Ecommerce Website Development Cost: A Complete Guide
Quick Summary
Diving into the world of online business? Understand the eCommerce website development cost for startups, small businesses, and established entities. Explore packages, custom designs, and frequently asked questions in our in-depth guide. Make informed decisions for your brand's online future.
Globally, 26.5+ million online stores are already on-air, helping customers to shop from anywhere and anytime. With this flexibility, shoppers are more likely to shop online listings from groceries, daily essentials, and even jewelry.
By dealing with online businesses, the shoppers also get the benefits of browsing the entire services/product listing, price comparison, and related feedback from previous buyers. Hence, the eCommerce platform covers all the traits to create a welcoming web design and friendly interface that can ideally help you scale sales graphs higher.
Also, in the tenure of 2023-2025 only, the number of online shoppers is expected to rise from 2.64 billion to 2.77 billion. When trend statistics are growing higher, it is the right time for you to float with the stream and cross a successful milestone too. But before making a direct hop, you must acknowledge the cost of building an ecommerce website so that you can compare ecommerce development agencies’ pricing guides and features to choose the best one for your online business.
Breakdown of eCommerce Websites Cost
To create a successful ecommerce web design, first – you need to understand the types of ecommerce, the niche you are currently targeting, and the resources making you earn the highest revenue. When you are just starting an ecommerce business, analyzing this and sharing content aiming the same can be pretty confusing.
So to overcome such consequences, you better get in touch with an eCommerce development company that can help you with SEO-optimized content and custom website packages. First, Let’s discuss the different business models under which eCommerce platforms are listed.
B2B eCommerce:
Also known as business-to-business practices, including the selling/exchange of products, services, or software between two businesses. Retailers selling their business products to wholesalers is a typical business-to-business example.
Some of the leading B2B eCommerce marketplaces are:
Amazon Business
Indiamart
Alibaba
B2C eCommerce:
It is a term referring to business-to-consumer selling. Consider your online business niche when creating an ecommerce website for your business and selling products/services directly to the consumer. In India only, the ecommerce market’s growth is expected to reach US$107.3 billion in 2023. Some of the leading B2C eCommerce marketplaces are:
Amazon
Etsy
Walmart Marketplace
C2B eCommerce:
These sorts of ecommerce stores will need consumers to work or resell their services, which is why they get called Consumer-to-Business eCommerce. Creating an ecommerce website can cost you relatively higher as it will need a robust base to handle the requests shared by businesses and consumers offering them in exchange for funds. Some of the leading C2B eCommerce marketplaces are:
Upwork
Fiverr
Airbnb
C2C eCommerce:
If you are about making an ecommerce like C2C, your consumers won’t directly reach your business services. By using your ecommerce site, the users will connect with consumers from another end to sell their products, offer services, or partner programs. Some of the leading C2C eCommerce marketplaces are:
Quikr
Etsy
OLX
B2A eCommerce:
It is an acronym for Business-to-administration eCommerce and Business-to-government (B2G). For starting an ecommerce website under this niche, the formalities regarding paperwork might get lengthy as the firm directly needs to handle government assignments. Some of the leading B2G eCommerce marketplaces are:
eWorldTrade
Mark43
OpenGov
C2A eCommerce:
This eCommerce web development bridges the gap between consumers and administration. Via this C2A eCommerce platform, consumers can post their requests to local governments/authorities. Some of the leading C2A eCommerce marketplaces are:
EFTPS
FTCS
IRS
What Determines eCommerce Website Prices?
No matter how established the development agencies are, they often struggle in responding to the question “How much does an ecommerce website cost.” Well, there are several factors you better first clear with the eCommerce development agency you are considering for eCommerce design and development. So that they can give an estimation of the cost range throughout the project.
Ecommerce Software
When you are an eCommerce industry newbie, think to find the best ways to turn your ecommerce startup into a successful ecommerce website. The ideal base and features the eCommerce platforms offer will determine how seamlessly you’ll handle your ecommerce store and provide a responsive interface to your shoppers. Here are the 3 best eCommerce platforms for your business:
1. Shopify: Launched in 2003, over the years, Shopify never left anyone unfamiliar with its incredible offering when it comes to eCommerce website builders. Shopify plans include excellent website maintenance tools and features for ecommerce SEO optimization, website hosting, and 150+ themes to pick from.
