How Much Does it Cost to Develop an eCommerce Website

First things first, the cost of an eCommerce website may largely vary depending on your goals, ambitions, and hosting plans. The cost may range from as low as $5 to more than $5 million. With so many options available to you during budgeting, it may prove to be baffling sometimes but don’t worry. We will break the concept into several sections to answer how much does it cost to develop an eCommerce website. Join the group of farsighted leaders and take your business to the next level! 

How to Calculate the Cost 

Let’s talk about the major considerations you will need to make while estimating the cost to develop an eCommerce website. This is the only way you can personalize a budget for your custom eCommerce development plan.

There are different eCommerce platforms you can choose from, including WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Shopify, and more. You can use any of the top eCommerce hosts that suit your requirements as well as the budget.

Hosting Cost 

Every website needs a web host where the site’s files are stored. You can either opt for am self-hosted eCommerce website or a Software as a Service (SaaS) eCommerce hosting platform. 

Self-hosted websites are supposed to cost you somewhere between $2.75 to $241.67 per month, while SaaS websites are likely to cost between $29 to $299 per month. 

1. Hosting cost for Self-Hosted eCommerce Website

You will need a web hosting account to develop a website. Besides, you’ll have to purchase a domain name and an SSL certificate for your website. The domain name is essentially your website’s name, and the cost would depend on its availability. Needless to say, the cost may largely vary. An average beginner web hosting plan usually starts at $7 per month, along with $15 for the domain name each year. And the cost for SSL certificates usually starts from $70 per year. 

As the business continues to grow, you will need to upgrade your hosting plan, and the cost will increase in turn. 

Self-hosted eCommerce gives you the freedom of custom eCommerce development while saving tons of money.   

2. Hosting cost for SaaS eCommerce Website 

In the case of SaaS eCommerce websites, you will not have to go into the hassle of installing, managing, or even hosting your website yourself. The cost of the website is included with the software you purchase. 

BigCommerce and Shopify are two of the most popular SaaS eCommerce Websites. You can expect to get a standard deal at $29 per month. However, the cost will rise up to $300 per month if you are looking for advanced functionalities.

Payment Processing 

This is an essential consideration that many beginners overlook initially. Whether you hire developers or do it yourself, how you handle payments would have a huge impact on how much money you are spending on your website and profit you are making.

Paying processing fees vary depending on the payment gateway you are using, currency, and the region you are based on. Here is an estimate of some popular payment gateways: 

For WooCommerce: PayPal or Stripe will cost 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction 

For Shopify: 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction; in addition, 2% charge per transaction for third party payment gateways

For BigCommerce: PayPal or Stripe will cost 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction

You should note that these costs don’t include additional fees that are charged by your bank. 

Cost of eCommerce Website Design  

Brilliant design is the key to successful eCommerce, and you will need to invest a great deal of money in order to have your website up and running. Besides the hosting cost, you may have to hire developers, who will of course charge money. 

To give your website a professional finish you may consider the following design costs offered by top web hosting: 

• WooCommerce: Beginner plan is free; premium plan costs $99, and $5,000 for custom  
• Shopify: Beginner plan is free; $160 for the premium plan, and $5,000 for a custom plan 
• BigCommerce: Free; premium plan costs $160 and you can get a custom plan at $5,000 

Keep note of the fact that the free plans offer limited themes and less flexibility. They may be a good idea for beginners, but you will have to upgrade as you move further up in the eCommerce website development regime. 

Add-ons and Extensions 

Another essential field that might cost a big chunk of money is add-ons for your website. The platform of your choice may not be able to incorporate all the features that you might need, and that’s when you will need to take a rather modular approach. 

Each custom eCommerce development has specific needs of their own, and to serve them right there is a range of add-ons and extensions available. They may cost anything between zero dollars to $1,000.  

Total Cost to Build

Now that we have a better understanding of individual areas that may add expenses to your eCommerce website development, let’s take a look at how much money your website may cost in total. 

As I mentioned earlier, the cost will depend on the platform you choose affecting your overall cost. 

A beginner website at WooCommerce may cost between $500 to $3000, offering you shared hosting, a wide range of themes, and paid design. 

While Shopify may cost something between $1,000 to $10,000 and more. The cost is likely to increase as you begin to generate more sales. The same goes for BigCommerce. 

Conclusion

We have estimated the cost of eCommerce website development on various web hosting platforms. If you are planning to build a website from scratch then the cost will certainly be much higher than using ready-made solutions offered by these platforms. Having read this article, we hope that you now have a better understanding of how much it costs to develop an eCommerce website.