TL;DR
- Having an online shop built with us typically costs between €4,000 and €15,000, depending on your product range, integrations and bespoke services.
- That is the one-off build. In addition, you should factor in ongoing costs: hosting, maintenance, transaction fees and, where applicable, your stock management system.
- Transaction costs are based on your turnover. With Mollie, for example, iDEAL costs €0.32 per transaction and credit cards cost 1.80% plus €0.25.
- Do not underestimate the legal aspects. You must inform your client about the 14-day cooling-off period; if you fail to do so properly, that period will be extended by one year.
- Since June 2026, a cancellation button has also been mandatory: cancelling must be just as easy as buying.
- WooCommerce itself is free. The costs lie in the development, integration and ongoing maintenance.
- The biggest cost is almost never the design itself. It’s the integrations with your stock, your accounts and your fulfilment provider.
Introduction
“How much does an online shop cost?” is a question to which you’ll find answers ranging from €500 to €50,000 online. Both are true, and that is precisely the problem. Without knowing what you’re selling, how many products you have and what your shop needs to be linked to, any figure is a guess.
What we can do, however, is explain where the costs come from. That way, you can assess for yourself where your business fits in, and you’ll immediately see which choices are expensive and which aren’t. In this blog, we’ll go through the one-off costs, the ongoing costs that are often overlooked, the legal obligations that cost money and time, and where you can save money without regretting it later.
Table of Contents
How much does it cost to have an online shop built?
With us, an online shop typically costs between €4,000 and €15,000 as a one-off fee. At the lower end of the scale is a shop with a straightforward product range, standard payment methods and a shipping integration. At the higher end, there is a shop with a large number of products, variants, integrations with your stock or accounting systems, and bespoke functionality.
In short, here’s what accounts for that ten-thousand-pound difference:
- Number of products and variants. Entering twenty products takes an afternoon. Two thousand products with sizes, colours and stock levels per variant is a project.
- Integrations. An online shop that retrieves its stock from your till system and forwards its orders to your accounts is fundamentally different from a standalone online shop.
- Customised functionality. A configurator, a bespoke price calculation, a customer portal or B2B pricing by customer group.
- Design. Adapting an existing theme or fully bespoke design.
- Content. Who writes the product descriptions and who takes the photographs? With hundreds of products, this represents a larger cost than the development work itself.
If you’d like an indication of the costs for your situation, a half-hour consultation will suffice. Take a look at our page on having an online shop built to see what’s involved.
What are the ongoing costs of an online shop?
In addition to the build, you’ll pay a monthly fee for hosting, maintenance, your domain name and your payment provider. For an online shop, these costs are higher than for a standard website, because any downtime directly costs you turnover and because your transaction costs increase in line with your sales.
What you can expect:
- Hosting. An online shop places greater demands on a server than an informational website, as every visitor has a session and a shopping basket. Expect to pay between €10 and €50 per month, and more for a busy shop. See our page on managed WordPress hosting.
- Maintenance. €50 to €200 per month, depending on the scope. For an online shop, this is not an option but a necessity: you only realise the checkout process is broken when someone rings.
- Domain name. €10 to €15 per year. The smallest item on your list.
- Transaction fees. These are calculated as a percentage of your turnover. With Mollie, iDEAL costs €0.32 per transaction, Mastercard and Visa 1.80% plus €0.25, and Klarna 2.99% plus €0.45. Work these percentages back onto your average order value, as with a low margin, this can really add up.
- Any subscriptions. A mailing platform, a stock management system, an email tool or a paid plugin for a specific function.
Those transaction costs are the item most often overlooked in a business plan. If you sell items costing €15 with a margin of €4, a credit card payment will cost you almost 12 per cent of that margin.
Why is WooCommerce free, yet an online shop isn’t?
This is because the software is free, but the work is not. WooCommerce is an open-source extension for WordPress that you can use without licence fees. What does cost money is setting it up: your products, your payment methods, your dispatch rules, your VAT settings, your integrations and your design.
That is precisely why you see such a large price difference online. Someone can set up a shop with a standard theme, ten products and a single payment method in a matter of days. As soon as something specific is required, it shifts to bespoke work.
Where costs may still arise with WooCommerce:
- Premium plugins. For specific functions such as subscriptions, B2B prices or advanced shipping rules. Often with an annual licence.
- Payment provider. No set-up fees with most providers, but there are charges per transaction.
- Integrations. Sometimes a ready-made plugin is available; sometimes something needs to be built from scratch.
However, the advantages of WooCommerce more than make up for this: you own your online shop, your data and your content, and you’re not tied to a single supplier. You can find out more on our page about having a WooCommerce online shop built.
Which legal obligations are costing you money and time?
