How much does an e-commerce website cost?

Which platform fits which budget?

Which factors change the price most?

• Catalogue

  Number of products, variants and attributes, and whether data must be cleaned or imported.

• Design

  A customised theme costs less than a fully custom design built from scratch.

• Checkout and payments

  Local payment methods, subscriptions, B2B pricing or deposits add configuration.

• Shipping and tax

  Multiple countries, carriers and tax rules add set-up and testing.

• Integrations

  ERP, inventory, accounting, marketplaces and email platforms.

• Migration

  Moving products, customers and orders from an old platform, with redirects.

Running costs to budget for

Where cheap stores cost more

Stores built quickly on a theme with many apps often become slow, with each app adding scripts and fees. Poorly structured product data makes filtering and SEO difficult. Untested checkouts lose sales silently.

Spending a little more on clean product data, a fast theme, a tested checkout and accurate tracking usually pays back through conversion and lower app costs. Ask how each quote handles speed, SEO and analytics, not just design.

How to get comparable quotes

Prepare a short brief: how many products and variants, where you sell, which payment and shipping options you need, what systems the store must connect to, and whether you are migrating from another platform. Include examples of stores you like and why.

Ask each vendor to list the theme or design approach, apps they plan to use and their monthly cost, how product data will be imported and who handles content such as photos and descriptions.

What a good e-commerce quote includes

• Platform and theme or design approach
• Product import and data structure
• Payment, shipping and tax set-up
• Integrations in scope
• Analytics and conversion tracking
• SEO foundations and redirects for migrations
• Testing of checkout on real devices
• Training and support after launch

Example budgets by store type

A small brand selling a few dozen products in one country can usually launch on a customised theme with standard payments and shipping. A store with hundreds of products, several variants, two languages and multiple currencies needs more product data work, translation and testing. A B2B store with customer-specific prices, quotes and ERP integration is closer to a web application than a website.

Placing your store in one of these groups gives you a realistic starting point before you talk to any provider. To compare offers fairly, ask each provider to list the platform, paid apps, integrations and product-data work included, so every quote covers the same scope.

Product data is the hidden workload

Many store projects underestimate product data: titles, descriptions, variants, prices, weights for shipping, images and categories. If the data lives in spreadsheets, a supplier feed or an old platform, it usually needs cleaning before import.

Clean, consistent product data makes filtering, search, SEO and marketplace feeds work. Budget time or money for it explicitly, rather than discovering it halfway through the project.

Questions that sharpen your quote

• How many products and variants will you launch with?
• Which countries and currencies do you sell in?
• Which payment methods do customers expect?
• Do you need subscriptions, bundles or gift cards?
• Which systems hold stock and orders today?
• Who will write descriptions and supply photos?

Paying for apps versus custom features

Many store features can be added with apps: reviews, subscriptions, bundles, search and loyalty programmes. Apps are quick to install but charge monthly fees and can slow the store. Custom features cost more upfront but have no subscription and can be built to fit exactly.

A sensible approach is to start with well-chosen apps, measure what you actually use, and replace expensive or slow apps with custom code once the store has proven itself.