Table of Content
How much does an ecommerce website cost?
A professionally built ecommerce store typically costs $5,000 to $20,000 to build, on top of $29–$105 per month for the platform. GoodFirms surveyed 300+ web development firms across 31 countries and found 45.4% put a CMS-based website at $5,000–$20,000, taking 4–8 weeks. Simple template stores start near $1,000–$3,000. Enterprise builds with ERP integration run $20,000–$200,000. The build is a one-time cost; the platform fee is forever.
The short version
- Build cost: $5,000–$20,000 is the most commonly quoted range for a CMS-based site, per a survey of 300+ development firms.
- Timeline: 4–8 weeks for that tier. Enterprise builds run 8–28 weeks.
- Platform subscription: $29–$105/month for Shopify or BigCommerce — the smallest line on the invoice, and the one everyone fixates on.
- The number that actually bites: payment processing at 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction. On $50,000/month in sales that is roughly $1,450 a month, forever.
- What moves the price: integrations and custom checkout logic, not the number of products.
- Where budgets die: discovering an ERP or fulfillment integration after the quote was signed.
This article is about what it costs to have a store built. If you are comparing monthly platform subscription fees instead, our guide to the best ecommerce platform for small business breaks down what Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce and the rest charge each month. If you sell to other businesses rather than consumers, our comparison of the best B2B ecommerce platforms covers a different set of requirements and a different cost profile.
What the Survey Data Actually Says
Most cost articles quote ranges without saying where the ranges came from. These come from GoodFirms’ 2026 website development cost survey, which polled 300+ web development firms across 31 countries (published September 2026):
| Build type | Most common range | Firms agreeing | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic site or MVP | $1,000–$3,000 | 59.9% | 2–4 weeks |
| CMS-based website | $5,000–$20,000 | 45.4% | 4–8 weeks |
| Mid-sized website | $5,000–$20,000 | 53.9% | 4–8 weeks |
| Custom web application | $20,000–$50,000 | 35.5% | 8–16 weeks |
| Enterprise website | $20,000–$200,000 | 36.2% | 8–28 weeks |
An honest caveat about that table. GoodFirms surveyed web development broadly, not ecommerce specifically — there is no “ecommerce store” row. A standard Shopify or WooCommerce build is a CMS-based website, which is why the $5,000–$20,000 band is the right anchor. Mapping your store onto it is interpretation, not survey data, and we would rather say so than dress an estimate up as a finding.
You will find articles quoting confident ecommerce-specific figures — “$15,000 to $75,000” and similar. Those come from agency marketing pages rather than from published survey work. We could not verify any of them against a real dataset, so they are not repeated here.
The Four Layers of What You Actually Pay
An ecommerce quote is really four separate budgets, and confusing them is why “how much does a store cost” gets such wildly different answers:
| Layer | When you pay | Typical shape |
|---|---|---|
| The build | Once, up front | The largest single number, and the one you negotiate |
| Platform subscription | Monthly, forever | $29–$105/month on Shopify or BigCommerce entry tiers |
| Apps and integrations | Monthly, and it grows | Reviews, email, search, subscriptions — each its own subscription |
| Payment processing | Per transaction, forever | 2.9% + 30¢ is the standard card rate |
Most buyers spend their negotiating energy on layer two, which is the smallest. Run the arithmetic on layer four instead: at 2.9% + 30¢, a store doing $50,000 a month in sales pays roughly $1,450 a month in card fees — more than ten times the platform subscription, every month, permanently. Shopify’s rate improves as you move up its plans, from 2.9% on Basic to 2.5% on Advanced, which is worth modeling before you pick a tier.
What Actually Drives the Price Up
The single most common misconception is that price scales with product count. It does not. A 5,000-SKU catalog on a standard template is a cheaper build than a 40-product store with custom configuration logic. What genuinely moves a quote:
- Integrations. ERP, accounting, a 3PL, a POS system. Every system you connect is a data mapping exercise plus error handling plus testing. This is the largest swing factor in ecommerce builds and the one most often discovered after the quote.
- Custom checkout logic. Anything beyond the platform’s default checkout — unusual tax handling, freight-based shipping, B2B approval flows — and on Shopify some of it requires Plus.
- Design: template or bespoke. A premium theme costs a few hundred dollars once. A designed-from-scratch storefront is weeks of design plus front-end build.
- Migration. Moving an existing store means URL mapping, redirects, historical order data and preserving search rankings. A migration is a project in its own right, not a line item.
- Content. Photography, product copy, category descriptions. Frequently excluded from the quote and then urgently needed in week six.
If you are choosing a platform rather than pricing a build, the technical ceiling matters as much as the monthly fee — our comparison of the best ecommerce platforms for SEO covers which ones give you URL and structured-data control, and our rundown of essential ecommerce website features covers what actually needs building.
What You Get at Each Budget
| Budget | What it realistically buys | Right for |
|---|---|---|
| Under $3,000 | A premium theme configured properly, your products loaded, payments and shipping live | Validating whether the product sells at all |
| $5,000–$20,000 | Customized theme, real brand design, a handful of integrations, proper category structure | Most established businesses moving online seriously |
| $20,000–$50,000 | Bespoke storefront, ERP or 3PL integration, custom checkout behavior, migration from an old platform | Businesses where the store is the primary revenue channel |
| $50,000+ | Headless or heavily customized architecture, multi-region, B2B portals, deep systems work | Enterprise catalogs and complex operations |
The bands come from the GoodFirms ranges above; the descriptions are our read of what that money buys on a real ecommerce project, not survey findings.
