The Full Guide on Estimating the E-Commerce Website Cost in 2022

E-commerce is a sought-after domain within modernity. Therefore, creating a website for this domain is the key to receiving guaranteed profit. But how much does it cost to create an e-commerce web product? There’s a wide range of factors impacting the final product cost: the website’s complexity, features, software development vendor to complete the project, and many more. 

This article will reveal the e-commerce website cost, what is included in it, and how to calculate the approximate price of your solution. 

E-commerce Website Potential

Firstly, let’s talk about why such a product is worth investing in. We can get an answer by simply taking a look at statistics, which forecast that by 2023 the overall e-commerce market value will surmount $6.5 trillion. It may be concluded that this niche is in a state of constant growth, which is highly profitable for its businesses. 

Moreover, the convenience of online purchasing is extremely appreciated by consumers. Thus, recent studies indicate that over 95% of purchases will be accomplished via e-commerce solutions by 2040.

Despite the fact that the cost of a custom e-commerce website isn’t low, there are lots of reasons to invest in the development. Let’s dive deeper into its list:

• Credible reputation. The usage of existing templates for website creation decreases the uniqueness of the platform, as they will be applied to build not only your solution. With the e-commerce website developed from scratch, your customers will be delivered with an outstanding and original web product. 
• Expanded opportunities. Custom web development allows implementing the desired functionality with no limits in features and ideas, which will result in a sophisticated and successful solution. 
• Top-notch design. The situation with the design creation is the same. You won’t be limited with the template’s opportunities, which will allow building excellent UI/UX design. 
• Search engine optimization. To increase the website’s visibility, you will be able to fill it with SEO-optimized content. Therefore, your product will be ranked higher in the browser.
• Borderless enhancement. The market, as well as clients’ requirements, are dynamic, so each successful e-commerce web product undergoes regular updating. Custom web development ensures unlimited ideas for functionality, which is an obvious benefit.

E-commerce Web Development: Standard Cost 

Each e-commerce solution is built with a specific tech stack, comprises certain features, and has a more or less sophisticated design. As you may conclude, it’s extremely difficult to provide a precise answer to this question. Yet, the final price of the product creation starts from $26,400 and ends with $99,700 or more. 

To receive accurately calculated project costs, you should apply to competent Business Analysts who will complete a rough estimate based on your requirements. 

E-commerce Solution: Existing Types

To begin the e-commerce website elaboration, you should come up with the project concept and define the type of the future software:

Single brand web solution

It refers to a platform dedicated to the production of the one and only brand. This type is the most cost-efficient and easy to implement, as features comply specifically with your business requirements as well as your audience. We all know such websites; to illustrate, it’s Puma, Nike, Lego, etc.

Retailer platform

This option implies creating a website for goods of diverse brands. The idea is that you are not responsible for the production, yet, you purchase the items from the brand and sell them via your website. The functionality complexity is relatively higher, so is the price. To put it in practice, a website for sports clothing may comprise brands like Patagonia, Columbia, NorthFace, etc. 

Marketplace website

With such solutions, sellers are allowed to post their products for sale (they are able to set the price, add descriptions, communicate with clients, operate the delivery process, etc.), and customers can view and order them from a handy website. Due to the need to architect the functionality for both parties in this deal and integrate a row of the other tools, this option has the highest cost. The most famous example of such a website product is Amazon.

Cost- Determining Factors for E-Commerce Websites

Now let’s move on to discovering what factors impact the cost, it will help you to receive precise estimates:

Functionality complexity

Elements, features, operating logic, and the opportunities the website ensures primarily define the cost. 

Here’s the list of essential features to implement into your digital product:

• Main page
• Cart
• Wish lists 
• Ordering
• Search bar
• Product description 
• Payment gateway integration 
• Push notifications 
• Recently viewed items
• Rates and reviews
• Search string with filtering system
• Admin panel 

Well-tailored UI/UX 

Design is a crucial part of every web solution. To make your e-commerce product sought-after, you should develop a well-balanced interface with intuitive and clear navigation. In the modern fast world, clients won’t waste time sorting out how to use the website. Therefore, all the interactions are that the design layout itself should be user-friendly, minimalistic, and stylish. 

