What an e-shop costs and what drives the price

The question “how much does an e-shop cost” has no single number, because the word covers completely different things. One e-shop is a catalogue on an off-the-shelf platform with a payment gateway. Another is a system that talks to the warehouse, accounting, carriers and B2B customers with their own price lists. The first can be launched quickly and cheaply; the second is a project. The quotes you see side by side therefore often cannot be compared, even though both are called “e-shop development”.

Below is a breakdown of what really moves the price. The market range figures are in the article What a custom website costs, where an e-shop is one of the rows in the table. Here the point is for you to know what you are paying for in a quote.

1. Platform: rented, open source or your own

This decision changes the price the most and is made first.

• Rented platform (SaaS). You pay a monthly fee and get a finished system. The start is quick and cheap, but the features are limited to what the provider offers, and the fees may change as your turnover grows.
• Open source solution. The code is freely available and you pay no licence, but someone has to deploy it, customise it, secure it and keep it updated. The cost shifts from fees to work.
• Your own platform. The most freedom, the highest upfront price. It makes sense when the rented box limits you in what you sell or how.

When each route pays off is covered in the article Own or rented platform. In short: for most smaller e-shops a rented platform is enough, and leaving it tends to be an expensive mistake unless there is a specific reason.

2. Design and user experience

A template from the platform’s catalogue is cheaper than a design drawn to fit the brand. The higher price here is not for nicer pictures, but for well-thought-out behaviour: the layout of categories, search and filters, the basket and the checkout. It is the checkout that decides whether a visitor buys, and it pays to invest in it before colour details.

3. Connections to other systems

This item tends to be the least visible in a quote and the most expensive in the project. Every connection means work on both sides, because the system the e-shop talks to has to be tuned as well.

• Warehouse and ERP. Stock levels, prices and orders have to be synchronised in both directions. Poorly built synchronisation means selling goods you do not have.
• Payment gateways. Card, bank transfer, cash on delivery, instalments. Each method is its own integration and its own testing.
• Shipping. Carriers, pick-up points, label generation and shipment tracking.
• Price comparison sites and feeds. Product exports to price comparison sites and advertising systems, which have to match what is actually in stock.
• Accounting and invoicing. Documents that should reach the accounting system without retyping.

If you want to simplify the routine tasks around orders, have a look at e-shop automation. Well-designed connections are the foundation automation can be built on.

4. B2B features

Selling to businesses is a different game from selling to individuals. Custom price lists per customer, orders by multiple users, approvals, invoices with payment terms or importing an order from a file are separate pieces of work. If you need them, they belong in the brief from the start. Adding them after launch is more expensive than including them straight away.

5. Data migration

If you already have an e-shop, products, categories, customers and order history have to be moved. The quality of this step depends on the state of the old data. Duplicate products, missing parameters and inconsistent categories do not fix themselves during the move; they have to be cleaned up. During migration also think of redirects for the old addresses, otherwise you will lose your positions in search engines.

6. Running and monthly costs

The price of the build is one-off, but an e-shop also has running costs:

• the platform or hosting fee,
• domain and certificate,
• fees for payment gateways and connected services,
• maintenance, updates and security patches,
• further development and changes as the business evolves.

When comparing quotes, therefore, do not ask only for the launch price, but also for the expected cost of the first year. A cheap start with expensive running costs is a common trap.

How much does a custom e-shop cost at SPACE Solutions?

A custom e-shop at SPACE Solutions costs from €2,499 and an e-shop specification €799; both prices are excl. VAT and published on our website. You get the exact project figure only after the specification, and then it holds. We deduct the price of the specification from the project price if you also commission the build from us. If a ready-made template is enough for you, the Start package (an ECOMMIO template set up by us, up to 50 products, no design changes and no migration) costs from €999 excl. VAT plus the monthly fee.

The specification document is yours even if you decide otherwise, so you can use it to approach other suppliers and compare quotes on the same brief.

How we build an e-shop on our own platform is described on the E-shops page, and what the specification contains on the Analysis and specification page.

What should you watch out for before ordering an e-shop?

Before ordering an e-shop, write down a list of connections to the warehouse, payments, shipping, feeds and accounting, because each of them is an item in the price. Choose the platform based on what you will need in two years. Ask the supplier for the costs of the first year including the platform, gateways and maintenance, and ask who owns the code, the access credentials and the customer data.

• Write down a list of connections. Warehouse, payments, shipping, feeds, accounting. Each of them is an item in the price.
• Choose the platform consciously. Not according to what the first supplier offers, but according to what you need in two years.
• Ask for the first-year costs. Including the platform, gateways and maintenance.
• Ask about ownership. Who owns the code, the access credentials, the customer data.
• Do not start without a brief. An e-shop estimated “by eye” parts ways with reality halfway through the project.

If you are not sure what state your current e-shop is in, start by measuring. Our free website audit (in Slovak) shows speed, SEO and technical problems that will need solving during the rebuild.