A benchmark is the fixed mark everything else gets measured from. Ours is what a Hero has to prove, role by role, before you ever meet them. It is a standard, not a salary table.
No fee for a plan, and no obligation to go ahead.
A bench mark was first a line a surveyor cut into stone, so every later measurement had one fixed point to start from.
A talent benchmark works the same way. It is the fixed standard a person has to meet before they can be trusted with a role: a record that holds up, a challenge passed on the real work, clear communication in real conversations, and training before day one.
Most pages with this title are rate cards. We publish no rates here, because a rate tells you what someone costs, not whether they can do the job. Pricing sits inside your hiring plan.
Every candidate starts at the center and works outward through the same seven stages, in the same order. Nobody skips one.
One for every role we fill. The rings never change, so the standard stays fixed while the work being tested changes.
It sits on the stage that role is tested hardest at, because that is where a bad hire in that role usually shows first. Keep scrolling and each role comes round to the line.
Admin & Ops
Tested hardest at Stage 03, The Skill Challenge
A launch to plan, a catalog problem to find and fix, an order exception to resolve, and a decision to bring back with a recommendation rather than a question.
Plenty of people have "Shopify" on a résumé. Far fewer can run a store without supervision.
Admin & Ops
Tested hardest at Stage 04, Character & Communication
Real tickets first: an order that went wrong, a customer who is already angry, a policy question with no clean answer. Then real conversations that assess clarity, initiative, honesty about limitations, and composure.
Most remote placements fail on communication, not competence. This person has already shown how they communicate when something goes wrong.
Start a plan with this roleHire a customer support specialist
Admin & Ops
Tested hardest at Stage 04, Character & Communication
Real conversations that test clarity, initiative, and honesty about limitations. Before that, the mechanics: a messy inbox to triage, a conflicted calendar to resolve, and a decision summarized for someone with two minutes to read it.
You are handing someone your inbox and your calendar. The person you meet has already shown they can be trusted with both.
Start a plan with this roleHire an ecommerce executive assistant
Admin & Ops
Tested hardest at Stage 02, Experience Verification
Work history, platform knowledge, and technical claims checked in detail first. Then a payout that does not match the orders, a settlement full of fees, a refund booked in the wrong month, and a close that has to balance.
Bookkeeping errors are invisible until they are expensive. The person you meet has already shown they can make ecommerce numbers tie out.
Admin & Ops
Tested hardest at Stage 03, The Skill Challenge
A real theme: build a configurable section from a designer's spec, fix a bug that only appears on one device, resolve an app conflict without breaking checkout, and explain the change to a non-technical founder.
Plenty of developers can write Liquid. Fewer can work safely inside someone else's theme and explain what they did.
Growth
Tested hardest at Stage 03, The Skill Challenge
Audit an account and find what is leaking, rebuild a flow with a clear hypothesis, write a campaign that sounds like the brand, and explain a deliverability problem in plain language.
"Klaviyo experience" on a résumé can mean anything. The person you meet has already shown they can run the channel.
Start a plan with this roleHire an email marketing specialist
Growth
Tested hardest at Stage 03, The Skill Challenge
Read a set of ads and explain why they performed the way they did, mine a review feed for angles, and write a brief a designer could produce from without a meeting.
Everyone has opinions about ads. The person you meet has already shown they can turn evidence into briefs and briefs into better ads.
Growth
Tested hardest at Stage 03, The Skill Challenge
Audit an account and find where the money leaks, structure a test that will actually answer a question, explain a measurement discrepancy in plain language, and decide what to scale and what to cut with a reason for each.
Anyone can show a screenshot of a good month. The person you meet has already shown how they think inside an account.
Growth
Tested hardest at Stage 03, The Skill Challenge
Audit a store and prioritize what actually matters, rewrite a collection page so it deserves to rank, answer a buyer question so plainly a machine could quote it, and explain a technical problem to a founder without jargon.
SEO attracts confident talkers. The person you meet has already shown they can find the problems and ship the fixes.
Design
Tested hardest at Stage 03, The Skill Challenge
A real brief: a set of ad statics with variations, a product page graphic that explains a benefit, and a round of feedback to respond to, all on a deadline, all inside a brand system they did not create.
A portfolio shows the best work from the best weeks. The challenge shows what arrives on an ordinary Wednesday.
