What does a webshop cost? Setup, monthly and yearly

What a webshop costs depends first on how it is built. Almost every quote for a small shop falls into one of three routes, and each one puts your money somewhere else: in a monthly subscription, in plugin licences and upkeep, or in a larger share up front.

• Shopify: a rented platform. You pay a monthly plan, and hosting, security and updates are included. You build on Shopify's terms: themes, apps and the checkout work the way Shopify allows.
• WooCommerce: a free plugin that turns a WordPress site into a shop. You choose your own hosting, add plugins for what you need, and someone has to keep WordPress, the theme and every plugin up to date.
• Custom: a shop built for you, with no platform licence and no plugins. You own the code and can host it anywhere. This is how we build online stores.

Shopify suits a starter who wants to sell this month and change the shop without help. WooCommerce suits a business that already runs WordPress and has someone to maintain it. A custom shop suits a business that wants its own design, low running costs and code it can take anywhere; Web & app development shows how we build one.

The build is the part people compare, and the part where quotes differ most. Whatever the route, it splits into the same six items. Ask for each one separately, because a low headline price often leaves out the product import or the payment setup.

Product photography, descriptions for hundreds of products and links to accounting or warehouse software come on top. They are often worth paying for, but they belong in the quote, not in a surprise invoice afterwards.

Our online store package starts at €2,200 at a fixed price, agreed before we start. It includes a custom design, catalogue, checkout, payments and inventory, responsive development for every screen, copy for every page, licensed images where you have none, SEO essentials and launch on your domain. Standard delivery takes 7 to 14 business days once scope and content are agreed; rush delivery is faster and costs 20% more. A large catalogue or extra integrations raise the price, and you know by how much before we begin.

Once the shop is live, the costs come in two kinds: fixed monthly costs for the platform, hosting and upkeep, and a fee on every order for the payment. The table puts the three routes side by side, at the list prices of October 2026.

Two things stand out. Payment fees are the largest running cost of a busy shop, and they are about the same on every route: at an average order of €60, an iDEAL | Wero payment costs about half a percent and a card payment about 2%. And on Shopify the choice of provider counts twice: if you use Mollie or another provider instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify adds its own fee of up to 2% on top.

Business cards, cards from outside the EEA and buy-now-pay-later methods such as Klarna cost more per order, so check your own customer mix. Shipping costs the same on every route: postage per parcel, plus label software if you use it, such as Sendcloud from €28 a month. On WordPress, budget for upkeep as well; our guide to website maintenance costs shows what a maintenance plan should include.

A quote shows the build. What you pay over the life of the shop is the build plus every month after it. Here are both, for one example shop: 200 orders a month at an average of €60, paid 75% with iDEAL | Wero and 25% by card.

After three years the routes are about €3,500 apart, and the build price explains little of it. The difference is in what each route needs every month: WooCommerce pays for hosting, plugins and someone to update them; Shopify for its plan and the apps that fill its gaps; a custom shop only for hosting. Payment fees, about €4,100 over three years, are nearly the same everywhere.

Since 28 June 2025, webshops that sell to consumers must be usable by people with disabilities. The rule comes from the European Accessibility Act, Directive (EU) 2019/882. The Netherlands implemented it in the Implementatiewet toegankelijkheidsvoorschriften producten en diensten, which added the rules for e-commerce to the Dutch Civil Code, and the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) supervises them.

The law covers the whole path to a purchase: searching, choosing, logging in and paying, including the emails a customer needs to log in or pay. You remain responsible when someone else built the shop. A shop that does not meet the rules must report this to the ACM with a plan to fix it, and the ACM can enforce, up to a fine.

Small businesses are exempt as service providers: fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover or balance sheet total of at most €2 million. Reach 10 employees, or exceed €2 million in both turnover and balance sheet total, and the law applies to your shop.

The ACM checks against level AA of WCAG 2.1, the web guidelines the European standard EN 301 549 builds on, and recommends moving to WCAG 2.2 now. No certificate or audit is required. These six checks catch most problems in a checkout:

1. 1

   Finish an order with the keyboard only

   Tab from product to payment. Every button, menu and field must be reachable, in a logical order, with a visible focus.

2. 2

   Give every field a label

   A visible label, not only placeholder text, so a screen reader announces what each field is for.

3. 3

   Check the contrast

   Normal text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background, including prices, buttons and error text.

4. 4

   Write error messages that help

   Say what went wrong and how to fix it, next to the field, and never by colour alone.

5. 5

   Describe your product images

   Alt text that says what a photo shows. Purely decorative images get an empty alt text.

6. 6

   Publish an accessibility statement

   Easy to find, accessible itself, also offered in spoken form, and explaining how the shop works with assistive technology.

The cheapest webshop is not the one with the lowest build price, but the one with the fewest things to pay for every month. Save where a cost repeats:

• Fewer apps and plugins: each one is a bill, a thing to update and a script that slows the shop. Cancel what you no longer use.
• Pay yearly where it is cheaper: Shopify's plans cost about 25% less when billed yearly.
• Compare payment providers on your own mix: a shop where most customers pay by card gains more from a lower card rate than from a cheaper iDEAL fee.
• Own your domain and your customer data: register the domain in your company's name and make sure you can export customers and orders at any time, so moving later is work, not a negotiation.

And do not save where the shop earns its money:

• Checkout speed: a slow or clumsy checkout costs sales on every order. Test it on a phone over mobile data.
• The payment methods your customers expect: for most Dutch customers that means iDEAL | Wero, plus cards.
• Accessibility and clear terms: required by law above the size limit, and they help every customer finish an order.

If running costs worry you, that is the case for a custom shop: no licences, no plugins to patch, and code that is yours once the invoice is paid. Our online store package starts at €2,200, and managed hosting at €25 a month. To talk through your plans, use the contact form for Web & app development.