Costly Conundrums: Navigating the expenses of starting an e-commerce business can be daunting due to hidden and unforeseen costs.
Tech-Tock: Understanding the importance of investing in a reliable website platform and the necessary tech support is crucial.
Marketing Magic: Allocating a budget for effective marketing strategies is essential to attract and retain customers.
Stock Talk: Proper investment in inventory management can prevent overstocking or understocking, optimizing cash flow.
Legal Lingo: Accounting for legal and regulatory costs early on can save businesses from future hassles and fines.
Starting an ecommerce business can be overwhelming, especially when it comes to figuring out the costs involved.
With so many options for platforms, hosting, domains and other tools, it's easy to feel lost in trying to find the best and most affordable route for your business.
In this guide, I break down the cost of an ecommerce website, helping you choose the best ecommerce platform for your business, and the benefits and costs for all the tools.
6 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting

Before you build your ecommerce website, there are a few questions you need to ask yourself to understand the cost of building your website.
1. What is my budget for setting up and maintaining an ecommerce website?
Your budget will depend on the size of the project, and the systems you will be using.
A small business owner could set up on Shopify for $39 a month, and build the store themselves using Shopify’s easy-to-use drag-and-drop system. Whereas an enterprise business may need to budget for multiple systems and a customized platform.
The average price for a medium-sized ecommerce website is $10-20k, but this amount is highly speculative and makes many assumptions about the size of the project.
This would include web development or development agency costs, ecommerce website design, integrations, and testing.
There are also ongoing costs to consider, such as hosting, domain registration, digital marketing, email marketing, social media and maintenance.
Think ecommerce platforms are only for the big guys? Think again—our list of small business ecommerce platforms will prove you wrong. You can also look specifically for cheap ecommerce platforms to keep your costs in check.
2. What features and functionalities are essential for my ecommerce business?
Some platform features are essential, such as a user-friendly front and back end interface, secure payment gateways, mobile responsiveness, and third party API integrations.
You might need to integrate your ecommerce platform with systems that you already use, such as a CRM, inventory and warehouse management systems, order tracking and management systems, and maybe an enterprise resource planner (ERP).
Most platforms include these basic functionalities in-built into the system, but they may not meet your needs as a business.
You will also need a platform that is good for SEO and allows you to make amazing-looking product pages.
3. What type of products will I be selling, and how many SKUs will I have?
It used to be the case that a brand with thousands of SKUs would need to use a custom platform, or at least use a platform that could handle the inventory.
But even consumer platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce are now powerful enough for many businesses.
However, for larger businesses, it will be more important to have a powerful platform that can integrate with professional inventory and warehouse management systems, especially if you're using a 3PL.
You may also want to consider the types of products you sell. For example, customized products will need that functionality and digital products will need to be downloadable.
4. What level of customization do I need for my storefront?
The level of customization required for your storefront depends on your branding and user experience goals.
Most website builders come with basic customization such as templates, or drag-and-drop design adjustments. This makes it easy for people with limited technical knowledge to change text, color schemes, logos, and layouts.
For unique brand experiences and specific functionality, more advanced customization is needed, which might involve some custom coding and design work.
Higher customization generally comes with higher costs both in terms of development and ongoing costs, but you will get a much more personalized site with which to showcase your ecommerce brand.
5. What kind of user experience do I want to provide?
Different platforms have different visual aesthetics, and most will allow you to do a lot of customization.
But the most important thing to consider is the features you want to use, and if they are included out of the box or if they will need customization.
Images, videos, and text are standard in all platforms, but you might also want to include features such as customer reviews and user-generated content.
6. What is the total cost of ownership (TCO) over the next 3–5 years?
Out of the box systems such as Shopify have ongoing costs, such as a monthly subscription and the cost for any premium plugins.
However, you generally won’t need to hire expensive software developers to maintain the site or make changes.
A fully customized platform will need specific developers, UX, and marketing experts to make updates to the site.
You’ll want to consider the costs you’ll bear at the beginning of growing your store.
