The cost of a professional online shop depends on the feature scope, the design effort, the required integrations and the data migration. Flat-rate prices quoted without a requirements analysis are rarely reliable – as a rule, the effort can only be quantified seriously after an initial consultation.
A professional online shop is not an off-the-shelf product but an individual software project. That is why the cost question cannot seriously be answered with a single figure: two shops built on the same platform can differ in implementation effort by a wide margin – depending on how many products are managed, which features are required and how deeply the shop needs to integrate with existing systems such as ERP or accounting. A reliable effort estimate therefore typically requires a structured requirements analysis first.
The most important cost factors at a glance
- Shop system and licence model: Open-source systems such as Shopware 6 are licence-free in the Community Edition; commercial plans and paid plugins increase the running costs.
- Design and user experience: A customised standard theme is implemented considerably faster than a fully individual design with its own brand language and tailor-made components.
- Feature scope: Payment methods, multiple languages, customer groups, product configurators or subscription models – every additional feature means concept, development and testing effort.
- B2B requirements: Tiered pricing, approval workflows and customer-specific prices and assortments typically make B2B shops more complex than pure B2C projects.
- Integrations: Connections to ERP, inventory management, accounting or marketplaces via integrations are, in our experience, among the biggest effort drivers.
- Data migration: Transferring products, customers, orders and SEO redirects from a legacy system is a sub-project of its own, with its own testing and correction effort.
- Content and product data: Product copy, images, category structure and legal texts need to be created or prepared – an item that is frequently underestimated.
An important lever is staying close to the standard: the more requirements can be covered with the shop system's built-in features or established plugins, the lower the development effort tends to be. Custom development pays off above all where your business model differs from the competition – for example with special ordering processes, configurators or industry-specific workflows. During the concept phase we therefore deliberately separate features that are essential for launch from expansion stages that can follow afterwards.
The sheer size of the project is a factor in itself: a shop with a manageable assortment, standard checkout and one language is in a different league from a multilingual shop with tens of thousands of items, several sales channels and automated data flows. Add to this legal requirements such as correct price indication, cancellation policy and accessible implementation, which should be considered in the calculation from the start – retrofitting corrections is usually more expensive than a clean initial implementation.
Separate one-off project costs from running costs
Besides the one-off project costs for concept, design and development, you should budget for running costs from the start: hosting and maintenance, regular updates, security patches, backups and, where applicable, licence and plugin fees. For realistic budget planning it is advisable to look at the total cost over three to five years rather than just the project price – a seemingly inexpensive start can end up costing more through high follow-up costs than a solution that is built solidly from the beginning.
You use your budget most efficiently by prioritising features clearly: a focused launch with the revenue-relevant core features, followed by planned expansion stages, is in our experience more economical than trying to implement every wish in one single big release. Content you contribute yourself – such as product copy and images – can also noticeably reduce the agency effort.
Be cautious with flat-rate prices quoted without a requirements analysis: they are necessarily based on assumptions and often do not include all the items needed for a legally compliant shop that can be operated sustainably. A serious quote describes transparently which services are included, which assumptions were made and how change requests are handled.
In a free initial consultation we clarify your requirements, prioritise features and then give you a realistic effort range for your shop project – non-binding and without sales pressure.