Currently, there are over 21 million daily active users of Shopify, with which even an average Shopify store owner makes between $500-$5,000every month. Moreover, Shopify never lets its users stay bordered behind some functionality which is why it also offers 8,000+ apps with which one can add numerous functionalities at a time.
Moving to the pricing guide – with these exceptional offerings, Shopify packages also include a 3-day free trial and a basic plan just at $39/month. One important note to consider is that Shopify payments also have fees per transaction, in which the prices vary as per the plan you choose.
2. WooCommerce: It is not an eCommerce software itself, but it is still one of the most popular ecommerce solutions that reduce the cost of building a website at much lower rates. If you are a complete beginner and going for a new ecommerce experience, choosing WooCommerce can be the best practice. WooCommerce includes multiple inventory management processes, secure payments, and in-built blocks.
The primary need for creating an online store in WooCommerce is hosting a WordPress setup; that’s it! WooCommerce is a free plugin with a set of features you can build and scale your eCommerce store with; if you are a newbie, we suggest you read out this Complete WooCommerce Beginner Guide.
Choosing a theme and adding additional add-ons is also much more accessible with WooCommerce, as there are 7,000+ themes offered by ThemeForest, and there are still several other marketplaces you can consider to choose the theme from. While working with WooCommerce, you can ensure a reduction in the overall cost of making an ecommerce.
3. Magento (Adobe Commerce): Adobe Commerce is a cloud-based platform available to everyone looking to download, install, and extend the functionalities of eCommerce software. Magento (Adobe Commerce) includes all features for creating a flexible and scalable eCommerce platform both for B2B and B2C experiences.
Whenever one hears the term open-source, it makes them worried about security and privacy. Still, as Magneto open source is now listed under Adobe Commerce, their tech team has added advanced security borders, including secure network connectivity, firewalls, and DDOS protection.
While you are going for Adobe Commerce, having intermediate-level programming is necessary. Suppose you want to do some custom design. In that case, this online ecommerce website building platform might ask for it – in case you are still getting familiar with such terms and want to for Magento (Adobe Commerce) development, you better hire dedicated eCommerce developers or get in touch with Magento eCommerce development company.
Domain Name
In the link of www.google.com, the term ‘Google’ is defined as the domain name. The price also varies on the extension you choose; some primary examples are .com, .co, and .shop. If you are already planning to get a domain, you can check its availability at Name.com.
Here is the list five best domain providers according to Forbes Advisors:
NameCheap
Domain.com
Google Domains
DreamHost
Hover
If you pick a yearly web hosting plan from Hostinger, it can also benefit you with a free domain.
eCommerce Web Host
Are we done with domain registration? Then it’s time to get the right web hosting providers that can align with your budget, security grounds, and how much traffic your store gets.
Massive eCommerce platforms like Shopify are in-built hosted on the cloud, offering web hosting as part of the sign-up plan only so that you won’t need to go and deal with third-party hosting. In another case, if you are primarily looking to host a WordPress eCommerce site, here is the guide that can help to pick the best WordPress hosting.
SSL Certificate
The part of the cost you can’t skip when opening an ecommerce store. Whenever you visit an eCommerce website, the security lock you see right before the domain is what Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is.
The role of SSL in eCommerce is to provide security over the network so that the data of customers’ shopping history, shipping location, and debit/card details is secured with the eCommerce business owner.
This SSL certification also affects the SEO ranking; you better keep that in mind. Its pricing can vary between $8 to $1000/ year – again depending on several factors such as several domains, warranty tenure, and certificate authority.
Store Theme & Designs
The significant cost of your ecommerce website depends on both factors. To understand these, you can first bifurcate the different types of ecommerce development practices, such as if you are hiring a dedicated web designer, getting an in-house web designing team, or outsourcing your eCommerce project.
With these tables, you’ll be able to check whether your selected team has in-built capabilities for custom ecommerce website development or will be going with a pre-designed template and making periodic changes as per the business guide.
In such cases, if your budget is even quite maximal, then you better prefer to take services from an eCommerce development company – so that they can help you end-to-end process of creating an ecommerce site, including design, SEO-optimized content, creating an e-store, and also a plus to discuss website building cost with experienced developers.
Basic Budget Package to Build an eCommerce Website
Well, we’ve already been through the roadmap of necessary factors, but what about the basic budget? It can range from $50 to $10,000 depending on the business size, number of products/services, and how many eCommerce developers you are considering working on your project.
