BUILT FOR THE DIRECT MARKET
Easy distributor ordering and receiving, behind a pre-order and subscription experience your customers actually enjoy. Nightly catalog updates from Lunar and PRH.
You order from PRH or Lunar
You run a pull list
You’re on Shopify, or willing to be
Retail ops installed into the store you already run. Products, checkout, customers and payouts stay in Shopify, we don’t ask you to move anything.
A REAL SHOP, NOT A MOCKUP
They didn’t build it themselves. We built the store, wired the distributors and handed it over, the same route described further down this page.
issues and collectibles in their catalog
from kickoff to a store taking pre-orders
the build that got them there
THE PRE-ORDER CYCLE
Comic retail runs on a calendar: solicited months ahead, pre-sold, locked at final order cutoff, then on sale. Masterfile is built on that calendar.
Titles get solicited
Months ahead, with FOC dates, variant ratios and covers attached.
Customers pre-order
They reserve issues that do not exist yet, or subscribe to the run.
FOC locks the count
One day before cutoff we lock and total what customers committed.
You order what sold
That total fills your distributor order at your discount tiers.
It ships and delists
Issues go on sale, subscriptions bill, past-FOC items come off.
Generic ecommerce has no concept of a final order cutoff. Every part of this is built around one.
STEP ONE · GET FOUND
Sixteen-plus filters built from metadata we normalize nightly, on a page search engines can actually read.
Sixteen-plus dimensions
Publisher, creators, cover artists, age rating, FOC date, variant ratio, every COMET field becomes a live filter, with no tagging from you.
Refreshed overnight
PRH and Lunar metadata updates every night automatically. Override any field in Shopify and your override survives every future sync.
Built to be crawled
Server-rendered and structured so Google and AI answer engines read it, not a JavaScript grid that renders to nothing.
STEP TWO · TURN IT INTO REVENUE
Where the loop turns from browsing into recurring revenue and the one thing in this category nobody else does.
Every cover, one page
All twelve variants live as options on a single product, matched automatically by barcode. Twelve near-duplicate pages stop competing with each other for the same search.
Subscribe to the series
Right beside Add to Cart. It creates a real Shopify subscription contract, and each new issue bills the customer without you touching it.
Their collection, remembered
Customers get a living collection page with their orders and series, that’s retention and it’s support tickets you never receive.
STEP THREE · ORDER WHAT'S SOLD
Every pre-order and subscription becomes a line on your distributor order before the cutoff, automatically.
Demand becomes a draft
Pre-orders and standing orders build the order for you, priced against your own discount tiers so the cost estimate is real.
Export and submit
A CSV upload for Lunar, a paste for PRH. You review and send it, nothing reaches a distributor without you seeing it.
Receive and reconcile
Upload the packing list and every line matches to your catalog automatically. Reserved copies stay reserved, so nothing sells twice.
COMET METADATA
COMET is the ComicsPRO standard for comic solicitation data. We represent 79 of its fields and 14 controlled vocabularies, normalized nightly from PRH and Lunar.
79 COMET fields
Identity, creators, format, ordering, pricing, returns and dates.
33 format codes
From single issues to collected editions, slipcases and box sets.
8 creator roles
Writer, artist, cover artist, colorist, inker, editor, letterer.
39 age ranges
Plus 8 media ratings and three BISAC subject codes per issue.
Normalized nightly
PRH and Lunar reconciled every night. Your overrides survive it.
Most catalogs carry a title, a price and a cover. This is the whole record, which is why the filters actually work.
Why Masterfile
Most comic shop software is built to maintain the status quo. We think maintenance is not a strategy.
The status quo
Helps you get issues onto your website, but doesn’t focus on catalog or user experience.
With Masterfile
Gives collectors a rich catalog experience with clean issue pages, fuel for real social and digital campaigns.
The status quo
Makes you the IT department, the data team and the logistics desk.
With Masterfile
Takes the extra hats off, so you spend your time running a great physical third place.
The status quo
Sells you time savings.
With Masterfile
Builds features that grow the store, new revenue, new collectors, new reasons to come back.
SIDE BY SIDE
A better catalog is the foundation. Everything above it is built to grow the shop, on the shelf and online.
MONTHLY
ONE TIME
On your domain
One page per issue
Subscriptions
Distributor ordering
Catalog filters
Built for SEO & GEO
COMET METADATA
Masterfile
$59-249, any locations
$0, or $999 built
✅ your Shopify
✅ every cover
✅ billed per issue
✅ PRH & Lunar
16+ incl. age rating
✅ pages and catalog
✅ 79 fields
Shopify + Manage Comics
$90, +$70 per location
$0 to standard build
✅ your Shopify
❌
✅
✅
Native filters only
Catalog only
❌
Shopify on its own
$29-39
$0, or $1.5k-5k+
✅ your Shopify
❌
❌
❌
Search & Discovery
Generic product SEO
❌
ComicHub
~$150/store + $150/yr
Quoted per store
❌ their subdomain
❌
✅
✅
Their catalog
Catalog only
❌
WooCommerce or Wix
$20-60 + upkeep $500
$5-15k build
✅ you host it
❌
❌
❌
Plugin-dependent
You build it
❌
An agency build
$500-2k retainer
$5-25k build
✅
Custom
Custom
Custom
Custom
Custom
❌
Competitor pricing as published, August 2026. A standard Shopify build runs $0 yourself to roughly $5k with a consultant.
What this looks like for your shop
Six inputs. Everything recalculates as you type.
These are estimates based on the numbers you entered. A guide, not a quote.
TWO WAYS TO START
You don’t need a new website to start, and you don’t need to build one yourself either.
Install it yourself, today
Install from the Shopify App Store. New store or existing one, syncing this afternoon.
Or we build it for you
We design and launch the store, wired to your distributors, from $999 in as little as a week.
Build pricing depends on scope.
See your catalog, your pull list and your order day running on Masterfile before you decide anything.
Before you commit
The questions that actually decide this.
Will my customers actually subscribe?
Most of them already do, a pull list is a subscription that lives in a binder. This moves it onto your storefront so it bills itself and the customer manages it. You’re not changing anyone’s habit, only where it’s recorded.
What happens to my existing pull list?
It becomes subscriptions on your store, which means a conversation with every regular. That’s the real work of switching and we plan it with you rather than pretend it away.
What does setup involve?
Pick a plan, add the theme blocks, turn on customer accounts, then set your sync rules and distributor costs. Or we set it up with you.
We support PRH and Lunar
Those are the two distributor catalogs we ingest and normalize every night.