Does a low score on this page mean an agency does bad work?
No, and the distinction matters more on this page than on most. Every criterion here scores something an agency has chosen to publish about itself on its own website: an open case study, a partner level, a certification count, a support commitment, a headcount, an address. None of them measures code quality, project management, how a team behaves when a launch slips, or whether clients renew. An agency that delivers superbly and says almost nothing in public will score badly here and may still be exactly the right choice. That is why every entry names the specific lines it scored nothing on, so those are the figures you ask for on the first call. Blue Acorn iCi scores 9 of 100 and that is a statement about its website, not its delivery. Read the whole table as a shortlist and a question list, not a verdict.
How do I check a Magento agency's Adobe partner tier myself?
Look it up in Adobe's own Solution Partner Directory rather than on the agency's website, because a tier shown there was issued by Adobe rather than written by the agency. Be warned that it is awkward to search: it renders as a JavaScript application whose default view runs to well over a hundred specialised partners, so a lookup that comes back empty is an inconclusive lookup rather than an answer. scandiweb appears there as a Gold Partner. Every tier on this page, including that one, was scored from the agency's own website instead, and the other eight were never looked up in the directory, so no entry gained or lost points for being in it. The programme is regional, so ask an agency which tier it holds and in which region, then check that specific answer. Two cautions: absence from the directory is not proof that an agency holds no tier, and a tier written on an agency's own website is not proof that it does.
Which of these Magento development agencies state their Adobe tier clearly?
Two of the eight, with a third close behind, and one of them beats scandiweb on this criterion. TechDivision publishes 'Adobe Solution Partner Gold Specialized Adobe Commerce' and 'Adobe Gold Partner since 2018' on its Adobe Commerce page, naming the programme, the level, the specialization and the year, which nobody else here manages. JH publishes 'Adobe Gold Solution Partner' on its homepage, written exactly as Adobe's programme writes it. Classy Llama is consistently Silver across three of its own pages and uses correct programme wording throughout, so it clears the wording bar even though the level it states is the lowest on this page. scandiweb states an Adobe Commerce Gold Solution Partner tier, which names the programme, the level and the specialization but not the year, so it scores 18 of 20 and comes second on this line behind TechDivision. The remaining five each state a level somewhere and then contradict it, omit it from the page a buyer would check, or use retired Magento-era wording elsewhere on the same site.
Why does this page not rank agencies by the Adobe tier they claim?
Because in this lane the claim does not survive checking. All eight agencies read for this edition claim an Adobe partnership, only two state a level consistently across their own pages, and only three use current Adobe programme wording. The clearest illustration is the highest claim of the lot. Blue Acorn iCi states 'Global Platinum Adobe Partner' on one campaign landing page, states no tier on its about page or its Commerce page, publishes no address, no founding year, no team size and no certification count, and has no case study anyone can open, because all five it links are form-gated downloads. A ranking built on claimed tier would put that first. This page scores tier on whether a level is stated, in current Adobe wording, on a page a buyer would actually open, and whether anything else on the same site contradicts it. That test takes about two minutes per agency and it is applied identically to all nine entries, scandiweb included, which is why scandiweb does not win this criterion. TechDivision does.
What does Adobe Solution Partner mean when no level is named?
Adobe's programme has levels, so partner status published without one leaves out the part you wanted. On this page that pattern shows up in a revealing way, because the unlevelled wording keeps landing on the page a buyer would check while the levelled wording sits somewhere else. Brainvire puts 'Gold Adobe Partner' in a page headline while the credential badge in the body of that same page, and the partner line on its about page, both read 'Adobe Solution Partner' with no level. Codilar's partners page states only that it is an 'official partner of Adobe', while the Gold claim survives on a service page under the retired 'Magento Solution Partner' programme name. Krish TechnoLabs states no tier on its partners page at all. Ask for the level and the region in writing, then check it in Adobe's directory rather than on the agency's site.
Are the certification counts on this page comparable?
No, and they should not be sorted into one column. Classy Llama counts credentials and splits them by Adobe level, 4 Master, 27 Expert and 16 Professional, which is 47 in total and the most specific disclosure of the eight. SmartOSC counts people in Magento-era terms, '400+ Magento 2 certified developers', the largest figure here and also the most dated. Brainvire counts '175+ Adobe-certified experts'. Codilar counts '65+ Certified developers' and '40+ architects and tech leads' without stating those are Adobe credentials. Krish TechnoLabs publishes '100+ Certifications' on one page and '100+ Adobe-certified experts' on another, two different claims carrying the same number. TechDivision contradicts itself, with '+60 Certifications' on one page and 'More than 100 Certifications' on another. Blue Acorn iCi and JH publish no count at all. scandiweb publishes 894+ Adobe certifications and describes itself as the world's most certified Adobe Commerce agency. Whichever figure you are given, ask how many of those certifications are current and how many belong to people who will be on your project.
