E-commerce pricing works differently from a brochure site. The build is a one-time number, but the fee structure you sign up for runs for the life of the store. A $6,000 build on the wrong platform can cost more over three years than a $15,000 build on the right one.
E-commerce cost at a glance
| Store type | Build cost | Annual running cost | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY Shopify, stock theme | $0–$1,500 | $1,200–$3,000 | 1–2 weeks |
| Small store (under 100 SKUs) | $3,000–$12,000 | $2,400–$8,000 | 6–12 weeks |
| Mid-size store (100–1,000 SKUs) | $12,000–$40,000 | $8,000–$30,000 | 10–20 weeks |
| Large catalogue (1,000+ SKUs) | $40,000–$120,000 | $25,000–$80,000 | 4–8 months |
| Custom / headless commerce | $80,000–$300,000+ | $50,000–$200,000 | 6–18 months |
| Replatform or redesign | $8,000–$60,000 | Varies | 8–20 weeks |
Quick answer: a small business launching a store with under 100 products, a customised theme and standard payment and shipping setup should budget $5,000–$12,000 to build and $3,000–$6,000 per year to run.
What drives e-commerce cost
Catalogue size and product complexity
Fifty simple products is a different job from fifty products with six variants each, size charts, bundles and location-based pricing. Product data entry alone runs $2–$15 per SKU if you outsource it, which quietly becomes a five-figure line item on a large catalogue.
Platform choice
The decision with the longest financial tail, and the one most often made on launch cost alone. It gets its own section below.
Design approach
- Stock theme, lightly configured: $0–$2,000
- Customised premium theme: $2,500–$10,000
- Fully custom storefront design: $10,000–$50,000
Functionality beyond the basics
Standard cart and checkout are included on every platform. These are not:
- Subscriptions and recurring billing: +$2,000–$15,000
- Product configurators or custom builders: +$5,000–$40,000
- ERP, inventory or accounting integration: +$4,000–$30,000
- Multi-currency and multi-region storefronts: +$3,000–$25,000
- B2B pricing tiers and account-based catalogues: +$5,000–$35,000
- Marketplace or multi-vendor functionality: +$15,000–$80,000
- Headless front end: +$30,000–$150,000
Migration from an existing store
Replatforming adds work a new build doesn’t have: exporting and cleaning product data, mapping URLs, preserving SEO, migrating customer accounts and order history, and re-establishing integrations. Budget $5,000–$40,000 on top of the build depending on catalogue size. Rushing the redirect map is how established stores lose most of their organic traffic on launch day — Google’s own site move documentation is the checklist to work from, and it is longer than most replatforming quotes assume.
Platform costs compared
Shopify
Build: $3,000–$30,000 for most small and mid-size stores. Running: subscription from roughly $400 to $4,000+ per year depending on tier, plus payment processing of approximately 2.4–2.9% + 30¢ per transaction. Using an external payment gateway instead of Shopify Payments adds a further platform fee on top.
Where the money goes unexpectedly: apps. A typical store runs 8–15 apps at $10–$300/month each. It is common for app subscriptions to exceed the platform subscription several times over.
Best for most small and mid-size retailers. Lowest technical overhead, strongest ecosystem, fastest to launch.
WooCommerce (WordPress)
Build: $4,000–$35,000. Running: no platform fee, but you pay for hosting ($300–$3,600/year for anything handling real traffic), premium extensions ($500–$3,000/year) and maintenance ($1,200–$6,000/year). Payment processing is whatever your gateway charges, typically 2.9% + 30¢.
Where the money goes unexpectedly: maintenance and hosting. “Free software” is accurate and misleading at the same time — you absorb the operational cost that Shopify charges for.
Best for stores with content-heavy marketing, unusual requirements, or a need to fully own the stack. How that tradeoff looks outside e-commerce is covered in our platform comparison.
BigCommerce, Wix Commerce, Squarespace Commerce
Build: $2,000–$20,000. Running: $350–$5,000/year. Each suits specific cases — BigCommerce for larger catalogues without transaction fees on its own gateway, Wix and Squarespace for small catalogues where simplicity outweighs flexibility.
Custom and headless
Build: $80,000+. Justified only when platform constraints are genuinely blocking revenue — unusual fulfilment logic, extreme performance requirements, or a catalogue structure no platform models well. Most businesses that believe they need custom commerce actually need a better-configured platform build, which is the conversation our e-commerce development page starts from.
The running costs that decide profitability
A build cost is a one-off. These repeat forever.
| Cost | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Platform subscription | $350–$5,000/yr | Scales with tier and features |
| Payment processing | 2–3% of revenue | The largest cost at scale, by far |
| Apps and extensions | $600–$6,000/yr | Accumulates quietly |
| Hosting (self-hosted) | $300–$3,600/yr | WooCommerce and custom only |
| Maintenance and support | $1,200–$9,000/yr | Non-negotiable for a store |
| Email and SMS marketing | $300–$6,000/yr | Scales with list size |
| Shipping software | $120–$2,400/yr | Rate shopping, labels, tracking |
| Product photography | $500–$10,000/yr | Ongoing with new products |
| Security and compliance | $200–$2,000/yr | PCI scope, fraud prevention |
The one that matters most is payment processing. At $500,000 in annual revenue, a 2.9% rate costs $14,500 a year — more than most stores spend on everything else combined. A 0.3% difference in rate is worth $1,500 a year at that volume, which is why negotiating processing rates becomes worthwhile well before most merchants think about it.
