A small to mid-sized retailer building a custom online store should expect a retail website cost somewhere between $5,000 and $25,000, according to BigCommerce's ecommerce cost guide.
That figure covers design, development and the integrations a working store actually needs, not a bare template with a logo dropped on it.
Where a project lands inside that range depends less on catalog size than on how much of the store gets built from scratch.
The stakes are real. Online sales made up 17.1% of total US retail spending in the second quarter of 2026, and grew 12.2% year over year, nearly double the 6.7% growth of retail sales overall, according to Census Bureau data.
A retailer sitting on an underbuilt site is leaving a growing share of its own market on the table.
What Drives Retail Website Cost
Four things move the number most: how custom the design is, how many systems it has to talk to, how the catalog is structured, and which platform carries the build.
A retailer selling fifty SKUs from one warehouse pays for a different store than one syncing inventory across three locations and a marketplace feed.
| Cost driver | Typical range | What it buys |
|---|---|---|
| Platform subscription | $39-$399/month | Hosting, checkout and staff accounts, Shopify Basic through Advanced |
| Custom design and development | $5,000-$25,000 | Layout, backend and integrations for a small-to-mid retail build |
| Premium theme | $100-$2,500 one-time | A pre-built template instead of custom design |
| Payment processing | 2.6%-3.9% per transaction | Card processing on every sale |
| Ongoing hosting, apps and support | $50-$700/month | Renewals, plugin subscriptions and fixes after launch |
Statrys' breakdown of ecommerce running costs is where those platform, payment and ongoing-cost figures come from, and it's worth reading before signing off on any quote that only covers the build.
Platform Subscription vs. Custom Build
Not every retailer needs a fully custom build. A theme-based store gets a small catalog online fast, and the platform absorbs security patches and uptime on its own.
Shopify's published pricing shows the jump from its Basic plan to Advanced mostly adds staff accounts, five on the mid tier and fifteen on Advanced, plus lower card processing rates, not a different store underneath.
The tradeoff shows up later. Once a retailer needs inventory synced across channels, or checkout logic no off-the-shelf app handles, template limits start costing more in workarounds than a custom build would have cost upfront.
That's usually the point where a proper web and e-commerce build beats stacking another app subscription onto the platform fee.
Who does that work matters too. A freelancer, an in-house hire and an agency price the same scope very differently, and what each option actually gets you is worth weighing before the cheapest quote wins by default.
Getting product discovery, checkout friction and mobile layout right is UI/UX work before it's development work, and it's usually worth budgeting for separately rather than trusting a theme's defaults to convert browsers into buyers.
The Costs That Keep Coming After Launch
Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels
None of the build cost is the last check anyone writes. Hosting renewals, app subscriptions and support after launch run $50 to $700 a month, and that's before spending anything to bring shoppers to the new store.
Building the store is only step one of getting a retail presence online that earns back its cost. Driving traffic and converting it needs its own budget, not a rounding error tacked onto the design invoice.
That ongoing spend is usually digital marketing and growth work: search visibility, email and paid acquisition, sitting separate from whatever the build itself cost.
Budget for the store and the twelve months after it. That combined number decides whether the build was worth it, not the figure on the initial invoice.
Cover photo by Cup of Couple on Pexels
