The short answer: a GoodFirms survey of web development companies puts a professionally built online store at $5,000 to $50,000 or more, with 4 to 16 weeks of work for most projects. On Clutch, where clients review the agencies they hired, most e-commerce projects come in under $10,000, and the average of about $52,000 is pulled up by a smaller number of large builds. If you set a store up yourself on Shopify, the platform starts at €24 a month on a yearly plan. Our custom stores start at €3,000. Market figures in this guide are in US dollars wherever the source publishes them that way.
What drives the cost of an online store
Two stores with the same number of pages can differ in price by a factor of ten. The work sits in the parts a customer never sees: how products are structured, how money moves, and which other systems the store has to talk to.
- Catalog: how many products, how many variants (size, color, material) and how they reach the store. Fifty products entered by hand is a different job from 5,000 imported every night from a warehouse system.
- Checkout and payments: cards, PayPal, bank transfer or cash on delivery, and in which countries. Each payment provider is a separate integration with its own testing.
- Shipping: a flat rate is simple; live courier rates, pickup points and printed labels are not.
- Integrations: accounting, ERP, stock, CRM and email marketing. This is where estimates most often slip, so integrations deserve a line of their own in any quote.
- Design: a customized theme, or a design made for your brand and your products.
- Languages, currencies and tax: each market adds content, prices and VAT rules to get right.
- Migration: moving products, customers, order history and old URLs from an existing store without losing search traffic.
Price ranges by type of store
| Type of store | What it usually includes | Published range | Typical timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself on a hosted platform | Your own setup on Shopify or a similar service, a ready-made theme, apps for extras | From €24 a month (Shopify Basic, yearly billing), plus theme and apps | Depends on your own time |
| Small store | A customized theme, a modest catalog, standard checkout and shipping | Under $10,000 for most projects reviewed on Clutch | 4–16 weeks for most agencies |
| Growing store with custom design | Design made for the brand, marketing integrations, a larger catalog with variants | $5,000–$15,000 | 4–16 weeks for most agencies |
| Enterprise store | ERP and warehouse links, several markets, B2B pricing, high traffic | More than $15,000; the survey's overall range runs to $50,000+ | 16–26 weeks for some agencies |
US dollars as published. Small store: Clutch e-commerce pricing guide (updated September 2026). Growing and enterprise stores and timelines: GoodFirms website cost survey, in which 71.4% of agencies quoted 4–16 weeks for an online store and the rest 16–26 weeks. Shopify: plan prices on Shopify's Irish pricing page.
Running costs after launch
The build is paid once; the costs below come back every month or year. Ask for them as one annual total, because that is the figure that decides whether a cheaper build was really cheaper.
| Cost | Typical amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Platform plan | Shopify: €24, €69 or €289 a month on yearly billing (€32, €92 or €384 billed monthly) | Custom stores and WooCommerce have no platform fee |
| Hosting | WooCommerce estimates $25–$350 a month for most stores | Included in hosted platforms; our managed hosting for custom stores starts at €50 a year |
| Card processing | Stripe: 1.5% + €0.25 for standard EEA cards, 3.15% + €0.25 for international cards | Shopify Payments on the Basic plan: 2% + €0.25 for online cards |
| Third-party payment fee | Shopify: 2%, 1% or 0.6% per order, by plan | Charged when a Shopify store uses a provider other than Shopify Payments |
| Extensions and apps | WooCommerce extensions: $29–$299 each, billed yearly | Shopify apps are priced by each app developer |
| Maintenance | $1,000–$5,000 a year for an e-commerce site | Updates, security and small changes (GoodFirms survey) |
| Domain | A small yearly fee | Keep it registered in your company's name |
Prices as published by Shopify (Ireland), Stripe (Ireland) and WooCommerce, checked in October 2026. Shopify lists its card rates excluding VAT.
Payment fees deserve a quick calculation. At €200,000 a year in card sales, a 1.5% rate costs €3,000 before the fixed fee per transaction, and every extra half percentage point adds another €1,000. On a busy store the plan fee is often the smallest number on the bill.
Shopify, WooCommerce or a custom store
| What to compare | Shopify | WooCommerce | Custom build |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | Low if you set it up yourself; a paid theme and agency setup are extra | The core plugin is free; build and theme work are extra | Highest: design and development (ours from €3,000) |
| Monthly cost | Plan from €24, plus app subscriptions | Hosting ($25–$350 a month, per WooCommerce) plus yearly extension licenses | Hosting only (ours from €50 a year) |
| Payment fees | Shopify Payments rates, or an extra 0.6–2% with other providers | Your provider's rates; WooCommerce adds no fee for third-party gateways | Your provider's rates only |
| Flexibility | Within Shopify's platform and app store | Very high, but every plugin adds updates to manage | Built around how you sell |
| Upkeep | Handled by Shopify | WordPress core, theme and plugin updates are your job | Handled by whoever builds and hosts it |
| Best for | Starting fast with a standard catalog | Teams already on WordPress who want control | Stores with their own process, integrations or markets |
Sources: Shopify and WooCommerce pricing pages, October 2026.
None of these is right for everyone. If you sell a standard catalog in a country where Shopify Payments is available and you need nothing unusual at checkout, a hosted platform is a sensible start. A custom store pays off when plan fees, app subscriptions and extra transaction fees would add up to more than the build over three years, or when the way you sell does not fit a template. Shopify Payments is not offered everywhere: where it is missing, a third-party provider and Shopify's extra transaction fee apply.
How to read an e-commerce quote
A quote that says only “online store: €X” leaves every expensive question open. Ask for these answers in writing:
- Is the price fixed or an estimate? If it is an estimate, what is the cap?
- How many products are imported, and who enters the rest? Some providers charge per product.
- Which payment and shipping methods are included, and who opens the merchant account? It should be in your company's name.
- Which integrations are in scope, and what happens if an outside system's API turns out harder than expected?
- Who owns the code, the domain, the hosting account and the analytics?
- What do hosting, licenses and apps cost per year, as one total?
- What support is included after launch, and what does maintenance cost after that?
- Is VAT included in the figure you were given?
- Can you see a live store they built, and try its checkout on a phone?
What we charge for an online store
Our custom online stores start at €3,000. After a short call you receive a written scope and a fixed price; that price is final and nothing is added on top. Most stores take 6–12 weeks, 30 days of care after launch are included, and the code, domain and payment accounts are registered to you. We integrate Stripe, Monri and WSPay alongside cash on delivery and bank transfer. See online store development or all our prices.
One example: for Art Rabic, a Sarajevo publisher, we carried 167 book pages from the old site into a new catalog without retyping them. The shop now sells 188 titles, takes orders without a customer account, and the publisher manages books, prices and orders on its own.
Our price
Online store · from €3,000
Sources
Written by
Adi Zeljković — Founder, Luminor Solutions
Part of the Luminor team — working across strategy, design, engineering and growth on the projects we write about.