An ecommerce website price list is longer than a brochure site's because a shop is an application with a catalogue, a checkout, payments, shipping, tax and a set of legal pages that the pricing rules and the consumer protection rules require. A quote that names one number for the whole shop is hiding how those lines were decided. This page lays out every line an online shop costs, which are one-off and which recur, and how to enter them into the website cost calculator so that a platform's plan, a freelancer's build and an agency's proposal can be compared on the same shop.
The one-off lines
Platform setup and theme: a hosted shop platform's theme is cheap or free, a custom theme is a build. Product pages: each product needs a title, a description, photographs, a price and its variants, and on a catalogue of a hundred products the content line is the largest on the sheet. Payments and shipping configuration: connecting the payment provider, the shipping rates and the tax settings, which is hours rather than software. Legal pages: terms, returns, privacy and the shipping policy, which consumer protection rules expect to be accurate. Migration, if the shop is moving platform, for every product and every order.
The recurring lines
The platform's monthly plan, which on hosted platforms rises with features and sales volume. Payment processing, taken as a share of each sale plus a fixed fee per transaction, which is the largest recurring cost of a busy shop and is often left off the price list entirely. Apps and plugins for reviews, email, abandoned carts and the like, each a few dollars a month that add up. Hosting and maintenance if the shop is self-hosted. A price list that shows the platform fee and not the processing fee understates the running cost of a shop that actually sells.
Pricing rules the shop has to follow
Pricing on a shop is regulated: a former price shown as a saving has to have been a genuine price, comparisons with competitors have to be truthful, and free has to mean free. The federal guides against deceptive pricing set out the rules in plain terms, and the shop's product pages and promotions have to be built so they can follow them, which is a small amount of work at build time and a large problem if it is bolted on later. It belongs on the price list as a line for the legal pages and the pricing setup rather than as an afterthought.
Questions people ask about ecommerce website price list
What is the biggest line on an ecommerce website price list?
For a shop with more than a few dozen products, the product content: photographs, descriptions and variants. For a busy shop over a year, payment processing fees.
Is a hosted platform cheaper than a self-hosted shop?
Hosted platforms cost more a month and far less to set up and maintain; self-hosted shops are the reverse. Over a first year they are often close, and the deciding factor is who fixes it when it breaks.
Do I need all the legal pages before launch?
Yes. Terms, returns, shipping and privacy pages are what the consumer protection rules and the payment provider both expect, and a shop without a returns policy loses disputes it should win.