Shopify dominates the ecommerce space, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right call for you. These Shopify alternatives bring some serious competition.
Common Ecommerce Website Costs
There are many costs which will be unique to your business, such as the amount you spend on marketing. But there are some fixed costs which every business will face. Let’s have a look.
Ecommerce platform pricing
The ecommerce platform is the software that delivers the frontend of your store (i.e., customer-facing side), and connects all the in-built and third party integrations.
It also includes the backend dashboard that your team can use to track sales and run reports.
There are two main options with platforms:
Hosted ecommerce platforms: This is a platform that works out of the box, without the need for extensive web development work.
Self-hosted ecommerce platforms: Also called open source platforms, these are more like custom-built platforms that typically require more web design and development work.
Hosted platforms usually come with a monthly or annual subscription fee, whereas a custom open source (or self-hosted) platform is paid for upfront (with ongoing costs going to hosting and development maintenance).
Some self-hosted platforms, like WooCommerce, could be described as out-of-the-box solutions, though they are free to use. You just pay for hosting and any plugins necessary for your store.
The main hosted platforms are Shopify and BigCommerce. The main self-hosted customizable platforms are WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce (AKA Magento), and Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
For enterprise businesses, there are several other platforms, like SAP and Oracle, that require much more development to build and maintain. The benefit is a totally custom store that performs at a high level.
Here are some options for ecommerce platforms.
Platform | Pricing | Best For |
---|---|---|
Shopify | $39 to $399/month; Shopify Plus: starting at $2,000/month | Small to enterprise-level businesses |
WooCommerce | Free | Small to large businesses |
BigCommerce | $39 to $399/month | Small to large businesses |
Magento (Adobe Commerce) | Open Source: Free (Hosting: $10-$50/month); Commerce: Starting at $22,000/year | Medium to enterprise-level businesses |
Wix eCommerce | $27 to $59/month | Small to medium-sized businesses |
Squarespace Commerce | $36 to $65/month | Small to medium-sized businesses |
Salesforce Commerce Cloud | Custom pricing (Typically enterprise-level, contact for a quote) | Medium to enterprise-level businesses |
And, to give you even more context for each of these platforms, let’s take a look at the pros and cons for each.
Platform | Pros | Cons |
---|---|---|
Shopify | - User-friendly interface - Lots of third-party plugins - Excellent customer support - Extensive community support - Built-in abandoned cart recovery | - Transaction fees unless using Shopify Payments - Limited customization without coding - Higher costs for advanced features and large volumes of sales |
WooCommerce | - Highly customizable - Large plugin library - Integrates with WordPress - Seamless integration with WordPress - Extensive documentation and community support | - Requires some technical knowledge for setup and maintenance - Can be resource-intensive on hosting - Requires regular updates and maintenance |
BigCommerce | - No transaction fees - Built-in features (SEO, marketing tools) - Scalable for large businesses - Excellent performance and uptime - Comprehensive support options | - Limited themes and customization - Annual sales threshold limits for each price point - Limited multilingual capabilities - Some advanced features require additional costs |
Magento (Adobe Commerce) | - Highly customizable and scalable - Strong support - Large feature set - High flexibility with advanced B2B features - Extensive third-party integrations | - Complex and requires technical expertise - High hosting and development costs - Lengthy setup time - Higher ongoing maintenance |
Wix eCommerce | - Easy to use drag-and-drop builder - All-in-one solution (hosting included) - Good customer support - Frequent updates and improvements - Straightforward pricing | - Very limited scalability - Less advanced ecommerce features compared to other platforms - Limited capacity for larger stores - Fewer payment gateway options |
Squarespace Commerce | Beautiful, responsive templates - Easy to use - Good integration with other Squarespace tools - Strong branding and design focus - 24/7 customer support | - Very limited third-party app integrations - Less flexibility for complex ecommerce needs - Higher transaction fees compared to some competitors - Limited SEO tools |
Salesforce Commerce Cloud | - Highly scalable and robust - Excellent for large brands - Integrated CRM capabilities - Unified commerce experiences across multiple channels - Strong AI and analytics capabilities | - Very expensive - Complexity requires professional management and development - Long implementation period - Dependency on Salesforce ecosystem |
