Published on 04 Dec, 2020

Introduction:

Sometimes, it is tough to decide the cost of an e-commerce website. The whole thing relates to your primary goals. Generally, for a simple e-commerce website, you would prefer using Shopify and other ready-made platforms that cost around $1000 or less.

On the other side, developing a custom e-commerce software site is a time-taking and costly process. Custom sites are for large-scale businesses that need to increase their brand loyalty and work for clients all over the world.

In this article, we are providing you the e-commerce cost guide as our company has been providing solutions to startups and large-scale businesses for more than seven years. We are going to discuss the following details:  

• Factors that directly affect the budget of the e-commerce website.


• Estimate of the ecommerce website cost for various services.


• Price stages for web-development, designs, QA and PM services for a custom e-commerce site.


• Price required for maintaining an ecommerce website.


• Way to select an appropriate e-commerce website vendor.

In this article, we are going to answer “What is the cost of an e-commerce website”. You would be able to plan your e-commerce website budget after going through this blog post. You would get sufficient knowledge about the steps involved in the development of a custom e-commerce site.

Ecommerce Website Budget: Influencing Factors

Nowadays, an e-commerce website may cost from $1,000 to $ 100,000 or more according to its needs. However, a custom e-commerce website can be around $60,000 per platform. This high rate is due to many complex factors like UX/UI web design, tech stack and the prices of experts, developers and dealers.

Although a custom e-commerce site is expensive, but it attracts large numbers of users, strengthens customers base and ultimately it elevates the business revenue.

Factors that influence e-commerce websites budget

• Vendors cost can vary as you can work with a freelancer, in-house and remote web development team.


• Service charges of the vendors also differ according to their experience, portfolio and location etc.


• Is the web-design complex or simple?


• Website functionalities and their complexity.


• Services of the third party.


• Timeframe and business aim.


• Hosting fees and SSL certificates price of e-commerce site.


• SEO expenses and marketing in accordance with your promotion.

In custom eCommerce software development, every project is treated in a unique way. Therefore, we cannot land on a single cost for it.

Cost of Custom e-commerce Website Design:

What is the process of custom web design and how it affects the cost of ecommerce website?

Design improvement is one of the center milestones of each venture, be it an internet site or an app. As of 2020, eCommerce web site design fee can variety from $1,000 to $100,000 or even higher.

Our average fee for UX/UI design for ecommerce site is around $3,000 for a single platform. Price of a custom ecommerce website varies because of its complications, time consumed for collecting and analysing requirements of business along with other features and platforms.

The cost of designing an e-commerce site relies upon the customers business capacity. The price of e-commerce web design varies from vendor to vendor. The following factors define the total cost of  an e-commerce site design:

• How many Web pages are there?


• Graphic and pictures required for the website.


• Customisation level of web-design.


• Website domain and hosting.


• Website interactivity.


• Material provided by the clients like; content, pictures etc.

Minimum cost of e-commerce Website: Features and Services:

 If you're new to it, you should note that what comes under the cost of $60,000 for an e-commerce website is the most basic version of a platform.

The total time provided for each service is calculated altogether. At 4vision, we divide the process into two stages:

Discovery process lasts for about 2-4+ weeks & is composed of:

• Competitive market analysis (on demand)


• Improvement in product backlog


• UX/UI layout


• Team analysis


• Organised Project management


• Initial planning ( Planning at the start of development process)

Development process of a primary e-commerce internet site model lasts for 3-6+ month and includes:

• Web front-end development


• Web back-end development


• QA/QC


• Project management


• Team review

 Further, we provide a list of advanced features of an e-commerce website.

Price estimation for web-development:

 Web-designs:

Generally, the basic price for e-commerce web-design costs around $5000. It is the web-design that determines whether the visitor will interact with the decent website or it'll close the ugly-web. However, you must consider the variables.

Development Stage:

As far as the coding is concerned, the price of front-end and back-end varies from $40,000 to $100,000 depending upon the projects complexity and the developer.

Website Cost for QA:

QA needs to monitor website development project from scratch to end. The cost of quality assurance for a basic e-commerce website can fluctuate between $5000 to $7000. But the maintenance cost of the project functioning in the market may increase up to $100,000.

Website Cost for PM:

Project management is an important aspect of the e-commerce website developing process that costs around $8,000 to $10,000 and it can boost up to $150,000.

Maintenance Cost of an e-commerce Website

When you have launched an e-commerce website, it needs continuous maintenance that includes:

• Website hosting cost ( After your website generates profit, you can upgrade your hosting that would decrease your hosting cost. The cost can vary according to the hosting provider)


• Name of your Domain (Annual expenses)


• Cost of administration


• Cost spent on marketing and advertising


• Budget for improvement ( Upgrading your websites, new features)

Charges of development vendor for e-commerce website:

 Freelancer:

 Freelancers are the best option when it comes to low charges as they charge around $15,000 or less for their services. But their authenticity is dubious and there are more risks of scams unless you work on a reliable platform like Upwork.

Custom Software development agencies (like 4vision):

In comparison to freelancers, custom web-agencies are more reliable when it comes to cost, quality and guarantee. They cost around $50,000-$60,000 for a basic version of a website in a single platform. Legal obligation and guarantee is assured. This option is safer than freelancers.

Boutique Software Companies:

It is the best option for large-scaled businesses as you can hire a top-notch vendor according to your choice. But it costs around $150,000 that is not feasible for small and medium scale businesses.

Final Words: What is the cost of an e-commerce website?

We hope that now you have got enough information about the “cost of an e-commerce website. There are multiple factors that can alter its cost. But custom e-commerce website development is more costly than the template one. However, a custom e-commerce website would work more effectively in engaging the audience and generating revenue.