If you're running on Commercetools, you've already done the hard part.
You've:
- Assembled a composable stack
- Picked the right CMS, search engine, payment provider, and frontend framework for your business
- And built a custom storefront that ties it all together
That's months of architecture decisions and six or seven figures of development work sitting behind a React or Next.js frontend that does exactly what you need.
Now you want a native mobile app. And you're probably assuming that means another six-figure project, another 6-12 months of development, another codebase to maintain.
Maybe you already have an app, but it's lagging behind your website, costing too much to keep updated, or falling out of sync with the storefront your team actually focuses on.
It doesn't have to be that way.
There's a path from your existing Commercetools storefront to a live app in the App Store and Google Play, one that takes weeks, not months, and doesn't require rebuilding anything.
Can You Build a Mobile App with Commercetools?
Not directly. Commercetools is a headless commerce engine. It handles your catalog, pricing, carts, orders, and customer data through APIs.
It was never designed to produce consumer-facing apps on its own.
That's by design. The whole point of composable commerce is that you pick the right tool for each layer. But it does mean there's no "create app" button hiding in your dashboard.
What Commercetools does offer for mobile
Commercetools Frontend delivers PWAs by default
If you're using Commercetools Frontend (their Next.js-based FEaaS product), your storefront is already a Progressive Web App.
That means it's responsive, mobile-first, and (technically) "installable" via the browser's add-to-home-screen option.
But here's the problem: the add-to-home-screen process is not intuitive, and very few customers actually do it.
You also don't get App Store or Google Play presence and push notification support is limited (especially on iOS, where it only works if the PWA is already installed to the home screen).
For enterprise brands (for all brands really), a PWA alone isn't enough.
Your customers expect to find you in the App Store. Your marketing team needs reliable push notifications for abandoned cart recovery, restock alerts, and flash sales. A PWA can't deliver that.
SDKs exist, but they're for custom development
Commercetools provides a Swift SDK for iOS and a Java/TypeScript SDK that can be used for Android or React Native development.
These are real tools, but they're building blocks for a custom app project, not a shortcut.
No plug-and-play app builder exists
There's no tool in the Commercetools ecosystem that lets you generate a mobile app without development work.
The Integration Marketplace has a handful of mobile accelerators (starter kits based on Flutter or React Native), but these are exactly that, starting points.
They still require significant custom development, a dedicated engineering team, and months of work before they're customer-ready.
Your Options for Launching a Mobile App
For Commercetools brands, there are two realistic ways to launch a native app.
Custom Native or Cross-Platform Development
You can build a native iOS and Android app (or use React Native or Flutter) that connects to the Commercetools API.
This is the traditional route, and it's what most enterprise brands have done historically. You hire a mobile development team or engage a system integrator, go through discovery, design, frontend development, API integration, testing, and deployment.
The challenge: you're essentially rebuilding your storefront from scratch, in a different technology.
All the work that went into your React/Next.js frontend, your CMS integration, your checkout flow, your search experience, none of it transfers to a native app. You're starting over.
Realistic costs run from $200,000 to $500,000+ for the initial build, with annual maintenance running $50,000-$150,000+ to keep up with OS updates, app store policy changes, and feature parity with your website.
Enterprise-grade builds with multi-region, complex B2B flows, or deep integrations can exceed $1M.
And there's the operational reality: you're now maintaining two separate frontends. Every feature update, every new promotion, every UX improvement has to be implemented twice.
Most brands eventually start prioritizing one over the other. The most likely scenario is your app falls behind your website and slowly falls into disrepair.
Custom development makes sense if your app needs to do things your website fundamentally can't, like hardware integrations, complex offline workflows, or a completely different mobile UX.
For most Commercetools brands, though, the goal is simpler: get the web experience they've already built into customers' hands as a native app.
Website-to-App with MobiLoud
There's a better way: take your existing Commercetools storefront and extend it into a native mobile app, with MobiLoud.
MobiLoud takes the web storefront you've already built and delivers it as a native iOS and Android app.
Your storefront is the app. Everything you've invested in, your custom frontend, your integrations, your checkout flow, your content, carries over automatically.
On top of that, MobiLoud adds native capabilities: push notifications, native navigation, deep linking, app icon, splash screen, and full App Store and Google Play presence.
The cost is a fraction of custom development. The launch timeline is weeks, not months. And because the app renders your live website, every update you make to your storefront is immediately reflected in the app, no duplicate work, no channels drifting out of sync.
