and a decisions log. Built and covered by tests. |
| CapabilityTrack record | a CRO agencyPortfolio and references. | Liftable todayNoNo published merchant results. One design partner; no receipts to show. |
The difference is where the work happens.
An agency's constraint is hours: a retainer buys a handful of tests a month, and the analysis is done by hand. Liftable's constraint is scope: it drafts from templates and only tests what it can measure, but it does so every day, prices every opportunity, and is designed to show the result against a holdback rather than in a deck.
How Liftable compares.
Replay tools show you what happened and testing tools split your traffic. Liftable does the work in between, and is new: the last column says what it does today.
| What you need | Replay tools | Testing tools | A CRO agency | Liftable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shows where shoppers struggle | Yes: recordings and heatmaps | No: it splits traffic you point it at | Yes, by hand | Yes: a free scan, with evidence |
| Puts a number on what a leak costs | No | No | Varies by agency | Yes: an estimated range, with its inputs shown |
| Decides what to fix first | You do | You do | The agency | Liftable ranks it; you approve |
| Does the implementation | You do | You do | The agency | Our founding team, with you |
| Measures the result | No | Yes: split tests | Usually | With the founding team where traffic supports it; automated tests coming |
| What it costs | Free and paid tiers | Free and paid tiers | $2,500–25,000 a month | Scan free; programme $750–$1,500 a month |
Detail per product: Shopify Rollouts, Intelligems, Hotjar, a CRO agency.
Find what's holding your Shopify store back
ShopifyLiftable reads your storefront as a shopper would and shows what looks wrong on your own pages, desktop and mobile: friction, slow pages, missing trust and apps doing nothing, with the evidence for each. Free, in about a minute.
Questions about a CRO agency
Can an agency use Liftable?
A multi-store agency dashboard is a non-goal for v1, so not as a workspace across clients. An agency working inside one merchant's account can approve, reject and read tests like any other approver.
Where does the $2,500–25,000 range come from?
It is the range in Liftable's own product brief for founder-led Shopify brands, not a survey. Your quotes may sit outside it.
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