| Tier | Monthly price | Published examples | Terms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budget | $1,495 to $3,000 | Shugert Starter $1,495, WebFX from $1,800, Shugert Continuous $2,795, Foundry CRO $3,000 | Shugert's Starter runs 6 months at most |
| Mid | $5,000 to $9,000 | Shugert Growth from $5,000, Shugert Shopify Plus from $9,000 | 3 to 6 month minimums |
| Premium | $10,000 to $25,000 | Speero from $10,000, Spiralyze $25,000 flat | Speero: 12 months and 100K+ monthly visitors. Spiralyze: month to month |
| Performance-based | Nothing upfront | Spiralyze, LEAP | You pay when a test wins |
Prices checked October 2026.
Those are the agencies that put a number on their site. Survey figures run higher. Convert's roundup puts a low-end retainer at $2,000 a month, the average at $16,000 and the premium end at $30,000 (Convert). WebFX says to expect anywhere from $800 to $10,000 a month (WebFX).
For most stores the fee matters less than the traffic. An agency's main product is the A/B test, and a test needs plenty of visitors to give an answer.
What a retainer pays for
A CRO retainer buys a team that runs experiments on your site every month. Speero lists what its program covers: analytics audits, user research and test execution, with strategists, designers, developers, QA and project managers on the team (Speero). Spiralyze says its fee includes design, copy, development, QA and the testing tools themselves, with either hard-coded winners or specs for your developers (Spiralyze).
At the budget end you get less of that team. WebFX's plan from $1,800 a month runs tests through Omniconvert, with heatmaps and user testing videos. Shugert's $1,495 Starter is capped at six months, which tells you it's meant as a first step.
What you're really paying for is tests that reach a result. Convertcart, a CRO agency, suggests comparing options by cost per experiment. Its example: a $550,000-a-year program that ships 24 experiments costs $22,917 per experiment, and $11,458 if it ships 48 (Convertcart). Ask any agency how many tests a month it expects to finish on your traffic, then divide.
Three ways agencies charge
Monthly retainer
The default. A fixed fee for a team and a testing cadence, usually with a minimum term. Shugert's mid tier needs 3 months, its Shopify Plus tier 3 to 6, and Speero 12 (Shugert, Speero). Spiralyze is the exception at the top, with $25,000 a month and no commitment.
Fixed project
Some agencies sell a scoped project before or instead of a retainer. Shugert, for one, quotes $3,000 to $5,000 for a CRO and technical SEO project lasting two to four weeks, changes built in. Few agencies publish a price per test; none of the pages we could open did. If you want to start with a one-off, what a CRO audit costs lists the published audit prices.
Performance-based
You pay only for results. Spiralyze offers a model with "nothing upfront" and fees "tied 100% to test uplift" (Spiralyze). LEAP in Germany says "No statistically significant uplift, no cost," and also offers a regular retainer (LEAP). Neither publishes the share it takes, so get that number in writing. LEAP also notes that tests "need enough visitors and orders to deliver a reliable result," which brings us to traffic.
The traffic you need before testing pays
An A/B test splits your visitors and waits for enough orders on each side to tell the versions apart. Low traffic means long waits or no answer. Here's what agencies themselves ask for:
| Source | What it asks for |
|---|---|
| Speero | At least 100,000 unique visitors a month, and brands making $10M+ a year |
| Blend Commerce | A guideline of 50,000 monthly sessions for conventional A/B testing |
| Convertibles | Run each test until every version has 1,000 orders and two full weeks have passed |
| Seer Interactive | A few thousand monthly visits and 100 conversions per version as a loose floor |
Sources: Speero, Blend Commerce, Convertibles, Seer Interactive.
The Convertibles rule is the strictest and the easiest to check against your own store. At the median Shopify conversion rate of 1.4% (benchmarks here), 1,000 orders per version means roughly 71,000 sessions per version through the page you're testing. Convertibles works it out as about 70 orders a day through that page for a four-week test of two versions.
Below these levels, the agencies don't say "don't do CRO." Blend recommends analytics, customer research, user testing and carefully monitored changes instead. Optimizely's own advice for low-traffic sites is to test bigger changes and measure earlier steps like add to cart (Optimizely).
There's one more check before you pay anyone to test. Look at who the traffic is. Our own site is a good example. Between 12 and 19 October 2026, our Meta ads sent 763 visitors to anry.io, and all but 0.5% of them saw a single page and left. Direct visitors (211 of them) left after one page 70.6% of the time. A page test on that paid traffic would have compared two versions that nobody read. The problem was the ad, and no headline would have fixed it.
The real total cost
Minimum terms. Multiply the monthly fee by the minimum. Speero's program is at least $120,000 for the first year. Shugert's Growth tier is at least $15,000 over its 3-month minimum.
