How Much Does it Cost to Build a Shopify Website in 2024?

How much does it cost to build a Shopify website in 2024?

If you’ve decided (like many of our clients) that Shopify is the go-to ecommerce platform for you, this is likely to be one of the first questions you’ll ask.

Shopify is one of the world’s most popular ecommerce solutions, giving companies everything they need to run an omnichannel store in one neat package.

With Shopify, countless companies create and build thriving online stores. You can even start building your store for free, with Shopify’s free trial.

However, it’s important to understand that the cost of starting a Shopify store is based on more factors than you’d think.

It’s not just the price of your domain name and subscription plan you’ll need to consider, but design costs, app expenses, and professional services too.

Here’s everything you need to know about the cost of starting a Shopify store in 2024.

The Factors Influencing Shopify Website Costs

Though Shopify might not be the cheapest ecommerce platform around based solely on its subscription plan prices, it’s far from the most expensive too.

The platform does help you to mitigate certain common ecommerce store costs. For instance, because it’s a hosted solution, you don’t need to pay for hosting yourself.

Plus, since you get a huge range of features already built into the platform, you might not have to rely on too many paid integrations and apps, depending on your business needs.

Ultimately, the main factors that will influence the cost of your Shopify store include:

• Design: While there are free templates available from Shopify for website design, you may need to spend some extra cash if you want your site to stand out. Premium templates (priced from $150 to $350) can give you more features to work with. Alternatively, custom-made templates give you comprehensive control over your site’s appearance and functionality.
• Functionality: You can build a basic Shopify store with the $39 per month or $29 Basic Shopify plan, and access most of the functionality you’ll need as a solo entrepreneur. However, if you need more advanced features, custom integrations, and specialist solutions, you may need to pay for more expensive plans and add-ons.
• SEO and marketing: Promoting your Shopify store is crucial. If you hire experts to improve your SEO standing with content creation, technical SEO, and on-page SEO, or work with marketing agencies for social media and email marketing, you may need to pay extra. At the very least, you should have a comprehensive content marketing plan.
• Ecommerce company selection: If you need expert support building your Shopify store, the company you choose to work with will have an impact on how much you spend. More experienced developers, with unique skill sets will charge more per hour. However, you will benefit from a high level of expertise.
• Shopify pricing plans: Your Shopify subscription plan influences how much you’ll pay monthly to run your store. The three core plans are Shopify Basic ($39 per month) Shopify ($105 per month), and Shopify Advanced ($399 per month). However, you may also consider upgrading to Shopify Plus (starting at $2000 per month).

Detailed Breakdown of Shopify Costs

Ultimately, the answer to “How much does it cost to build a Shopify website?” can vary drastically depending on a number of factors.

The more specific and advanced your requirements are, the more you can typically expect to pay. Let’s take a closer look at some of the key costs.

Shopify Development and Design Costs

One of the most significant factors influencing the overall price of your Shopify store, is how much you’re willing to spend on development and design.

It only takes around 50 milliseconds for a customer to form an opinion about your website based on its appearance and performance.

That means you can’t afford to take risks when it come to development and design. From a development perspective, you may not need to spend a lot extra on your store if you’re running a relatively small business.

Shopify already comes with most of the tools you need to run your store, included in your subscription plan.

However, there can be extra fees to pay if you want to work with developers on things like headless commerce solutions, or advanced mobile versions of your Shopify site.

Templates vs Custom Design

In terms of design, there are a few options you can explore. If you’re looking to keep initial costs low, you can use a free Shopify theme to create your store.

These “themes” give you access to a homepage, product pages, shopping cart, checkout page, About pages, and even FAQ pages.

You’ll also be able to customize some aspects of your site’s appearance and functionality for free, using Shopify’s theme editor.

However, if you want more advanced theme features, like age verification, carousels, dynamic videos, and more, you may need to opt for a premium theme.

Premium themes on Shopify’s “theme store” range from $150 to $350, and can give you a lot more functionality to work with.

However, you still won’t be able to create a completely “unique” experience with these tools.

If you want to make your website really stand out, then you can consider working with a Shopify development and design team on a custom theme.

The price for this will vary depending on the level of expertise you need, and the complexity of your design requests. On average:

• A Basic Shopify website and theme could cost between $500-$1000, and will usually involve a designer customizing an existing Shopify theme for you.
• A Mid-Tier design agency may be able to create a more basic Shopify theme and set of templates on your behalf, charging between $1000 and $2000.
• A high-level Shopify design expert could charge anywhere above $2,000, depending on how much you want to customize. Some companies even charge over $10,000.

You can start looking for experts to work with you on custom designs on the Shopify Experts Marketplace, or seek out a specialist agency via Google.

Buying Ready-made Shopify Stores

If you’re looking for a way to launch your new Shopify store as quickly as possible, one option could be to purchase a “pre-made” store.

Some developers, designers, and business owners create stores and list them online, via channels like “AdSellr” or “Flippa”.

Buying a pre-made Shopify store can be a cost-effective strategy if you already have an ideal business model and strategy in mind.

Often, these stores come with pre-customized themes and templates, as well as crucial content for certain pages like your home page and product pages.

They may also include some professionally-written blog content, a domain name, and pre-integrated apps for things like dropshipping, marketing and business management.

Once again, the cost of a pre-made Shopify store will vary depending on the functionality and features you’re looking for.

A “basic” website could cost between $3,500 and $5,000, depending on the value of the domain name, and the content included on the site.

