How Much Does an E-Commerce Website Cost in 2025?

It Depends on What You're Selling

An online store selling 10 handmade candles has very different requirements than a marketplace with 10,000 SKUs and vendor accounts. The cost spectrum reflects that — from $29/month on Shopify to $100,000+ for custom enterprise platforms.

Platform Options and Costs

Shopify ($29–399/month): The default choice for most small e-commerce businesses. Easy to set up, handles payments and shipping, thousands of apps. Transaction fees of 0.5–2% on top of payment processing unless you use Shopify Payments. Total first-year cost including a premium theme and essential apps: $1,500–5,000.

WooCommerce (WordPress, $0 base): Free plugin, but hosting ($20–100/month), premium themes ($50–200), and essential plugins (payments, shipping, security) add up. Plus ongoing maintenance. Total first-year cost with freelancer setup: $3,000–8,000.

Squarespace Commerce ($33–65/month): Good for small catalogs with beautiful presentation. Limited flexibility compared to Shopify. Transaction fee of 3% on the lower plan. Best for businesses with under 50 products.

Custom-built ($3,000–25,000+): A hand-coded storefront with headless commerce (Stripe, Snipcart, or similar) gives you complete control over performance, design, and user experience. Best for businesses where brand experience and page speed are competitive advantages.

Hidden Costs Most People Miss

Payment processing: Every platform charges 2.4–2.9% + $0.30 per transaction regardless of the platform fee. On $100,000 in annual sales, that's $2,400–2,900 in processing fees alone.

Apps and plugins: Shopify's "free" platform quickly gets expensive when you need reviews ($15/month), email marketing ($20/month), upsells ($30/month), and abandoned cart recovery ($10/month).

Photography: Product photography can cost $25–100 per product. For 50 products, that's $1,250–5,000 you might not have budgeted.

When Custom E-Commerce Makes Sense

If page speed and SEO are critical to your sales (they usually are), if you want complete ownership of your store, or if you need a unique checkout experience that platforms can't provide, custom is worth the investment. A custom store with Stripe integration loads in under 2 seconds and scores 90+ on PageSpeed — something Shopify stores rarely achieve due to their JavaScript-heavy framework.

Check our Full Suite package for custom e-commerce builds starting at $2,999.