More than most start-ups expect. You must inform your customer in advance about the cooling-off period, have your terms and conditions in order, clearly state your dispatch and returns policy, and, from June 2026, provide a cancellation button. That is partly structural work and partly legal work, and both take time.
Key points:
The cooling-off period. Your client has a 14-day cooling-off period following delivery. You must provide clear information about this in advance: whether the right applies, when the period ends, how someone can exercise it, who pays the return costs and how quickly you will issue a refund. If you provide incomplete information, the cooling-off period is extended by one year, according to the ACM. This is not a theoretical risk but a tangible financial loss.
The cancellation button. Since June 2026, online shops and apps must have a clear cancellation button. Cancelling must be just as easy as buying: the button must be easy to find, available throughout the cooling-off period, and you must not require an account to cancel. Your customer must receive a digital confirmation immediately.
Accessibility. Under the European Accessibility Act, accessibility requirements have applied to online shops, amongst other things, since 28 June 2025. This affects your contrast levels, your keyboard navigation and your forms. See our page on digitally accessible websites.
Furthermore: your company details and Companies House number must be clearly visible on your website, along with a functioning cookie banner, a privacy policy, correct VAT settings and clear terms and conditions.
Allow time for this, and have your terms and conditions drawn up by someone who knows what they’re doing. We make no representations regarding your specific legal situation; we build the shop so that you’re all set on the technical side.
Where can you save money on an online shop, and where should you not?
You save money on scale and phasing, not on the fundamentals. Start with fewer products, fewer integrations and less bespoke service, and expand once you know what works. What you mustn’t do is cut back on your hosting, your maintenance or your payment processing, as that will cost you revenue straight away.
Where you can make sensible savings:
- Start small with your product range. Focus on your bestsellers first. Expanding later is cheaper than entering everything in advance.
- Phasing. Go live with the basics and build integrations in phase two, once you know sales are happening.
- Standard functionality rather than bespoke solutions. First check whether the existing system can already handle it.
- Create your own content. Providing your own product descriptions and photos saves a considerable amount, provided you actually do it.
Where cutting corners will end up costing you more:
- Hosting. A slow online shop loses visitors, and a shop that’s down sells nothing.
- Maintenance. In 2025, 11,334 new vulnerabilities were found in the WordPress ecosystem, 91 per cent of which were in plugins. For heavily exploited vulnerabilities, the median time to first exploitation is approximately five hours.
- Your checkout process. Every extra step costs you orders. Read more about this in our blog on optimising your online shop checkout.
- Payment methods. If iDEAL is not available, you will lose a large proportion of your customers in the United Kingdom.
How much does an online shop cost compared to a website?
An online shop is usually two to three times as expensive as an informational website of a comparable size. This is not due to the design but to everything that lies beneath it: products, stock, payments, dispatch, VAT, returns and the legal obligations associated with distance selling.
In brief, side by side:
| Company website | Webshop | |
|---|---|---|
| Objective | Enquiries and information | Direct sales |
| One-off | €2,500 to €7,500 | €4,000 to €15,000 |
| Maintenance | Important | Essential |
| Legal requirements | Limited | Extensive |
| Ongoing costs | Hosting, domain, maintenance | Plus transaction costs and subscriptions |
Are you unsure whether you need an online shop or a website with a good enquiry process? That’s a valid question. If you’re selling a handful of products that require a lot of explanation or bespoke services, a website with an enquiry form often works better than an online shop. You can find out how much a website costs in our blog post on the cost of having a website built.
How do you determine your budget for your online shop?
Work backwards from your expected turnover and margin, not from what a shop ‘should cost’. Work out how many orders you need to recoup your investment, and whether that’s realistic in your first year. If the figure you arrive at doesn’t make you happy, then phasing the project is the solution – not cutting back on quality.
A practical calculation exercise:
- What is your average order value and your margin on that?
- What are the transaction costs and postage for an order? Then you’ll know what the net profit is.
- How many orders per month do you need to cover your running costs?
- How many months should it take to recoup your investment? Twelve to eighteen months is a typical timeframe.
- Does this align with your expected visitor numbers? Use a conservative conversion rate and check whether the number of orders is achievable.
This exercise is more useful than a price list, as it tells you whether an online shop is the right investment at this moment. Everything else involved is set out in our blog on having an online shop built.
Would you like a specific price for your plan? Get in touch, and we’ll go through your product range and your links. You’ll know in advance what we’ll do and what the price will be – no surprises afterwards.
Frequently asked questions about the costs of an online shop
What is the cheapest an online shop can cost?