Why MobiLoud is the Best Way for Commercetools Brands to Launch an App
MobiLoud converts your existing Commercetools storefront into native iOS and Android apps.
It's 100x more efficient than building a custom native app, yet the end result is essentially the same as you'd get if you built from scratch.
Here's why this approach is a natural fit for Commercetools users:
Your entire composable stack carries over
You chose Commercetools because you wanted a best-of-breed stack.
Your Algolia search, your Contentful or Sanity content, your Stripe or Adyen checkout, your loyalty program, your personalization engine - all of it is wired into your web frontend.
With a custom native app, every single one of those integrations has to be rebuilt or adapted for mobile. Some services may not even have native mobile SDKs. It's months of integration work just to get back to where your website already is.
With MobiLoud, your app renders your storefront. Every integration that works on the web works in the app, automatically.
No new API connections. No compatibility concerns. No integration layer to build or maintain.
Your frontend investment is protected
You've spent $100,000 to $500,000+ building a custom frontend. That's not a sunk cost, it's the foundation of your app.
MobiLoud lets that investment do double duty instead of sitting on the sideline while you rebuild everything in Swift or Kotlin (or both).
Works for multi-region, multi-language, multi-currency
MobiLoud specializes in helping global brands with complex setups simplify this when launching mobile apps.
Whether your storefront serves 10 countries or 50, whether you need a single app for all regions or separate apps for different locales, we can help you make it happen.
Your existing localization, currency handling, and regional catalog logic all carry over. There's no per-region rebuild.
No new codebase to maintain
When your team updates the storefront, the app reflects it automatically.
New product category? It's in the app. Updated checkout flow? It's in the app. Redesigned homepage? It's in the app.
You're not coordinating releases across web, iOS, and Android. You're not worrying about version parity. You make changes in one place and they're live everywhere.
Real push notifications, not PWA push
This is where MobiLoud fills the gap your PWA leaves open.
Native push notifications have 10-15x higher opt-in rates than web push. For abandoned cart recovery, flash sale alerts, back-in-stock notifications, and loyalty engagement, that difference translates directly to revenue.
You also get listed in the App Store and Google Play, which means customers can find and download your app the way they expect to.
Launch in weeks, not months
A custom Commercetools mobile app takes 6-12+ months just to launch the first version.
MobiLoud apps typically launch in about 4 weeks. And you already know what you're going to get, because the app is a direct reflection of what already works on your website.
Fully managed service
MobiLoud handles everything: the build, app store submission (Apple and Google), ongoing maintenance, and support. Your team stays focused on your storefront and your commerce stack. We handle everything to do with your app.
Ready to see what’s possible? Get a free consultation now.
How It Works
The process is straightforward, and it doesn't require your engineering team to take on a new project.
- Get a free preview. On a free strategy call, we'll put together an interactive preview so you can see exactly what your Commercetools storefront looks like as a native app before committing to anything.
- App build. Once you give the go-ahead, we put your apps together. Native layer with push notifications, native navigation, app icon, splash screen, deep linking, and any extras needed to meet your requirements.
- Testing and QA. We run comprehensive tests across iOS and Android devices. You test on your own devices and provide feedback.
- App store submission. MobiLoud handles Apple App Store and Google Play submission, including all compliance requirements and metadata.
- Launch and ongoing support. Your app goes live. MobiLoud handles OS updates, app store policy changes, maintenance, and support on an ongoing basis. You keep working on your website.
Your Commercetools infrastructure isn't touched. Your composable stack keeps running exactly as it does today.
The storefront you've already built and optimized becomes a native app, with a native channel for push-driven engagement and re-engagement.
Next Steps
If you're running on Commercetools, and you want to take that same experience and extend it to a native app, MobiLoud is the single best way to make it happen.
The cost could be less than 1% of what it takes to launch a custom mobile app.
Your website already works. It's responsive, fast, mobile-friendly, and has been through months or years of iteration. Your composable stack is dialed in. Your integrations are live.
Why spend $500K rebuilding all of that from scratch?
MobiLoud lets you launch a mobile app risk-free, building off everything you've already invested in.
If you want to see what your app could look like, get a free consultation to talk through whether this is the right fit for your business.
Your brand needs a mobile app that lives up to what you've built on the web. MobiLoud's here to help you make it happen.