Start a plan with this roleHire an ecommerce graphic designer
Design
Tested hardest at Stage 03, The Skill Challenge
Raw footage and a brief: cut an ad with three different hooks, caption it properly, deliver it in the sizes the brief asks for, and respond to a round of feedback, all on a deadline.
A showreel shows the editor's favorite work. The challenge shows what arrives when the footage is ordinary and the deadline is real.
Design
Tested hardest at Stage 03, The Skill Challenge
Turn a reference and a sketch into a buildable pack, grade a measurement table correctly, and find the errors in a sample against its spec, all on a deadline.
A missed tolerance costs a production run. The person you meet has already shown they catch it on paper.
Design
Tested hardest at Stage 03, The Skill Challenge
A real product page, real analytics, and real support complaints: diagnose where shoppers are lost, redesign the page mobile first with a reason for every change, and hand it off so a developer could build it.
Portfolios are full of beautiful screens. The challenge shows whether the person designs for the shopper or for the screenshot.
Follow the gold line. It holds for ten roles and bends for three.
Ten roles are tested hardest on the work itself. Two on how they communicate under pressure. One on whether the record holds up. Every role still passes every stage, and each name opens its full page.
| Role | 01Search | 02Verification | 03Challenge | 04Character | 05Training | 06Approval | 07Deployment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify Store ManagerAdmin & OpsStage 03 | Passed | Passed | Tested hardest here | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed |
| Customer Support SpecialistAdmin & OpsStage 04 | Passed | Passed | Passed | Tested hardest here | Passed | Passed | Passed |
| Executive AssistantAdmin & OpsStage 04 | Passed | Passed | Passed | Tested hardest here | Passed | Passed | Passed |
| Ecommerce BookkeeperAdmin & OpsStage 02 | Passed | Tested hardest here | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed |
| Shopify DeveloperAdmin & OpsStage 03 | Passed | Passed | Tested hardest here | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed |
| Email Marketing SpecialistGrowthStage 03 | Passed | Passed | Tested hardest here | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed |
| Creative StrategistGrowthStage 03 | Passed | Passed | Tested hardest here | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed |
| Media BuyerGrowthStage 03 | Passed | Passed | Tested hardest here | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed |
| SEO / AEO SpecialistGrowthStage 03 | Passed | Passed | Tested hardest here | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed |
| Graphic DesignerDesignStage 03 | Passed | Passed | Tested hardest here | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed |
| Video EditorDesignStage 03 | Passed | Passed | Tested hardest here | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed |
| Techpack DesignerDesignStage 03 | Passed | Passed | Tested hardest here | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed |
| UX / UI DesignerDesignStage 03 | Passed | Passed | Tested hardest here | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed |
Four things happen between the last test and the first working day, and they are why the standard holds once a Hero is working for you.
Systems, workflows, collaboration habits, and performance standards, so the person who joins you already works the way ambitious teams expect.
A final gate. Roughly the top one percent of applicants earn the title; most do not reach this stage.
Placement is based on your goals, systems, team structure, and growth plans. Your communication style and operational needs are part of the match.
Regular check-ins, performance support, and a direct line to our team after placement. If something is off, we catch it early and help you fix it.
Straight answers, including the one about rates.
No. Pricing is presented inside each custom hiring plan, built around the roles, hours, and scope you need. The benchmarks on this page are standards of work, not pay tables.
The standard a candidate must meet to earn the Hero title for a given role: verified experience, a role-specific skill challenge passed under realistic conditions, clear communication in real conversations, and ecommerce training completed before deployment.
Because roles fail in different ways. A bookkeeper fails on verified accuracy, so experience verification is tested hardest. A support specialist fails on tone under pressure, so character and communication is. Most roles fail on execution, so the skill challenge is.
You meet the Heroes shortlisted for your plan before you decide, and the plan explains how matching works. Every Hero you meet has already passed all seven stages.
The seven stages are fixed. The content of each role's challenge is updated as platforms and the work change, which is why Ecommerce Hero Training is a stage of its own.
Pick one and your brief opens with it filled in. You get a custom hiring plan, then you meet Heroes who have already passed all seven stages.
No fee for a plan, and no obligation to go ahead.