The Ecomm Manager, of course, has opinions (educated, thoughtful opinions) about the best ecommerce platforms. You can see our top ten picks right here:
We also compare their costs and tons of other things. Take a look:
Tool | Best For | Trial Info | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Wix The order management features available within the Wix ecommerce platform let you efficiently handle customer orders and track order statuses. | Best for non-technical users | 14-day free trial | From $11/month | Website |
2 | Subbly Update the visual style of your cart so it matches your brand. | Best for subscription-based ecommerce models | 14-day free trial | From $29/month | Website |
3 | BigCommerce The BigCommerce website builder has extensive editing features to customize the look of your site for better on-page product marketing. | Best for omnichannel marketing | 15-day free trial | From $29/month (billed annually) | Website |
4 | Ecwid by Lightspeed Ecwid automatically creates customer accounts following each purchase, making customer relationship management much easier. | Best for social media selling | Free plan available | From $19/month | Website |
5 | Adobe Commerce Adobe Commerce advanced reporting shares data on refunds, tax, shipping, orders, and revenue. | Best for data-driven companies | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Website |
6 | Shopify Shopify presents you with real-time data on the performance of your ecommerce store. | Best for a range of integrations | 3-day free trial | From $29/month (billed annually) | Website |
7 | Sana Commerce Cloud Sana Commerce Cloud provides detailed sales statistics broken down by client, making it great for B2B product analytics. | Best ecommerce platform for B2B sales | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Website |
8 | Volusion Volusion’s store builder provides several ready-to-go themes, which you can then tweak on your own or by tapping into their web design specialists. | Best customer service | 14-day free trial | From $35/month | Website |
9 | Shift4Shop Shift4Shop’s dashboard displays metrics like conversion rate, average order size, and revenue and can be customized to include or exclude what you wish. | Best free template library | Free plan available | Pricing upon request | Website |
10 | ShopWired ShopWired’s live preview editor allows you to customize your design theme and view a live preview of changes. | Best for buy-now-pay-later purchasing | 14-day free trial | From $29.95/month | Website |
But, your ecommerce platform isn’t the only cost you incur when building a store.
Other business systems
The ecommerce platform isn’t the only system you need to price into your plans, you will also need other ecommerce features, such as:
- Inventory management
- Order management
- CRM
- Warehouse management
- Accounting software
- Marketing apps
- Content management system (if going headless, for instance)
You may also need a product information management system (PIM), ERP, and advertising management software, as well as additional marketing automation.
Hosted platforms usually include inventory and order management, or they include integrations so you can sync them to your existing systems.
Shopify, for example, has inventory management and order management included. Plus, you can integrate it with most warehouse management systems so you can keep your inventory updated in real time.
The price of these systems varies massively between platforms, and the size of your business.
Most plugins are quite affordable or even free, so you can start for a small investment and grow your systems as your business grows.
Web hosting
Web hosting is where data, such as text, images and videos, are stored on a server, which is held in a physical location.
For ecommerce sites, hosting is important as it makes sure the store is available to customers around the clock.
The level of ecommerce hosting you need will depend on the size of your site and the amount of traffic you get. Sites with more traffic need more expensive hosting packages which cater to large amounts of customer traffic.
The wrong hosting will make your site slow, or cause issues such as downtime.
Enhanced hosting also generally comes with better security, and alerts when there is suspicious activity on your site.
This will have a big effect on your business, as customers will be disappointed and search engines will also notice the poor performance and stop promoting your site.
Hosted platforms
Hosted platforms, also known as Software as a Service (SaaS platforms) solutions, offer all-inclusive packages where the platform provider manages the hosting, website management, and support.
These platforms are designed to be very user-friendly, requiring minimal technical knowledge to set up and maintain.
They include everything required for an ecommerce entrepreneur to set up a website quickly that looks and performs really well.