When creating a website, you reduce the design costs from the beginning, as it is accessed via the browser and is available for any device. According to the fact that in 2021, 72,9% of purchases were completed from mobile gadgets, you should pay great attention to the e-commerce web design for smartphones. To make it well-rendered for any device and mobile ones either, you should apply the adaptive web design. 

What’s more, custom web design creation with animation will substantially raise the final cost. 

Third-party integrations

Obviously, each e-commerce website requires a must-have integration of payment services like Paypal (charging 5% +$0.5 for payments under $10) and Stripe (taking 2.9% per success card charge). 

Tools for communication (messages, calls) within your e-commerce website can be implemented via Twilio. The API integration will require investments as well. 

Amazon Sending Service (Amazon SES) is applied for emails to inform your customers of personal discounts, great deals, price changes, sales, and engage them more in this way. Every 62,000 emails monthly are free, and if this number is surmounted, the cost is $0,10 per 1000 emails.

Software development vendor location

Lots of modern businesses prefer to outsource web development as it is an excellent way to cut down creation expenses without affecting the product quality- it remains excellent. 

Depending on the region, developers’ hourly rates vary. Our tip is to focus on Central and Eastern Europe when you are searching for a software development vendor, as services there are cost-efficient, and the performance remains top-class.

Additional investments

Let’s now discuss extra spending, which you should consider when developing an e-commerce website:

• Domain name. Qualitative and great web domains costs vary from $5 to $10 annually. 
• Hosting. This service also requires investments depending on the chosen provider. You should essentially pay attention to it, as hosting accesses your website for online users.
• SSL certificate. It refers to a digital signature ensuring encryption between a web product and the browser via the HTTP protocol. SSL requires approximately $6-$150. 
• Support. To prolong the lifecycle of your web product, you should regularly maintain it, which will cost $500-$12,000 monthly. 
• Advancement. Marketing tools to promote your product such as SEO optimization, copywriting, Social Media Marketing (SMM), pay-per-click promotion require investments as well. 

Cost Calculation Based on Features

Here are the approximate estimates for each feature. You should multiply the hourly rate of the chosen vendor by the final amount of time-based on the functionality you want to implement. 

• Registration: 56 hours
• Main screen: 96 hours
• Catalog: 24 hours
• Product description: 64 hours
• Cart: 112 hours
• Profile: 64 hours
• Help and support: 32 hours
• Push notifications: 16 hours
• Analytics implementation: 16 hours

In total: 480 hours

In addition, you should implement a qualitative admin panel to access and manage users on diverse levels. The development of it takes about 456 hours. 

Integral specialists for e-commerce website project completion are the following (team composition impacts the final product price as well):

• Business Analysts
• Project Manager
• Front-end developers
• Back-end developers 
• UI/UX designers
• QA engineer
• DevOps engineer
• Team lead

The approximate cost of features mentioned above built by the team of listed specialists cost approximately $99,700. Yet, please, keep in mind that this number isn’t based specifically on your project details, requirements, and peculiarities.

Technologies Stack to Build E-Commerce Website

You may find a list of solutions used to architect an e-commerce website below in the picture:

Summarize 

The cost estimate is a pretty challenging process, and to fulfill this task correctly, you should contact competent BA specialists, who will estimate the price for your specific project. 

In addition, to benefit from an e-commerce website creation and quickly recoup project-related investments, you should thoroughly select a credible software development vendor with proven in-depth expertise in the e-commerce niche. 

Author’s bio:

Yuliya Melnik is a technical writer at Cleveroad. It is a web and mobile application development company in Ukraine. She is passionate about innovative technologies that make the world a better place and loves creating content that evokes vivid emotions.