How much does an online shop cost? Prices for Shopify, WooCommerce, Shopware 6 and Magento.

In short: A professionally implemented online shop from Storetown Media costs between €2.800 and €65.000 as a one-time fee. Entry-level prices start at €2.800 for Shopify, €3.500 for WooCommerce, €10.500 for Shopware 6, and €17.500 for Magento 2. Ongoing hosting, maintenance, and, depending on the system, licenses are additional costs. What truly drives the price is rarely the number of products – it's the special cases that matter.

The calculator below breaks down your project into the same components we include in a real quote: shop system, project size, features, level of customization, and timeframe. You'll get a reliable estimate in two minutes – no wishful thinking or bait-and-switch tactics.

Four shop systems, one computer: Shopify, WooCommerce, Shopware 6 and Magento 2 in a direct cost comparison.

Online shop costs at a glance: a comparison of the four systems

The following table shows what you can expect from us – entry-level project, expanded version, and migration from a legacy system. All prices are subject to VAT.

System	Entry	Expanded	Migration	It's suitable if…
Shopify	€2.800–4.750	€9.000–15.500	€3.500–5.950	It needs to be done quickly and nobody wants to manage servers.
WooCommerce	€3.500–5.950	€13.500–23.000	€2.800–4.750	Content and shop belong together, and the budget remains lean.
Shopware 6	€10.500–18.000	€40.500–65.000	€8.000–13.500	German market, genuine B2B, experiential environments
Magento 2	€17.500–30.000	€68.000–108.000	€12.000–20.500	large product range, multiple brands, deep ERP integration

The margins are not negotiable, but rather based on experience gained from over 120 shop projects since 2012. Within a given margin, one factor is paramount: how many exceptions your business has. A shop with 5.000 identical items is cheaper than one with 200, each of which functions differently.

How much does a Shopify store cost?

A Shopify project with us starts at €2.800 for setup: selecting and customizing the theme to your branding, setting up products and variants, configuring payment methods and shipping rules, and neatly integrating German legal texts and unit pricing information. With a custom theme in Liquid, apps, and integration with inventory management or accounting systems, typical projects range from €9.000 to €15.500.

The difference compared to the other three systems lies in the cost structure, not the price: With Shopify, you pay **no server or maintenance costs**, but rather a monthly license fee to Shopify. Hosting, updates, security, and scalability are included. For those who rarely need custom logic, this is often more cost-effective over three years than a self-hosted solution. However, those who want to map their own business processes within the shop will quickly reach its limits, as the checkout process can only be significantly customized starting with Shopify Plus (€30.000–€48.000 plus license). How we work with the system is explained on the Shopify development page.

How much does a WooCommerce shop cost?

WooCommerce starts at €3.500, making it the most affordable entry point among self-hosted systems; more comprehensive projects with B2B pricing, ERP integration, and custom extensions range from €13.500 to €23.000. The calculator above provides a ballpark figure. The final price is determined by four components – and three of these are rarely included in quotes.

1. The structure – the item everyone mentions

Design, setup, product data, payment methods, shipping, legal texts, test run. What drives this expense is rarely the number of products, but rather the number of special cases: variants with their own prices, customer groups, tiered pricing, minimum order quantities, different shipping rules for each item.

2. The expansions – annually, not just once

WooCommerce itself is free. The extensions that make a German shop operational are not: legal compliance under German law, payment methods including invoice and SEPA, shipping labels, accounting integration, and, depending on the case, a configurator or a B2B extension.

The most frequently overlooked point in planning is that most of these licenses expire annually . Those who don't pay for renewal don't lose functionality – but they do lose updates. And a shop with outdated extensions is precisely the kind of shop that will be left behind by the next major WooCommerce or WordPress update.

3. The operation – hosting is not the expensive part.

An online store needs more than just a web hosting package: PHP in a current version, sufficient RAM, an object cache, and regular backups that can be restored. This costs more than blog hosting, but it's not the biggest expense. The biggest expense in running an online store is time: installing updates, checking that everything still works afterward, and reacting quickly to errors. The technical aspects of this are explained in the article on hosting under "Load ."

4. Further development – ​​the most frequently missing position

No online store stays the same as it starts. After launch, new payment methods, additional sales channels, inventory management systems, and changes in legal requirements are introduced. Those who don't budget for these changes will end up paying more later – because further development often turns into restructuring. Learn more about implementation on the WooCommerce development page.

How much does a Shopware 6 shop cost?

Shopware 6 starts at €10.500. For this price range, you get a well-built online store with a customized storefront, configured shopping experiences, payment methods and shipping rules, as well as the migration of your product data. Projects with the B2B suite, ERP integration, and custom plugins range from €40.500 to €65.000 plus licensing fees.

Shopware costs more than WooCommerce to get started because it includes more features: Rule Builder, Flow Builder, customer group pricing, multilingual support, and compliance with German legal requirements are all included out of the box instead of being purchased separately. This becomes worthwhile as soon as you have more than one price list, more than one market, or actual business customer processes. With a simple B2C shop with 300 products, you're paying for features you don't use. Details on implementation can be found on the Shopware 6 development page.

How much does a Magento 2 shop cost?

Magento 2 (Open Source) starts at €17.500, placing it at the upper end of the price range – for a very understandable reason: Magento isn't a system you set up, but one you build. The price is determined by the size of your product range, B2B logic, custom modules, and interfaces. For Adobe Commerce, the licensed upgrade, projects range from €68.000 to €108.000 plus license fees; we estimate migration from a legacy system at €12.000 to €20.500.

