turning my Shopify store into a mobile app what's actually worth it?

so i run a small clothing brand on Shopify and i've been going back and forth on whether to build a mobile app for it. our mobile site converts okay but honestly the experience isn't great, especially checkout. like half our traffic is mobile and the cart abandonment rate is painful to look at lol

i started looking into no code app builders a few weeks ago and wow there are a LOT of options. some are specifically Shopify mobile app converters (Tapcart, Shopney, MobiLoud come up a lot), and then there's more general no code development platforms like FlutterFlow or Adalo where you'd basically build from scratch.

my budget is... not huge. i'm a one person operation with a part time VA. so spending $40-50k on a custom build is completely out of the question. i talked to one agency in LA (app makers usa i think?) and they were actually pretty helpful explaining the difference between going full custom vs using a no code app creator basically said for straightforward e-commerce, no code is probably fine and i don't necessarily need a custom build unless i want something really specific. appreciated the honesty tbh

but here's where i'm stuck. the Shopify-specific app builders seem easy but they're subscription based, like $200-400/mo which adds up. the more general no-code platforms give you more control but there's definitely a learning curve and i'd probably need to figure out the Shopify API integration myself. or hire someone on Fiverr to help which... mixed results in the past lol

for anyone who's done this is it actually worth it to build a mobile app for a small e-commerce store? like does it meaningfully move the needle on sales or is it more of a "nice to have" thing that bigger brands benefit from?

and if you've used a no-code app builder specifically to turn a Shopify store into an app, which one did you go with and would you recommend it? i keep going in circles reading comparison articles that all feel like they were written by the platforms themselves

any real experiences would be super helpful. thanks y'all