Technically, you can go live for a few hundred pounds with a standard theme, a handful of products and a single payment method. Whether that’s a sensible move depends on your objective. It may be sufficient for a temporary promotion or a test. For a shop that needs to generate revenue, you’ll quickly hit limitations: no integrations, limited payment methods, and a checkout process that isn’t optimised. Don’t forget to factor in your time, too. Setting up a shop yourself can easily take several weeks, and that’s time you’re not spending on sales. Calculate those hours at your hourly rate and the price difference becomes smaller than it seems.
Why do prices vary so much?
Because ‘online shop’ means ten different things. Twenty products with no variants is a different project to two thousand products with sizes, colours and stock levels per variant. A standalone shop is different from one that retrieves its stock from your till system and sends its orders to your accounts. And customising a standard theme costs a fraction of what a fully bespoke solution does. So, whenever you receive a quote, make sure you ask exactly what’s included: the number of products, integrations, who creates the content, and what happens after the site goes live. Only then can you make a proper comparison.
Are the product descriptions and photos included in the price?
This is usually not included as standard, and it is the biggest hidden cost for an online shop. With hundreds of products, writing copy and taking or editing photos involves more work than building the shop itself. Therefore, agree explicitly on who will do this. If you’re doing it yourself, allow a realistic amount of time for it, as a shop with empty product pages cannot go live. If you outsource it, ask for a price per product. And pay attention to image quality: on a product page, the photo is often the only thing that sells the product.
How much does the maintenance of an online shop cost each month?
Expect to pay between €50 and €200 per month, depending on the scale of the project and what you do yourself. For an online shop, maintenance is not a luxury: updates, backups, monitoring and a test environment are essential, as a broken checkout process will cost you revenue immediately. Research from 2025 showed that 91 per cent of new WordPress vulnerabilities were found in plugins and that heavily targeted vulnerabilities are often exploited within a day. Waiting to update until it suits you is therefore a real risk. You can read exactly what WordPress support and maintenance entail on our page about WordPress support and maintenance.
How much do payment methods cost in an online shop?
This varies by method and provider. With Mollie, iDEAL costs €0.32 per transaction; Mastercard and Visa charge 1.80% plus €0.25; and Klarna charges 2.99% plus €0.45. Most providers do not charge set-up fees, and you only pay for successful transactions. Work these rates back through your average order value and your margin, as a percentage-based fee carries significant weight on low-value transactions. And don’t leave out iDEAL: in the United Kingdom, this is the standard method for many buyers, and not offering it will cost you more than the transaction fees.
Do I need to have a ‘cancel order’ button in my online shop?
Yes. Since June 2026, according to the ACM, online shops and apps must have a clear cancellation or termination button. The idea is simple: cancelling must be just as easy as buying. The button must be easy to find, remain available throughout the cooling-off period, and you must not make an account mandatory in order to cancel. Your customer should receive immediate digital confirmation. If you fail to comply, you risk the cooling-off period being extended to one year, plus potential enforcement action. So make sure to include this in your development brief and don’t leave it until later.
How long does it take to build an online shop?
For a straightforward online shop, you can expect it to take a few weeks; for a larger shop with integrations and a wide range of products, a few months. The biggest variable isn’t the build itself but your content: product descriptions, photos and entering your product range. If you supply these on time, the process will run smoothly. If there are delays, the launch date will be pushed back. Therefore, agree at the outset who is responsible for delivering what and when, and start on your product descriptions before the design is finalised, rather than afterwards.
Can I expand later, or do I have to plan everything in advance?
Expansion is possible, and it’s usually the smartest approach. Go live with your bestsellers, standard payment methods and a solid foundation, and build integrations and additional features as soon as you know what’s actually selling. That way, you’re investing in what delivers results rather than in assumptions. What you do need to consider in advance is the foundation: which system you’re building on, how your products are structured, and whether you’ll be able to integrate with other systems later on. That’s the part you won’t be able to change retrospectively without a major overhaul. So choose something small in scale, but not small in scope.
What is the difference between WooCommerce and a hosted platform?
With WooCommerce, you build on your own WordPress installation and you own your shop, your data and your content. You can integrate with almost anything and you’re not tied to a single supplier, but you are responsible for hosting, updates and security. With a hosted platform, you pay a monthly fee and maintenance is taken care of, but you’re limited to that platform’s capabilities and often have to pay extra for features or transactions. For a shop that needs to be able to grow and integrate with other systems, we choose WooCommerce, precisely because it allows you to remain in control.
When does an online shop pay for itself?
You work this out in advance, not afterwards. Determine your average order value and your margin, deduct your transaction costs and delivery charges, and work out how many orders you need per month to cover your running costs. Add your one-off investment to that and spread it over twelve to eighteen months. If this results in a number of orders that you won’t be able to achieve with your expected visitor numbers, that’s valuable information to have before you start. In that case, phasing the project or testing your demand first is a better first step than building a large-scale shop.
