---
title: "About — Common Sense Agency | Shopify & Headless Studio"
description: "Your template expires, the rebuild invoice lands, you pay for the same site twice. We build Shopify Plus and headless platforms that don't. $6M+ on ours."
url: https://commsense.agency/about
---

\*01 — ABOUT US

# Common sense isn't *common.*

That's the whole pitch. We build websites the way artists build a body of work — deliberately, obsessively, and without a template in sight.

## THE STORY — EST. ON A FRUSTRATION

Most agencies sell you a template, a stack of plugins, and a prayer. It works — right up until you grow. *Then it's a house of cards with your revenue on top.*

So we built the agency we couldn't find: one platform, tailored to your brand, that *adapts as you grow.* Twenty-plus years of engineering under the interesting-looking thing.

## WHAT WE BELIEVE

NO. 01

### Boring-strong underneath

Infrastructure first, always.
Nothing interesting survives on a shaky stack.

NO. 02

### Interesting on top

Websites that get mistaken for art.
Taste comes free; templates never enter the building.

NO. 03

### Partners, not hostage-takers

A partner who stops thinking about you isn't one.
We stay in the room; you own everything; leave whenever — nobody does.

## WHO YOU'RE ACTUALLY HIRING

*Two principals* who keep up, and a network we vouch for. One of us [lives in Adelaide](https://commsense.agency/shopify-developer-adelaide), the other in Sydney.

FOUNDER

### Leighton Cross

40+ years of software development, solution design and hard problem-solving.
Started the agency he couldn't find anywhere else.

SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT

### Jason Cross

20+ years across mobile apps, web platforms, ecommerce and a few startups.
Turns messy requirements into systems that don't fall over.

\*PLUS A TRUSTED NETWORK — DESIGN, DATA MIGRATION, NATIVE APPS — PEOPLE WE'VE WORKED WITH FOR YEARS. YOU DEAL WITH US; NOBODY GETS HANDED TO A STRANGER.

## FOR THE PERSON SIGNING THE CONTRACT

The bigger the build, the more the question stops being 'are they any good?' and starts being *'what happens if this goes wrong?'* So here's our answer, in writing, before you ask.

NO. 01

### You own everything, from day one

Code, accounts, domains and docs — in your name, not ours, from the first commit.
Walk away whenever you like and you keep trading. Nothing is ever held hostage.

NO. 02

### No single point of failure

Two principals and a vetted network mean no build ever rides on one person's calendar.
Documented as we go, so your team is never dependent on ours to keep the lights on.

NO. 03

### No surprise invoices

Two ways to buy: a fixed price locked before we start, or a scoped estimate billed as time and materials — your call.
Either way, every change is quoted and signed off first. The bill never ambushes you.

\*AUSTRALIAN REGISTERED PTY LTD · PUBLIC LIABILITY + PROFESSIONAL INDEMNITY INSURED · CLIENT REFERENCES ON REQUEST

60+

YEARS OF SOFTWARE BETWEEN THE TWO OF US

30

YEARS — OUR LONGEST CLIENT RELATIONSHIP, STILL ONGOING

$6M+

ANNUAL CLIENT REVENUE RUNNING ON PLATFORMS WE BUILT