The Costs That Show Up Later
Three things reliably absent from the quote and reliably present on the invoice:
- Apps. Reviews, email, advanced search, subscriptions, loyalty — each is its own monthly subscription, and a working store usually collects several. Budget for the stack, not the store.
- The third-party gateway penalty. Shopify adds an extra fee on every sale if you use a payment gateway other than Shopify Payments. It looks small as a percentage and is not small annually.
- Maintenance. Themes and apps need updating, things break, and someone has to be responsible. A store is an operating system, not a deliverable.
Once the store is live, the next cost is getting found — a store nobody visits is an expensive brochure. Our guide to ecommerce SEO strategies covers that work, and our SEO services team can take it on.
What Does Commerce Pundit Charge to Build an Ecommerce Store?
We scope per project rather than publishing a rate card, because the variables above genuinely decide the number. A themed Shopify build with a clean product feed is a different job from a Magento migration with an ERP integration and ten years of URLs to preserve.
What we price against is the platform, the integrations you actually need, whether design is bespoke or themed, and whether you are building new or migrating. Contact us for pricing and you will get a figure scoped to your situation. We build on Shopify, BigCommerce and WooCommerce, and our broader ecommerce development services cover migrations and integration work. For wholesale and trade selling, our B2B development services cover the company accounts, quote workflows and contract pricing that a standard store does not handle.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does an ecommerce website cost?
A professionally built store typically costs $5,000–$20,000, which is the range 45.4% of surveyed development firms quote for a CMS-based website, delivered in 4–8 weeks. Add $29–$105 per month for the platform and 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction in card fees. Simple template stores start nearer $1,000–$3,000.
How much should I pay for an eCommerce website?
Pay according to what the store has to do, not its product count. If you need a working storefront with payments and shipping, the lower bands are genuinely sufficient. If you need an ERP integration or custom checkout logic, budgeting below $20,000 usually means the integration gets cut and you pay for it later anyway.
What is the average cost of an eCommerce website?
There is no reliable published average specific to ecommerce. The closest defensible figure is the GoodFirms survey of 300+ development firms, where the most common CMS-based website range is $5,000–$20,000. Treat any confident single “average ecommerce build” number with suspicion, because the variance between a themed store and an integrated one is enormous.
What is the cheapest website for ecommerce?
WooCommerce has the lowest platform cost because the plugin is free — you pay only for hosting, a domain and payment processing. BigCommerce and Wix start at $29/month for a hosted store with no platform transaction fees. Cheapest to start is not always cheapest to run, since self-hosted options move maintenance cost onto you.
How much does a B2B ecommerce website cost?
More than an equivalent B2C store, because the requirements are different rather than because the catalog is bigger. Customer-specific price lists, quote and approval workflows, credit terms and ERP integration all sit outside a standard build. Most B2B projects land in the $20,000–$50,000 band or above, and the integration is usually the largest line. Our comparison of the best B2B ecommerce platforms covers which platforms handle which of those requirements natively.
How much does it cost to develop a Shopify website?
A themed Shopify build sits at the lower end of the CMS band; a bespoke storefront with integrations sits well above it. The Shopify subscription itself is $39/month for Basic, or $29/month billed annually, rising to $105 for Grow and $399 for Advanced. Themes are free up to around $380 one-time.
How much does Shopify take from a $100 sale?
On the Basic plan with Shopify Payments, a $100 sale costs $2.90 plus 30¢, so $3.20 total. The card rate falls to 2.7% on Grow and 2.5% on Advanced. If you use a third-party gateway instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify adds an extra fee on top of that.
Is building a website on Shopify worth it?
For most businesses selling physical products, yes — it removes hosting, security and platform maintenance from your responsibilities, which is most of what breaks a store. It is worth less if you need unusual checkout behavior, because the checkout is the least customizable part of Shopify below the Plus tier.
Is e-commerce really worth it?
It depends on margin and demand, not on the build cost. Work out what one order is worth to you and how many orders a month the store needs to cover its running costs. If the arithmetic only works at volumes your category does not support, the answer is no — and finding that out before the build is much cheaper than after.
What are the risks of ecommerce?
Commercially, the common ones are underestimating fulfillment cost, launching without a traffic plan, and choosing a platform you outgrow within two years. Technically, the real risks are payment security and the fragility of integrations — a broken feed to an ERP is invisible until orders stop flowing.
What are some popular e-commerce platforms?
Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento (Adobe Commerce), Wix and Squarespace cover most of the market. Shopify and BigCommerce are hosted and fastest to launch; WooCommerce and Magento are self-hosted with more control and more responsibility.
Bottom Line
The useful question is not “what does an ecommerce website cost” but “what does this store need to do”. Anchored on real survey data, $5,000–$20,000 buys a properly built CMS-based store in 4–8 weeks, and that covers most businesses. What pushes a project past it is almost always integrations, not products.
Before you sign anything, get the integration list agreed in writing. That single conversation is the difference between a build that lands on budget and one that doubles.
Want a Real Number for Your Store?
Tell us the platform, the integrations and whether you are building new or migrating, and we will scope it properly — including the costs that usually surface in week six.
No commitment. If a themed build is genuinely all you need, we will tell you that.