Examples of hosted platforms:
- Shopify
- BigCommerce
- Squarespace Commerce
Self-hosted platforms
Self-hosted platforms give businesses more control over their website by allowing them to choose their hosting provider and configure their server settings.
This option requires more technical expertise, as your business is responsible for managing the server, software updates, and security measures.
However, with a platform like WordPress, this isn’t too hard—I manage the hosting and software updates for my own website without a developer.

Examples of self-hosted platforms:
- WooCommerce: This platform is a WordPress plugin that transforms your site into a fully functional ecommerce store. Businesses must pick their own hosting provider and manage all technical aspects of the site.
- Magento (Open Source): Magento (now Adobe Commerce) is an open-source ecommerce platform that offers extensive customization options.
Hosting services for self-hosted ecommerce sites
For businesses opting for self-hosted ecommerce platforms, selecting the right hosting provider is critical. Here are three popular hosting platforms:
- Bluehost: A popular hosting provider that’s a good value and easy to use. It offers specialized WooCommerce hosting plans, making it a perfect choice for WordPress users. They provide 24/7 support, SSL certificates, and automatic updates.
- SiteGround: They have excellent customer support and high-performance hosting. They offer managed hosting solutions for WordPress and WooCommerce, with features such as daily backups and advanced security.
- HostGator: They offer flexible hosting plans suitable for a variety of ecommerce platforms. They provide features like free website transfers, high bandwidth, and a user-friendly control panel. A reliable option for businesses looking for scalable hosting solutions.
All of these options are affordable for new businesses, and the benefit of them is they grow with your business.
All three options start at around $3 per month, and go up to around $40 per month for medium-sized businesses.
Large ecommerce companies generally get a custom hosting plan, and the price for that will vary depending on the amount of traffic you need to handle.
I use SiteGround in my business, and I have been happy with it as they have great customer support.
Domain name
When setting up an ecommerce site, one of the first steps is purchasing a domain name, which is your website's address on the internet (like www.yourstore.com).
The cost of a domain can vary based on the provider and the domain extension (.com, .net, .store, etc.), typically ranging from $10 to $50 per year.
Whether you choose a hosted platform like Shopify or a self-hosted platform like WooCommerce, you'll need a domain name.
Hosted platforms often let you purchase a domain directly through them, simplifying the process. For self-hosted platforms, you’ll need to buy a domain from a domain registrar and then connect it to your hosting provider.
Where to purchase domains:
- GoDaddy
- Namecheap
- Google Domains
- Bluehost (also a hosting provider)
- SiteGround (also a hosting provider)
Each of these providers offers easy domain search and registration, making it simple to find the perfect name for your ecommerce site.
Namecheap is my favorite domain name registrar, as it's great value, easy to use and has good customer support.
Owning multiple domains is great—until you have to manage them all. A multi-site ecommerce platform can make it way easier to run them from one place.
Payment processing costs
Payment processing fees are charged by payment gateways for handling online transactions and vary depending on the platform and the payment provider.
Hosted platforms
Hosted platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce often integrate seamlessly with various payment gateways and offer their own in-house payment solutions.
- Shopify Payments:
- Transaction fees: 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction (for Basic Shopify plan)
- No additional fees: When using Shopify Payments, no extra transaction fees are charged.
- BigCommerce:
- Transaction fees: Vary depending on the chosen payment gateway
- No additional fees: BigCommerce does not charge extra transaction fees regardless of the payment gateway.
Self-hosted platforms
Self-hosted platforms like WooCommerce and Magento require an integration with third-party payment gateways, and the costs are generally similar to hosted platforms, but can vary slightly based on the provider.
I use Stripe and WooCommerce for my main ecommerce brand, and the integration works really nicely.
Below is a rough guide to transaction fees, but there are many variables, such as country of payment, basket size, and subscription plan.
