Integration Depth Ladder

Integration Depth Ladder ranks every e-commerce tool by how deeply it touches client data, not by feature count. Rung one is presentation (storefront builders, page tools). Rung two is transaction (checkout, subscriptions, cart recovery). Rung three is customer memory: order history, support transcripts, recommendation graphs. Each rung up raises switching cost for the client and raises the agency's reporting surface. The framework matters because agencies routinely sell rung-one work at rung-one margins while the client's real lock-in sits at rung three, where a support concierge like Alhena holds conversation data and a subscriptions layer like SureCart holds billing state. A concrete example: a client running WooCommerce plus a separate subscriptions plugin has fragmented rung-two data, so any churn or LTV report requires stitching two schemas before it reaches a retainer deliverable. Map the ladder before scoping, and price the data-consolidation work explicitly.