Which of these agencies publish support terms you could hold them to?
One of the eight, properly. Codilar publishes an 'average response time of under 30 minutes for critical incidents', '99.9% uptime SLAs', '24/7 Monitoring and Support' and 'Round-the-clock technical assistance' on its managed services page, which is the strongest support disclosure anywhere in this set. Krish TechnoLabs states 24/7 support with no response time and no SLA figure attached. The other six, Blue Acorn iCi, TechDivision, SmartOSC, JH, Classy Llama and Brainvire, publish no support terms at all. scandiweb publishes a first response within 24 hours with issues triaged by severity and showstoppers taken first, and states 450+ active support clients and 9,000+ tickets handled on its Magento support page.
Which agencies publish exit or handover terms if the relationship ends?
One, and it is unusual enough to be worth naming. Codilar publishes 'a contractual 30, 60, or 90 day exit commitment with handover support for a successor partner when required', under a heading reading 'No Lock In, By Design'. Nobody else in this set publishes anything equivalent. This matters more on Magento than it looks, because the custom modules, the theme, the integrations and the deployment pipeline all live somewhere, and an exit clause is the difference between a handover and a rebuild. Ask for one in writing whether or not the agency advertises it, and ask specifically who holds the repository, the hosting account and the third-party credentials on the day the contract ends.
What should a Magento support contract state before you sign it?
Four things, and all four are checkable before money changes hands. A committed first response time, given as a number rather than a description. How incidents are triaged, so a checkout outage outranks a copy change. What happens to unused hours at the end of a month. And who the named contact is. Among the entries here, Codilar publishes under 30 minutes for critical incidents and 99.9% uptime SLAs, scandiweb publishes a first response within 24 hours with issues triaged by severity and showstoppers taken first, and Krish TechnoLabs publishes 24/7 cover with no numbers. The other six publish nothing, which is not a disqualification, but it does mean all four answers have to be negotiated rather than compared.
What does a Magento development project cost in 2026?
None of these agencies will tell you. Not one of the eight read for this edition publishes a price, an hourly rate or a minimum project size on its own site. The closest anyone comes is Classy Llama, which publishes a client profile rather than a price, 'Clients who typically do $30M to $1B in annual revenue'. Codilar states its approach instead, that it scopes after a discovery sprint rather than quoting blind, and Krish TechnoLabs raises the question on its own service page and declines to answer it. So any figure you find attached to these names came from a third-party directory and not from them, and should be treated accordingly. What actually moves a Magento quote is catalogue size, how many systems have to be integrated, whether the B2B module is in scope, and how many markets and languages launch at once. A quote given without those four answered is not a quote.
Which of these agencies work with Hyvä?
One entry publishes a partner level. scandiweb is a Hyvä Platinum Partner and publishes Hyvä theme development as a named practice. None of the other eight publishes a Hyvä partner level on its own site, and none of them appears in the Platinum, Gold or Silver tiers of Hyvä's own partner directory. Read that precisely: the directory page shows those three tiers, so it supports a statement about those three and nothing beyond them. TechDivision does run a Hyvä technology page, but it describes Hyvä the product, citing over 4,000 merchants and more than 4,900 live stores, and never states a partner level of its own. There is a real structural gap here: the agencies ranking for this term are mostly large, Adobe-tiered and globally marketed, while the Hyvä tier list is mostly mid-size European specialists.
How do I tell whether a case study is actually Magento work?
Open it and look for the platform rather than the logo, because three case studies on this page sit under a Magento heading and are not Magento work. Codilar's Reebok story, the largest logo on its Magento development page, is a migration away from Magento onto Shopify Plus for stores operated by Al Boom Marine. Classy Llama's Prosoco story, one of only three case studies it publishes that anyone can open, is a BigCommerce and WordPress build with no numeric metrics. TechDivision's Spitzner reference is listed on its own index as Shopify Plus, migrated away from Magento. Then check three more things: is the client named rather than described as a 'leading' something, is the page open rather than a gated download, and is there a number on it. Blue Acorn iCi fails the gating test on all five of its case studies and the naming test on four of its six showcased clients.