- PayPal: 2-4% + 30-49¢ per transaction
- Stripe: 2.9% + ~ 30¢ per transaction
- Square: 1.4-3% + ~ 30¢ per transaction
Additional considerations
- In-person sales: If you want to use a payment gateway in physical locations, you might want to choose Stripe or Square, which offer payment terminals which attach to your phone or iPad. I’ve used these in the past at trade shows, and they are very handy! You can also get Square and Stripe tills, if you have permanent locations.
- International fees: Selling internationally might incur additional fees for currency conversion and cross-border transactions.
SSL certificate
The SSL certificate gives your site an extra layer of security to make transactions more trustworthy.
Most hosting plans or domain registrars offer SSL certificates either included in the cost, or as a small additional add-on.
Generally, this should cost $20-$70 a year maximum.
Web design costs
The website design and development is where the cost can vary massively depending on the project size, the amount of customization, the platform used, and the functionality.
The design and user experience (UX) of the website is the first impression that potential customers will have for your site, so if you get it wrong, you will lose sales.
Luckily, designing a great-looking site isn’t as difficult as you think.
Platforms like Shopify offer in-built designs (called themes) which you can plug in to create a template for a site that looks great and performs well.

These themes will generally have layouts for different types of pages, such as the homepage, product listings, blog page, About Us etc.
There are also premium themes, which cost around $100-$200 a year. You can find all these themes in the Shopify marketplace.
The downside to these themes is that they are less customizable than a self-hosted platform, unless you can hire a specific developer.
If you're using a self-hosted platform, then there are also some amazing themes out there to choose from. I’ve recently been using Botiga for WooCommerce, and it's beautiful and fast.

The themes for WooCommerce are typically around the same price as Shopify themes, $100-$200 a year.
If you're a bigger brand doing a completely custom design, then you also need to factor in the development costs, which will be more than simply using a prebuilt theme.
However, you then have the benefit of creating a website that is more exclusive for your brand that looks great and has all the functionality you need.
Web development
If you're using prebuilt themes, then the development costs can be kept quite low. I do a lot of the WooCommerce editing myself, and I am not particularly techy!
I have also used great developers from Upwork to make more complex changes, with developers charging between $10 and $100 an hour, depending on their location and skill level.
If you require a fully customized theme for your website, then the costs can increase significantly.
For example, you might pay $10,000 for a custom theme, but you will also have higher ongoing costs as you need developers to make any changes in the future.
A custom theme can become very expensive, depending on the features you need and the expertise of your developer.
An enterprise-level custom theme with its own companion plugins can cost from $10,000 to $30,000.
If you're building a website for an enterprise-level business, then website development will generally start at $30,000. However, it can go up into the hundreds and thousands, if not millions of dollars.
Apps and plugins
Hosted platforms, and some self-hosted platforms, have apps you can use to add functionality to the site.
For example, I use WooCommerce plugins to add comparison tables to my listing pages, customer reviews, and subscription purchasing, and I have SEO plugins to help me improve my search engine presence.

The apps are typically priced from free to $100-200 a year.
You can start your site without any plugins, and then grow your site as you make changes. If you have a custom-made website, then apps often won’t be compatible, which means you will also need to custom build any functionality that an app can provide.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO is important for your ecommerce store because if customers can find you organically through search engines, you can spend less on ads and make more profit.
Most platforms are very SEO-friendly, allowing you to create fast-performing websites which are optimized with the right keywords, all factors that search engines love to see.
There are some excellent keyword tools such as SEMrush and Keysearch.io which will help you find the best keywords for your products.
These tools can be quite expensive, but you might not need them every single month. SEMrush for example is around $120 a month, which is quite a lot for a startup.
If you use a hosted platform, then you can improve the SEO of the pages directly in the platform, whereas if you're using self-hosted, you may need a developer to make any changes to improve the page.
Ecommerce website cost comparison by business size
OK, now that we’ve exhaustively covered all the various costs associated with starting an ecommerce website, let’s put it into perspective based on the size of your business.
