The trend of online ecommerce businesses has shown exponential growth after the pandemic. A report shows that the worldwide market of e-commerce is expected to reach more than $16,215 billion by 2027. Every ecommerce development company helps retailers and business owners connect with more customers by rising visibility, offering amazing user interfaces, and increasing the shopping experience.
If you want to start a business online with a feature-rich ecommerce website, knowing the overall cost of making a website for your eCommerce store is important as it will help you with an accurate investment plan. Continue reading to know how much it cost to build an e-commerce website in 2023.
Factors That Affect eCommerce Development Cost
The cost of ecommerce website development depends on too many factors. It also varies based on your project requirements. For your convenience, we have talked about the top 5 elements that effectively influence ecommerce app and website making costs.
1. Design:
Whether it’s an ecommerce or gaming application, the design is one of the major elements that influence app making cost. UI/UX plays a significant role in impressing your target audience. But good UI/UX design means investing a high amount of money. A user-friendly and responsive design for an ecommerce app could cost from 5,000 to 20,000 USD.
2. Platforms:
iOS and android both are important platforms for ecommerce development. The choice of making applications for both platforms is ideal but if you go for native app development, the cost of development may vary. Based on your budget, go for either hybrid, native, or cross-platform app development options to increase sales & deliver an unparalleled shopping experience to your customers.
3. Size:
The size and complexity level of an ecommerce app determines the overall cost of ecommerce mobile app development. This is something that may increase the overall cost of app development from hundreds to thousands of dollars. Complexity level and size depend on the features that you integrate into your application.
E-commerce Development Cost Breakdown
One of the best ways to estimate the overall cost of making an eCommerce website or an app is to properly compare different platforms, add-ons, tools, & additional services based on your project requirements. To keep this blog more focused, we break down the cost analysis into some major expenses:
Hosting Costs:
Every website requires web hosting. It helps to store all your website files. Moreover, you also need a specific domain name that will be your website address. In eCommerce web hosting, there are 2 different routes that you may take for your project. They have different technical requirements & costs.
1. Self-Hosted eCommerce Hosting
If you go for open-source e-commerce, you will get complete source code access. This will help you control your e-commerce store & data. Key benefits of a self-hosted eCommerce include:
- Gives freedom to develop an eCommerce site
- Allows you to save money. You have to pay only for what you want
- Helps to boost unlimited sales, integrate unlimited products
- Allows complete customizations
2. SaaS eCommerce Hosting
You do not have to install or manage SaaS ecommerce platforms. There are two popular SaaS platforms available in the market: BigCommerce & Shopify. Both platforms offer highly scalable and easy eCommerce development services for your business. These platforms include SSL, however, you have to separately buy a domain name.
Cost of Shopify eCommerce Plans (Monthly):
- Basic plan: $29
- Shopify plan: $79
- Advanced Shopify plan: $299
Cost of BigCommerce eCommerce Plans (Monthly):
- Standard plan: $29.95
- Plus plan: $71.95
- Pro plan: $224.95
The Estimated Cost of eCommerce Hosting (Monthly):
- Self-hosted ecommerce hosting: $2.75 to $241.67
- SaaS eCommerce hosting: $29 to $299
This cost estimation is applicable for basic to mid-sized ecommerce stores. For high-volume ecommerce website applications, you have to upgrade to BigCommerce Enterprise or Shopify Plus which may cost more.
Payment processing costs: Many online business owners overlook payment processing costs when searching for eCommerce platforms. This may directly affect businesses as it can increase costs & minimize profits. Let’s check how ecommerce platforms manage payments.
1. WooCommerce Payment Costs
WooCommerce is a popular open-source software having several payment platform integrations. It supports Stripe and PayPal payment gateways for accepting payments.
Moreover, you can also compare several payment services & select the perfect option for your online business. However, WooCommerce processing fees usually depend on the currency, payment gateway, & region.
2. Shopify Payment Costs
Shopify provides its own payment option known as Shopify Payments. It also provides several third-party payment gateways such as regional & crypto payment solutions. Shopify Payments act like a payment processor for ecommerce stores and it eliminates many unwanted expenses.
Apart from that, if you choose Shopify Payments, Shopify never charges any additional transaction fee.