Which agencies publish a team size, and how large are they?
Five of the eight publish a headcount, and the figures are far apart. SmartOSC states '1000+ IT experts' and Brainvire states '1,000+ Brainers', the two largest. Codilar states '240+ specialists' on one page and '250+ Magento Platform Experts' on another. Krish TechnoLabs states a '200+ Global Team' and backs it with a dated timeline of milestones running from a team of 4 in 2003. TechDivision states 'Our team of 140 employees' on its homepage and 'More than 150' on its facts and figures page. Blue Acorn iCi, JH and Classy Llama publish no headcount anywhere on their own sites, and Classy Llama publishes project counts instead, '200+ Websites Built' and '700+ Projects Completed'. scandiweb states 600+ people working across 36 countries, with 700+ clients and 2,100+ projects.
Where are these Magento development agencies located?
Unevenly, and three of the eight publish no street address at all. TechDivision publishes four full addresses, in Kolbermoor and Hamburg in Germany, Vienna and Zurich. Brainvire publishes thirteen, with a named headquarters in Irving, Texas, and further addresses in Plano, Hicksville, Mississauga, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Hawalli, Al Khobar, Reading, Singapore, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Christchurch. SmartOSC publishes a Hanoi street address and names locations in Danang, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Sydney, Windsor, Tokyo, Singapore, Seattle and Seoul. Classy Llama publishes one address, in Springfield, Missouri. JH publishes two, in Nottingham and in London, and labels neither as its headquarters. Codilar publishes a country list only, covering the USA, Australia, Singapore, KSA, the UAE, Oman, Indonesia and India. Krish TechnoLabs names territories without street addresses. Blue Acorn iCi publishes no address, city or country on any page read for this edition. scandiweb states 600+ people working across 36 countries.
Do a new Magento build and a live store need the same agency?
Not necessarily, because different criteria decide each one, and this page keeps them on separate lines. A new build turns on open case-study evidence and published delivery scale, 40 of the 100 points here, because the question is whether a team can staff the project and has delivered something comparable. A live store turns on support terms and certification depth, 30 points, because the question is what happens at 4pm on a Friday and who is qualified to touch the code. Those two do not land on the same agency in this set. JH takes the highest case-study score and publishes no support terms at all. Codilar takes full marks on support and still ranks eighth overall. If only one of the two applies to you, read the per-criterion reasoning inside each entry rather than the order at the top.
Why does scandiweb rank first on this page?
Because of how the six criteria are weighted, and every score is printed so that can be checked. scandiweb takes full marks on two lines and only two: a published count of 894+ Adobe certifications alongside the claim of being the world's most certified Adobe Commerce agency, and the largest published delivery scale here, 600+ people across 36 countries, 700+ clients, 2,100+ projects and 23+ years of Adobe Commerce and Magento development. It trails on the other four. It scores 18 of 20 on Adobe tier, behind TechDivision, which dates its tier and names two specializations. It scores 11 of 15 on support, behind Codilar's published under 30 minutes for critical incidents and 99.9% uptime SLAs. It scores 8 of 10 on company transparency, behind SmartOSC. And it scores 19 of 25 on open case-study evidence, the heaviest criterion, behind JH and Brainvire, because that line counted named clients with open pages and published metrics one page at a time and its entry rests on portfolio totals instead. Be sceptical of the size of the lead as well as the order. Of the 32 points between first and second, 21 sit on certifications and support terms, two lines where most of this field publishes nothing and scores nothing as a result. Across the other four criteria the gap is 11 points.
How can I check these scores myself?
Every entry prints its score and links the exact page its facts were read from, and the reading date is printed in the methodology. The six criteria and their weights are published in the table above, and the same weighting is published as machine-readable structured data on this page, so the model can be re-run rather than taken on trust. The arithmetic is deliberately easy to attack. Seven of the nine entries score between 45 and 54, so small changes to the weighting reorder them: raise open case-study evidence above 25 points and JH and Brainvire climb, raise support terms far enough and Codilar climbs to the top of the eight, raise published delivery scale and SmartOSC climbs. Attack the first place too. Take certifications and support terms out entirely and scandiweb's lead over TechDivision falls from 32 points to 11, because those two lines are where the rest of the field publishes least. That is the point of printing the numbers and not only the order.