Where the average cost of website design for small businesses is $2,000. On the other hand, the price range for established companies starts from $5,000 – $15,000 on average. To determine how much ecommerce website cost estimates for your business model, you can use online ecommerce website cost calculators – one of the ideal examples is Upwork.
Plans
Startup
Midsize Business
Established Business
Average eCommerce Development Cost
$2,000 – $5,000
$5,000 – $10,000
$10,000 – $30,000
Maintenance Span
6-12 Months
6-12 Months
6-12 Months
Applies Additional Costing
Adding pages/ products/editing design
Adding pages/ products/editing design
Adding pages/ products/editing design
How Much Does it Cost to Create an eCommerce Site for Small Businesses or Startups?
When pitching to get into eCommerce as a startup or mid-sized business, you better keep your overall budget slightly high, from $1500 to $6000, as your eCommerce store is about to create its first appearance among the audience, and it must stun them! The eCommerce startups must consider dropping their web in an area full of fish to pick a viable niche in which eCommerce businesses are already generating massive revenue.
You can also check out this updated guide to the 7 biggest eCommerce niches. Once you are done with that, analyze how you’ll be conducting ways to drive the targeted audience to your online store and make them stick with interactive eCommerce website design around your offerings.
Cost to Build an eCommerce Store for Established Business
Both eCommerce startups that have reached significant numbers of sales; and offline businesses that already have an established business name and are looking to scale online get measured under this eCommerce niche.
When your business is already mid-stage, there are multiple benefits you can get by making an ecommerce website. You already have a list of currently best-selling products and an audience on hand with whom you can advertise your eCommerce store.
The cost of creating eCommerce for established businesses ranges from $10,000 to $30,000. As they already have massive daily web visitors, eCommerce developers would need to create a robust database, and storage space that can store data seamlessly and also take measures for maintaining an ecommerce website.
Custom eCommerce Website Design Cost
Custom eCommerce Development defines creating a unique and personalized user interface tailored precisely just for your customers! This practice first involves web design from scratch using tools such as Figma, InVision, and Adobe XD, which helps businesses to reflect their values.
To get an average cost of ecommerce under these practices, you’ll need to share your business requirements with the development agency. To ensure a straightforward process, you better be prepared with a brand guide, example websites, and the eCommerce software in which you want to start your project.
As each milestone will be cleared from scrape, the cost of building custom eCommerce can range from $30,000 and higher.
How Much Does an eCommerce Website Development Total Cost?
Let’s be honest here; hiring in-house can cost you more as you’ll need an appointed person for each specific task including; UI/UX, Front-end, Back-end, and many others. On the other hand, the eCommerce development company will directly help you with a customized package you need to select, and their dedicated developers will handle the entire back-and-forth.
Tasks you can streamline with an eCommerce development agency:
Back-end web development
Front-end web design
UI/UX design
Ecommerce services
QA Testing
Someday, if you consider a pause for completing some specific tasks first, you can also switch project pricing hourly. Hence, you won’t be even a single penny more than your project’s worth. Thus the overall project cost depends on the ecommerce website developers you are considering hiring from the agency and the personalized add-ons.
FAQs About the Cost of an eCommerce Website Development
Q1. What are the main factors to consider when developing an eCommerce website?
You know the cost of an ecommerce website can vary, but after spending those assets, there are some functionalities you should ensure your eCommerce store must have:
Web security
SEO
Multiple payment options and gateways.
CMS integration
Mobile responsiveness
Shopping cart
Product filtering
Q2. How much does Shopify eCommerce development cost?
It depends on the plan you decide for your online store and the number of developers you are considering for maintaining the online business.
Shopify Basic: $29 monthly, 2.9% + 30¢ per online transaction.
Standard Shopify: $79 monthly, 2.6% + 30¢ per transaction.
Advanced Shopify: $299 monthly, 2.4% + 30¢ per transaction.
We are experienced, established, and embellished to each of your eCommerce website development requirements. No matter your business domain or size, eCommerce business always offers a higher level, which we bring to the table.
Want to know how? Explore the live eCommerce projects that turned a vision into a dynamic platform. To request a free quote, get in touch with us today.
Priyanka, a dedicated Content Manager at Brainspate since 2023, thrives on her love for eCommerce. With engaging writing, she enlightens readers, leaving an indelible impact in the digital landscape.