3. BigCommerce Payment Costs
BigCommerce enables you to choose more than 65 third-party payment gateways and it also offers a wider reach than the Shopify platform. BigCommerce never charges any kind of additional transaction fee & each transaction depends on currency, region, and payment service. You need to select from popular payment solutions like Square, Stripe, PayPal, etc.
Estimated Payment Processing Cost on eCommerce Websites
The overall cost of payment processing relies on the ecommerce platform & the payment solutions. Here is a list of average processing costs per transaction.
- WooCommerce: 2.9% + $0.30 (Stripe or PayPal)
- Shopify : 2.9% + 30¢ & 2% per transaction for 3rd party gateways
- BigCommerce: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction (Stripe or PayPal)
Website Design Costs: Design is one of the crucial parts of an ecommerce website as we discussed above. Creating a website or an application with a customer-centric design & appealing look helps you drive more sales and boost revenue. Many ecommerce platforms offer ready-made templates by which you can easily customize the website layouts through drag & drop.
As a business owner, you can also buy premium design templates having additional features, unique layouts, and functionalities. On the other hand, you can also hire professional ecommerce developers who can design & develop your website from scratch. Here is an overview of eCommerce website design costs on different platforms.
1. WooCommerce Design Costs
In terms of website appearance and design, WooCommerce offers a very flexible option. As it’s built on WordPress, you can select any WordPress template to use with this platform. Moreover, you can also choose a specific WooCommerce theme to get the best results. However, if you want a custom and unique theme for your business, you need to hire an ecommerce company that offers WooCommerce development services. The cost of WooCommerce design depends on the options you choose.
2. Shopify Design Costs
Shopify gives you ready-made website templates for your eCommerce store design. It also provides multiple built-in tools for customizing the colors, layouts & other design elements. The cost of a paid theme for this platform usually starts from $150.
Moreover, just like WooCommerce, you can also hire expert developers to customize a Shopify theme from scratch. Based on the developers you select, the cost of Shopify website design ranges from $5,000 to $30,000.
3. BigCommerce Design Cost
BigCommerce offers several free and paid themes. All themes are customizable so that you can add your business logo, and select different layouts, and custom colors for your website. These themes are also mobile responsive & lead to a high rate of conversion. Moreover, BigCommerce also enables developers to create custom themes. The cost of BigCommerce themes (paid) starts from 160 USD.
Estimated eCommerce Website Design Costs
- WooCommerce: Free, $99 (Premium) & $5,000 (Custom)
- Shopify: Free, $160 (Premium) & $5,000 (Custom)
- BigCommerce: Free, $160 (Premium) & $5,000 (Custom)
Cost of Extensions & Add-ons: Extensions & add-ons help you add more new features and functionalities to your website. All of them are not free, you have to buy them separately. Paid add-ons increase the overall cost of ecommerce development. Let’s adequately compare the costs of extensions & add-ons on different eCommerce platforms.
1. WooCommerce Add-ons
In terms of ecommerce add-ons & extensions, the WooCommerce platform will be your perfect choice. It offers a number of paid and free add-ons for ecommerce development. The price of add-ons depends on plugin features and licensing plans. Usually, the cost of add-ons and extensions ranges from $19 to $299. Moreover, if you want to add custom features, you can hire experts.
2. Shopify Add-ons
As Shopify is a SaaS platform, the core software is integrated to deliver high user stability and maximum security. Shopify add-ons are mainly available as third-party applications. These apps are available in paid and free versions. Moreover, Shopify also helps you add fully customized private apps to your online store that costs around $5000 approx.
3. BigCommerce Add-ons
Last but not the least, BigCommerce also offers both paid and free apps for your website just like Shopify. Many of these apps are available on a subscription basis. You may hire professional developers to make custom ecommerce apps for your store. The average cost of a custom app starts from $1000.
Final Words
Running a business online gives high potential to enhance reach & increase sales. But, for any new entrepreneur, the initial investment in ecommerce stores can be intimidating. Moreover, there is no fixed answer that describes the actual cost required for ecommerce website development.
If you would like to get a proper estimation, talk to our experts at Sphinx Solutions. As the leading ecommerce development company in India, we will help you calculate the overall cost of developing your custom website with our ecommerce cost calculator. For more info, get in touch with us.