Here’s an example scenario with a brand using Shopify:
Cost Component | Beginner Startup | Medium-Sized Business | Large Enterprise |
---|---|---|---|
Platform Cost | Shopify Basic: $39/month | Shopify or Shopify Advanced: $105-$399/month | Shopify Plus: $2000+/month |
Design and Development | $500-$2,000 (DIY or basic template) | $5,000-$15,000 (custom design) | $20,000+ (highly customized) |
SEO Tools and Plugins | $20-$100/month | $100-$500/month | $500-$1,500+/month |
Hosting | Included in platform cost | Included in platform cost | Included in platform cost |
Domain | $10-$20/year | $10-$20/year | $10-$20/year |
SSL Certificate | Free with hosting (Let’s Encrypt) | Free with hosting (Let’s Encrypt) | $100-$300/year (EV SSL) |
Expected Transaction Volume | 0-100/month | 100-1,000/month | 1,000+/month |
Payment Processing Fees | Around 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction Estimated Fees: Up to$2,100/year (based on expected transaction volume) | Around 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction Estimated Fees: $2,100-$21,000/year (based on expected transaction volume) | Around 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction Estimated Fees: $21,000+/year (based on expected transaction volume) |
Marketing and Ads | $50-$200/month | $500-$2,000/month | $5,000+/month |
Customer Support Tools | $20-$50/month | $100-$300/month | $500+/month |
Inventory Management Tools | $30-$100/month | $200-$500/month | $1,000+/month |
Miscellaneous Costs | $100-$700/month (various small tools/plugins, additional features) | $500-$2,000/month (additional tools/integrations, analytics, advanced security) | $2,000+/month (advanced integrations/tools, analytics, advanced security) |
Total Cost Range (Annual) | $3,618-$17,388 | $25,170-$104,408 | $173,110-$249,320+ |
Total estimated costs (ongoing and initial setup)
To quickly recap, here’s the ongoing costs these example businesses could expect to pay each year:
- Beginner Startup: $3,618-$17,388
- Medium-Sized Business: $25,170-$104,408
- Large Enterprise: $173,110-$249,320+
And, this is what they should expect to pay to get their store up and running with initial setup costs:
- Beginner Startup: $500-$2,000
- Medium-Sized Business: $5,000-$15,000
- Large Enterprise: $20,000+
From the first online purchase to billion-dollar marketplaces, ecommerce has come a long way. But how did we get here? Check out the history of ecommerce to see its biggest milestones.
Final Thoughts
When you're building an ecommerce site, or deciding which platform to migrate to, there are a number of costs you need to factor in.
The platform is often one of the less expensive costs, but the platform you choose has a big impact on your ongoing costs, and the cost of web development.
As a new site, select a hosted ecommerce platform such as Shopify or a semi-self-hosted platform such as WooCommerce, as these will be the easiest to use and also be the most cost-effective.
These platforms have a huge amount of plugins and themes to help create a great looking website, without the need to hire expensive developers.
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Ecommerce Site Costs FAQs
oLet’s wrap up by answering a few final questions that may be banging around your head.
How much does an ecommerce website cost?
A basic ecommerce website costs $500-$2000 to get set up, but this costs can increase significantly for custom-built website on a self-hosted platform. For enterprise brands, that initial price tag can be $20,000 or more.
Ongoing costs can vary widely depending on your business size, starting at $3000 or more a year and going up to $250,000 and beyond each year.
What is the average monthly cost of running a small ecommerce website?
A small ecommerce business can expect to pay around $500 in monthly costs, which will include your hosting, platform costs, fees, plugin subscriptions and marketing efforts. These costs will increase with the size of the business.
How can I keep my ecommerce costs under control as my business grows?
Start by using a hosted platform, as while there’s a monthly cost, there are a lot of plugins you can use. These plugins will allow you to make updates to the site without using expensive web developers.
How do I determine the right ecommerce platform for my business needs?
If you’re a new business, you might want to use a hosted platform such as Shopify, or a semi self-hosted platform such as WooCommerce. These will allow you to create a great website without the need for developers.
They are very scalable, and many multi-million dollar businesses use them.
That said, you need to figure out what you want from your business and choose the platform that best enables you to make it happen. This isn’t the same for every brand.