Testing tools. Some agencies include them, others bill them to you. Shopify's own Experiments are included on the Grow plan and up (Shopify Help). Shoplift costs $99 to $999 a month (Shopify App Store) and Convert $299 to $599 (Convert). There's more on these in the best CRO tools for Shopify.
Development. If the agency delivers specs instead of code, your developer builds the winners. That's real hours every month.
Your team. Someone approves test ideas, checks designs against the brand and joins the monthly review.
Agency vs freelancer vs doing it yourself vs Anry
| Route | Cost | Included | Not included |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRO agency | $1,495 to $25,000 a month, often with 3 to 12 month minimums | Research, design, development and testing run for you | Results on low traffic, and flexibility to stop early |
| Freelancer | $80 to $200 an hour on Upwork, per Convert | A specialist on the part you need | A full team for design, code and QA |
| In-house team | Convertcart counts $532,017 a year in US salaries for five roles | People who know your store deeply | Anything cheap; tools, hiring and management come on top |
| Doing it yourself | Shopify Experiments on Grow and up, or Shoplift from $99 a month | Tests on your own schedule | Someone to design the tests and read the results |
| Anry | A monthly plan priced by traffic, below most published retainers | Where money leaks by page, device and ad, priced in your own orders, with the fix sent to your agent | A/B tests, design or a team doing the work |
Prices checked October 2026.
Convertcart's salary sum comes from Glassdoor data and leaves out tools, recruiting and management (Convertcart). For Anry's plans at your traffic, see pricing.
Is it worth it at your size?
Under 50,000 sessions a month
A testing retainer will mostly buy you waiting. Spend the money on finding and fixing clear problems first: broken mobile flows, slow pages, ads that send the wrong people. If your rate fell recently, work out why your conversion rate dropped before you hire anyone. Blend's own advice below 50,000 sessions is research and monitored changes, not tests.
50,000 to 100,000 sessions a month
You can test, slowly, on your busiest pages. A budget retainer around $1,500 to $3,000, or a testing app run by you, fits here. Check the minimum term and ask how many tests they'll finish in the first quarter.
100,000+ sessions and $10M+ a year
This is who the premium programs are built for. Speero asks for exactly this traffic and revenue. At this scale a test finishes in weeks, and a $10,000 to $25,000 monthly fee is easier to earn back.
An agency running ads for several stores
If you're the agency, your clients will ask whether the ads or the site are the problem. Anry covers every client store under one login and answers that from inside Claude, Claude Code or Cursor, before anyone commits to a testing budget.
Where Anry fits
Anry is the diagnosis step. It connects each Meta or Google ad click with what that visitor did and whether they bought, then lists the leaks with a price on each, taken from your store's own orders. It never changes your store or your ads; your own agent makes the fix. When you need tests designed, built and analyzed, that's an agency's job, and Anry doesn't do it.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a CRO agency charge per month?
Agencies that publish prices charge $1,495 to $25,000 a month in October 2026. Mid tiers start around $5,000, and full experimentation programs start near $10,000.
Do CRO agencies work on a performance basis?
A few do. Spiralyze offers a model with nothing upfront and fees tied to test uplift, and LEAP charges nothing for tests without a significant uplift. Neither publishes its percentage, so ask before signing.
How much traffic do I need for A/B testing?
Agencies ask for 50,000 to 100,000+ monthly sessions. A stricter rule is 1,000 orders per version, which at a 1.4% conversion rate means about 71,000 sessions per version on the tested page.
How long is a typical CRO agency contract?
Three to twelve months. Shugert's mid tiers need 3 to 6 months, Speero needs 12, and Spiralyze's flat fee is month to month.
Is a CRO agency worth it for a small Shopify store?
Usually not for testing. Below about 50,000 sessions a month, tests take too long to finish, so a one-off audit or fixing known leaks gives you more for the money.
Can I run A/B tests on Shopify without an agency?
Yes. Shopify's Experiments are included on the Grow plan and above, and apps like Shoplift start at $99 a month. You still need enough traffic for the results to mean something.
Sources
- Full-service experimentation program and llms.txt, Speero, checked October 2026
- Pricing, Spiralyze, checked October 2026
- Pricing, Shugert, checked October 2026
- Conversion rate optimization pricing, WebFX, checked October 2026
- What is a CRO agency?, Foundry CRO, May 2026
- Performance-based CRO for ecommerce, LEAP, checked October 2026
- How much should a CRO agency charge?, Convert, updated April 2026
- In-house CRO vs managed CRO, Convertcart, 2026
- A/B testing readiness, Blend Commerce, checked October 2026
- How long to run an A/B test on Shopify, Convertibles, September 2026
- Not enough traffic for A/B testing, Seer Interactive, March 2022
- Test tips for low-traffic sites, Optimizely
- Rollouts requirements, Shopify Help Center
- Shoplift, Shopify App Store, checked October 2026
- Convert pricing, Convert, checked October 2026
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