A more advanced Shopify store, could cost over $10,000, and feature things like:

• Existing web traffic or a strong search engine presence
• A comprehensive product catalog
• Advanced product filtering and search tools
• Multiple pages of professionally-written content
• Email marketing integrations (and templates)
• Abandoned cart solutions
• Custom payment gateways
• Custom cart pages
• Bespoke invoicing solutions

Notably, after purchasing your store, you’ll still need to invest in things like marketing, Search Engine Optimization, lead generation, and business management yourself.

You’ll also be responsible for paying the monthly subscription fee for your store, which takes us to our next section.

Shopify Subscription Plans

Shopify currently offers companies access to a three-day free trial, followed by a 1 month demo of Shopify Starter or Basic for $1.

After that, you’ll need to pay a monthly fee for continued access to your Shopify website. The core options available include:

The Shopify Basic Plan

Price: $39 per month or $29 per month (paid annually).

Transaction fees: 2.7% offline, or 2.9% + 30 cents online.

Shopify’s Basic plan is ideal for solo sellers. Though it only features a single admin account, you do get a top-converting checkout, all of Shopify’s website building tools, standard analytics, and shipping discounts.

You can also sell unlimited products, leverage Shopify’s payment gateway (Shopify Payments), and sell across multiple channels. There’s even abandoned cart recovery.

The Shopify Plan

Price: $105 per month or $79per month (paid annually).

Transaction fees: 2.5% offline, or 2.6% + 30 cents online.

The Shopify plan is ideal for small teams, offering access to 5 staff accounts, as well as all of the features of the Basic plan. You’ll also get access to more advanced data reports, higher shipping discounts, and lower transaction fees.

The Advanced Shopify Plan

Pricing: $399 per month or $299 per month (paid annually).

Transaction fees: 2.4% offline, or 2.4% plus 30 cents online.

Intended for scaling companies, the Shopify Advanced plan includes all of the features of the “Shopify” plan, as well as some bonus extras.

You can access delivery and store pickup solutions, enhanced live chat support, and advanced, custom reports.

Plus, you’ll have a more powerful checkout system, lower transaction fees, and better shipping discounts, as well as third-party shipping rate calculation tools.

Alternative Shopify Plans: Shopify Starter and Shopify Plus

Beyond the 3 core Shopify pricing plans, there are two alternative options.

The “Starter” plan, costs $5 per month, with 5% transaction fees, but it doesn’t allow users to build their own store. Instead you can simply sell through messenger and social media apps.

The Shopify Plus plan, on the other hand, starts at $2300, and is an enterprise-level ecommerce platform, with more advanced customization options and apps.

Shopify Plus merchants also gain access to more advanced support and expertise.

Additional Costs to Consider

Alongside design and development costs, and subscription fees, there are a few extra costs you may need to consider when building your Shopify store.

These include:

Theme/Template Costs

As mentioned above, if you’re going to be using anything other than Shopify’s free themes to design your store, you’ll need to pay for premium solutions.

You can either pay a one-off fee for a premium theme, and customize it yourself, or you can work with a designer to create a theme from scratch. You can also pay designers to customize your theme for you.

If you develop a relatively advanced theme or set of template, you may also need to consider paying an expert for help “maintaining” your store.

This means ensuring you can access support whenever you need to make any changes to your site’s design or functionality.

Custom Functionality and Integrations

There are two ways to add functionality to your Shopify store. One is to purchase or install a free app from the Shopify app marketplace.

The price of premium apps can vary depending on the solution you need. The other option is to work with a developer to create “custom” solutions for your site.

Developers can leverage Shopify code and API technology to transform how your store works. The amount you’ll pay for custom functionality and integrations will depend on the features you need, and the experience of your developer.

Notably, making certain changes to your Shopify store will also require a Shopify Plus subscription.

As some apps and API solutions, as well as snippets of code are only accessible on an enterprise plan. For instance, you won’t be able to customize your checkout much without a Plus account.

SEO and Marketing Expenses

Marketing and search engine optimization are two of the ongoing costs you’ll need to be prepared for when launching your Shopify store.

The amount you spend on these things can vary over time. Initially, you may need to spend a little more to work with an expert to optimize your site for the search engines, and produce content that helps you rank for certain keywords.

As your site’s visibility improves, you might begin to explore various different marketing strategies, from social media advertising, to email marketing, influencer marketing, and even affiliate campaigns.

The price for each of these strategies will vary depending on the scope of your project, and the level of expertise you need.

Plus, there may be additional fees to consider for things like paid ads, and email marketing automation software.

Recurring Costs

We’ve already mentioned one of the most common recurring costs of running a Shopify store above: your subscription fees.

On top of those, you’ll need to think about the cost for things like payment processing and transaction fees.

If you use Shopify Payments, your transaction fees will vary according to the plan you choose. However, you will need to pay extra on every plan if you decide to use a third party payment gateway.

Other ongoing costs include:

• The price for premium apps and integrations (marketing, business management, etc)
• Fulfilment costs, such as working with shipping and logistics partners
• Website maintenance fees and expert support

How Much Does it Cost to Build a Shopify Website?

Unfortunately, there’s no clear-cut answer to “how much does it cost to start a Shopify store”.

The price you pay will depend on numerous factors, from your design and development needs, to your chosen subscription plan, and even your marketing requirements.

In general, the more advanced you need your store to be, the more you can expect to pay to launch and run it.

However, keep in mind you can always shop around to find the best deal when searching for expert support, or theme creation services.

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