Magento is worthwhile if at least two of the following apply: a large or complex product range, multiple brands or countries from a single installation, native B2B processes, high peak loads, or deep integration with an ERP system like SAP or Dynamics 365. If none of these apply, Magento is the most expensive way to run a standard online store. Learn more on the Magento 2 development page and the B2B shop page for Magento.

Why "Open Source is free" is misleading

System comparisons often list the Shopware license down to the euro – while WooCommerce or Magento are simply described as "Open Source, hosting from a few euros." This is technically correct, but practically useless. The comparison focuses on a license fee versus a hosting price, while extension licenses, developer hours, and the update risk associated with open-source solutions are ignored.

A fair comparison can only be made over three years and with all four criteria mentioned above. After that, the picture shifts in both directions: For small and medium-sized product ranges, WooCommerce and Shopify usually remain significantly cheaper. In many special cases, true B2B, or high order volumes, Shopware and Magento catch up – because they offer features that elsewhere have to be built or purchased individually each time. Anyone wanting to compare the systems criterion by criterion can find this in the Magento vs. WooCommerce vs. Shopware comparison.

What an online shop costs on an ongoing basis

The one-time costs are only part of the story. Ongoing costs include:

• Hosting – included in the license for Shopify, a separate item for the other three systems that grows with traffic and product range.
• Maintenance and support – With us, updates, monitoring, and backups cost €210–330 per month, while a guaranteed response time costs €480–770. Details are available at [link to details]. Maintenance & support.
• Licenses – Shopify subscription, Shopware edition or annual extension licenses for WooCommerce.
• Payment fees – These payments go to the provider, not to us; which payment methods are worthwhile can be found under Payment Methods.
• Personal developments – We estimate €100–160 per development hour; most clients plan for a fixed monthly budget.

Connecting to an inventory management or ERP system is the most frequently underestimated expense: €1.750–€2.950 for a simple connection, €13.500–€23.000 for true bidirectional integration. How this works is explained under ERP Integration.

Have an online shop created – or do it yourself?

A simple online store can be set up yourself; that's what WooCommerce and Shopify are designed for. The question is, where do you draw the line? In our experience, it lies at three points:

• Legal certainty. Mandatory information, cancellation process, pricing, accessibility – this is the area where mistakes cost money and where the requirements are constantly changing.
• Connections. As soon as an inventory management system, a Marketplace Or when accounting is added, it's no longer about settings, but about data models.
• The condition after two years. Homemade online stores often work well at first. They become expensive when, after two years, twenty extensions have been installed and nobody knows which ones are still needed.

Shop agency from Hamburg: how we calculate

Storetown Media is based in Tornesch, about 25 kilometers northwest of Hamburg, and has been working on online shops since 2012 – for clients in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and throughout Germany. If you are from the region, we will discuss your project in person; everything else can be handled remotely.

Our pricing always follows the same process: first the scope, then any special cases, then the price. You'll receive a quote with itemized costs so you can compare it with other offers – and with a clear indication of what 's not included. For a first impression, the calculator above is sufficient; for a reliable figure, we need a conversation of about half an hour. This is free of charge: request an initial consultation or call us directly at +49 4122 4084792. You can find completed projects in our references , and the full scope of services in our service overview.

Frequently asked questions about the costs of an online shop

What is the average cost of an online shop?

There is no reliable average because the range is more than twenty times the actual cost. Orders of magnitude are more useful: A shop for launching sales costs between €2.800 and around €6.000, a fully developed shop with interfaces and B2B functions between €12.000 and €25.000, and a project with multiple markets and deep ERP integration costs even more.

What is the cheapest online shop?

With us, Shopify starts at €2.800 because there are no server or maintenance costs. Self-hosted WooCommerce is the cheapest option starting at €3.500. Anything less than that isn't considered reputable: legal texts, payment methods, shipping rules, and a test run all take time, regardless of the underlying system.

Why do the offers fluctuate so much?

Because they include different things. A quote for a few thousand euros usually means a standard theme with the necessary extensions. A significantly higher quote includes custom development, data migration, and integrations. Both can be reasonable – they only become comparable when the same items are listed in the specifications.

How much does an online shop cost per month?

Expect to pay for three things: hosting (included in the Shopify license), maintenance starting at €210 per month, and – depending on the system – licenses for the shop or extensions. Those who actively develop their shop should also budget for a fixed number of hours.

How accurate is the price calculator?

He provides a realistic initial assessment based on over 120 completed projects, but not a fixed-price commitment. Experience shows that for clearly defined projects, the result is close to the final offer; the more special circumstances arise, the more important the consultation becomes.

How much does it cost to migrate from an existing shop?

Depending on the target system, the costs range from €3.500 to €5.950 (Shopify), €2.800 to €4.750 (WooCommerce), €8.000 to €13.500 (Shopware 6), or €12.000 to €20.500 (Magento 2). The decisive factors are the amount of data, the condition of the legacy system, redirects, and which functions need to be replaced in the new system.

What needs to be considered when connecting to an inventory management system?

The effort depends less on the ERP system than on which fields should migrate in which direction – and who wins in case of a conflict. Simple couplings cost between €1.750 and €2.950, while true bidirectional integrations cost between €13.500 and €23.000.

And what if an existing shop is to be taken over?

The first step is an inventory rather than a quotation: which extensions are in place, which are outdated, what is self-built, and what can be retained. Only then can a reliable assessment be made as to whether renovation or new construction is more cost-effective.

Does Storetown Media offer a free initial consultation?

Yes, it's free and without obligation. After the calculation, you can request a consultation directly or call us at +49 4122 4084792. Based in Tornesch near Hamburg, we serve customers nationwide.