How Much Does an Ecommerce Website Cost?

Which platform should your store run on?

Pick the platform first, because it decides which bills you get.

In words: one product or a small range needs a focused single-product store. Prices per customer, made-to-order products or checkout rules no plugin covers point to a custom Laravel store. If you never want to think about a server, Shopify's monthly plan buys that. Otherwise WooCommerce on hosting in your own name is the lowest-cost route I know for a normal catalog.

What does it cost to build the store?

The build is the one number you can fix before work starts. These are the Starter prices on my published ecommerce website packages, with the delivery time quoted on the same page:

Those are entry plans. The WooCommerce store runs $699 on Business and $1,499 on Premium; the custom Laravel store runs $799 and $1,799. What moves a store up is more products, variants with their own stock, discount rules, a second gateway and customer accounts. On the Laravel store, Square or another gateway with a documented API is a $129 add-on. Work outside a package is quoted at $55 to $65 an hour or as a fixed scope.

Leaving an older store is its own cost: redirects from every old product address protect the search traffic you have. My website redesign guide explains what to keep.

What does the platform charge every month?

Shopify charges a plan fee; WooCommerce and a custom store charge nothing for the software and leave you to pay for hosting and extensions. Shopify's own pricing pages for Canada and Australia showed these plans on 3 November 2026:

Both pages offered 3 days free, then $1 a month for 3 months. For the current US dollar plan prices, check Shopify's US pricing page; the plan names and third-party fees were the same on every country page I read.

The third-party column matters more than the plan price. If you use Stripe, PayPal or another provider instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify takes that percentage of each sale on top of the provider's own fee. Syncing marketplace orders is free up to 50 a month, then 1%, capped at $99 USD a month.

WooCommerce's software is free to install, but the store still has a bill. Hosting is paid to your host. Paid extensions are licensed per year: the WooCommerce Subscriptions page describes it as a paid annual extension with a 30-day money-back period, though it showed me its price in a local currency. I keep the extension list short, because each one is a renewal and an update that can break checkout. A custom Laravel store has no platform fee and no renewals; the trade is that a new feature means paying a developer.

What will payment processing take from each sale?

Card processing takes a percentage of every order plus, with most providers, a fixed amount. These are the standard published online rates for a domestic card, read on 3 November 2026:

For the current US rates of Stripe and Shopify Payments, check the US pricing pages linked in the table. PayPal's US page also lists standard card payments at 2.99% plus $0.49, a different product from the Advanced row.

In numbers: on a $100 US order, WooPayments takes $3.20, Square online takes $3.20, PayPal's Advanced card processing takes $3.18, PayPal's standard card payments take $3.48 and a payment through the PayPal button takes $3.98. Pay Later options cost more again: PayPal lists 4.99% plus $0.49 in the US, and Square and WooPayments both list Afterpay at 6% plus 30¢.

The fixed fee hurts small orders most. On a $10 sale, 30¢ alone is 3% of the order, so compare providers on your real order size, not on the percentage.

Which smaller fees add up over a year?

The fees beyond the headline rate are the ones that surprise owners in year one. Read the rows that match how you sell.

A few more lines from the same pages:

• Refunds keep the fee. WooPayments says its transaction fees are not returned when you refund a customer, and Stripe says the processing fee of the original payment is not returned either.
• Subscriptions can cost extra. In the US, WooPayments adds 1.00% to any order containing a subscription payment that uses the Stripe Billing engine, on the whole order, not only the subscription line.
• Card readers. Selling in person too? WooPayments charges $5 a month per active card reader in all three countries.
• Apps. Shopify apps and WooCommerce extensions each set their own price. Count every paid one into the yearly budget before launch.

Stripe's Australian page also notes lower international card pricing from 1 April 2027, which is one reason to re-read these pages every year.

How do you add it all up into a first-year budget?

Add the build, twelve months of platform and apps, and the card fees at the sales you expect. Take a Canadian store selling CA$10,000 a month in 200 orders of CA$50, all on domestic cards:

The arithmetic is mine; the rates are the published ones above. At this volume the card fees are about nine times the Shopify Basic plan, so a cheaper plan saves less than a better payment setup. And the third-party fee is the expensive mistake on Shopify: Shopify's 2% on top of another provider's rate costs this store CA$200 a month, CA$2,400 a year. In year one, add the one-time build to your row. From year two, only the monthly lines remain, plus renewals and any development you order.

What should you check before you sign?

Ask every quote the same list, in writing.

• Which platform, and why that one for my catalog?
• How many products does the price load, and who loads the rest?
• Which payment providers are set up, and are the accounts opened in my company's name?
• Which paid apps or extensions does the store need, at what price, and who renews them?
• Is hosting included or billed to me, and whose account is it in?
• If I move from another store, are redirects from the old product addresses included?
• What does support cost after launch?

On my builds, the domain, hosting, gateway accounts and any premium extension are paid by you, in your name, directly to those companies. My payment stages and handover are on how I work.