Cost by business stage
Testing an idea — under $2,000
Shopify or Squarespace with a stock theme, your own product photos, 10–30 products. Get to market, validate demand, then invest. Spending $15,000 before you know whether anyone wants the product is the most common expensive mistake in e-commerce.
Established small store — $5,000–$15,000
Customised theme, proper product data structure, optimised checkout, email capture, analytics and conversion tracking, basic SEO architecture. This is where design and UX start paying for themselves.
Scaling store — $20,000–$60,000
Custom storefront design, ERP or inventory integration, advanced merchandising, multi-channel selling, performance optimisation, possibly multi-region. At this stage a 1% conversion improvement is worth more than the entire build, which is the point at which a website audit pays for itself faster than a redesign does.
Enterprise — $100,000+
Headless architecture, custom integrations, dedicated infrastructure, multiple storefronts, complex B2B logic.
How to reduce e-commerce cost sensibly
Safe savings
- Launch with a customised premium theme rather than full custom design
- Start with a reduced catalogue and expand after launch
- Enter product data yourself, using a structured spreadsheet template
- Shoot simple, consistent product photography in-house against a plain background
- Phase advanced features — subscriptions and configurators can come in version two
- Audit apps quarterly and remove what you are not using
Costly false economies
- Skipping checkout optimisation — it is where revenue is actually won or lost
- Skipping mobile optimisation, when most e-commerce traffic is mobile
- Cheap shared hosting on a self-hosted store, which fails exactly when traffic spikes
- No analytics or conversion tracking, leaving you unable to tell what is working
- Ignoring page speed, which affects both conversion and ad costs
- No maintenance plan, until a payment integration silently breaks on a Friday
Is it worth it? A simple calculation
Work out your break-even before committing:
Annual gross profit needed = build cost ÷ intended payback period (in years)
A $12,000 build with a two-year payback target needs $6,000 of annual gross profit from the store. At a 40% margin and a $60 average order value, that is 250 orders a year — roughly five a week. Set against a realistic 1.5–2.5% conversion rate, you need roughly 10,000–17,000 annual sessions.
If those numbers look unreachable, the answer isn’t a cheaper store. It is either a different channel, or solving traffic before investing in conversion.
How to budget for an e-commerce website
Five steps, in this order. The order matters: platform choice is step two because almost every number after it depends on the answer.
- Size the catalogue honestly. Count products including variants, not parent products, and price product data entry at $2–$15 per SKU whether you outsource it or absorb the hours yourself.
- Choose the platform on three-year cost. Model subscription, transaction fees, hosting, extensions and maintenance across three years at your expected revenue, rather than comparing launch quotes. This is the step that changes the answer most often.
- Separate must-have from phase-two functionality. Keep subscriptions, configurators and advanced integrations out of version one unless they are required to take the first order.
- Add the recurring operating costs. Payment processing at 2–3% of revenue, app subscriptions, shipping software, photography and maintenance all belong in the annual budget, not in a footnote.
- Calculate the break-even. Divide the build cost by your intended payback period, then convert that into the orders and sessions it implies at your average order value and conversion rate.
If the brief that comes out of those five steps is solid, the next question is who builds it — the roles involved and whether a freelancer or an agency fits both change the number again.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to build an ecommerce website?
Most small stores cost $3,000–$12,000 to build with a customised theme and under 100 products. Mid-size stores run $12,000–$40,000, large catalogues $40,000–$120,000, and custom or headless commerce exceeds $80,000.
How much does a Shopify store cost per year?
Budget $2,400–$8,000 per year for a typical small store. That covers the platform subscription, 8–15 apps, maintenance, and email marketing — but excludes payment processing, which costs roughly 2–3% of revenue and becomes the largest expense as you grow.
Is WooCommerce cheaper than Shopify?
The software is free, but total cost is often similar. WooCommerce shifts spending from a platform subscription to hosting, premium extensions and maintenance you must arrange yourself. It becomes genuinely cheaper at high revenue, where Shopify's transaction-linked costs scale and WooCommerce's fixed costs don't.
What are the hidden costs of an ecommerce website?
Payment processing fees, app subscriptions, product photography, shipping software, maintenance, security and compliance, and product data entry on large catalogues. App subscriptions and processing fees are the two that most consistently surprise new merchants.
How much does it cost to migrate to a new ecommerce platform?
Expect $5,000–$40,000 on top of the build cost, covering product data export and cleaning, URL mapping and redirects, customer and order history migration, and reconnecting integrations. Catalogue size is the main driver.
How long does it take to build an ecommerce site?
A small store with under 100 products typically takes 6–12 weeks. Mid-size stores take 10–20 weeks, and large catalogues or custom builds take four months to over a year.
Can I build an ecommerce site myself to save money?
Yes, for a small catalogue on Shopify or Squarespace with a stock theme — this is a sensible way to validate demand before investing. The limits appear at checkout optimisation, performance, integrations and SEO architecture, which are where professional builds earn their cost.
Conclusion
E-commerce cost is two numbers, not one: what you pay to launch, and what you pay on every order for as long as the store exists. Merchants routinely optimise the first and ignore the second.
Before committing to a build, model three years of platform fees, processing costs and maintenance at your expected revenue. The platform that looks cheapest at launch frequently isn’t the cheapest by month eighteen. The same logic applies to websites generally, but the margins are thinner here and the fees are charged per order.
If you want that modelled against your actual catalogue and expected volume rather than a range, start with a free mockup and we’ll scope the build and the three-year running cost together.