When thinking about developing a Shopify store for your business, the cost of the venture is the first thing you are going to think about. When you start looking for the information about the actual cost for the development of a Shopify store, you are going to see something in-between $500 and $2,000. In this case, you are getting what you pay for: this going to be the simplest and the most generic Shopify store that is going to be fully functional though. A custom-designed Shopify store is going to cost $5,000 - $20,000 on average, but this time, the store is going to be individually looking, easy to use, and really nice to have to promote your store to your customers.
However, the represented range of costs is huge, and there is a need to be aware of factors that make the cost to be able to determine the actual price for your project. This article is going to focus on the cost of development, cost of maintenance, and cost of growth/optimization as the most important factors when it comes to determining the price of the cost of the Shopify project.
Cost of Development
The cost of developing a Shopify store depends on the approach to development and the expected result. In general, the cost of development consists of:
1. the cost of the Shopify theme,
2. the cost of the developers’ work,
3. the costs of external plugins and widgets,
4. the cost of content. The cost of content includes the cost of marketing texts, product description texts, product details & images, etc.
The cost of a theme, plugins, and widgets is the one-time expense that the business owners need to do. Consider it the investment in the quality of the online store. Often, Shopify themes are free to use, but some are paid something between $50 and $200. The cost depends on a variety of factors, including design, user experience, page speed, and functionalities. Free themes might be good but they are not good enough to ensure the parameters are good enough to attract users to the website. Moreover, free themes often do not include important functions that are later added with the use of plugins, and third-party integrations. Thus, getting a decent theme often means minimizing costs spent on third-party integrations and plugins.
The cost of the development work depends on developers and their rates. As soon as not everyone has enough time to build a store from scratch, there is often a need to hire a Shopify consultant or a freelancer, or maybe a team of developers to make the process quicker. In one of our previous articles, we have already discussed how to pick the right developer or a team of developers. This article is focused on the factors that impact the cost of the online store.
Practically, the cost of the developers’ work is going to depend on:
1. The scope of work to do
2. The experience of the developer
3. The time that is planned for the project
And the scope of the project.
There is no doubt that the projects of the large scope that need to be built quickly are going to cost significantly. But such large projects already include opportunities for the company to grow.
Cost of Maintenance
The cost of maintenance is the cost that you need to pay to maintain your store fully functioning. For big projects, this might mean hiring people to watch the store and fix the issues if any. For smaller projects, this means investing time and effort to track the functionality of the store. However, for all types of stores, the cost of maintenance includes the cost of the Shopify plan. These plans and their costs are going to be discussed below.
Basic Shopify Plan
The basic Shopify plan is a great option for small startups because it costs as low as $29 per month. At the same time though, this plan has the highest rate for processing payments from credit cards, which is 2.9%. In addition, the plan includes only some features that are available from Shopify for other plans. Anyway, it is a good starting point for the business.
Shopify Plan
Shopify plan works great for eCommerce ventures that are growing. This plan costs $79 per month and allows businesses for a greater range of services to offer. For example, with the Shopify plan, it is possible to sell gift cards and the stores also have features of recovering abandoned cards, etc. With the Shopify plan, businesses have the access to the feature of reports, meaning the businesses are going to be aware of the preferences of their customers. That said, the Shopify plan is more focused on growth than the Basic plan and provides more features out of the box. The processing of credit cards costs 2.6% with this plan.
Advanced Shopify Plan
Advanced Shopify Plan is a good choice for large businesses that want to grow even further. The major difference between Advanced Shopify and Shopify is richer features for reporting. With Advanced Shopify Plan, users are going to understand customer preferences better. As a result, with the Advanced Shopify plan, it is easier to grow your business. Another major benefit of the Advanced Shopify plan is its feature of real-time shipping information. The combination of the increased richness of features to report customer preferences and the increased information about shipping allows the businesses to grow faster, catering to the needs of the customers.
Shopify Plus Plan
Shopify Plus is the plan that is developed for large, often international businesses, such as Gymshark, Staples, Heinz, and other service and product selling websites. Shopify Plus is aimed to fulfill the needs of large corporations, including order management. Moreover, Shopify Plus is a very individualized Shopify plan that provides a feature of having a dedicated manager for each account. In addition, the companies that choose Shopify Plus, get negotiated Shopify rates and early access to beta features together with the lowest per-transaction processing fee of 1.6%.
Cost of Growth/ Optimisation
Usually, the businesses that invest in launching the online store plan to grow in the nearest future. As a result, the cost of growth/optimization is the reasonable component of the cost that the businesses are ready to pay to ensure the revenues are growing. Most often, the cost of growth/optimization includes the following:
1. Cost of employing store managers to manage the website orders, processes, etc.
2. Costs in optimizing website content - Copywriting, Product-Images, videos, etc.
3. Optimizing for SEO - Hiring SEO consultants, writing blogs, etc.
4. Improving user experience by making the UI/UX better
Conclusion
As a result, this is the optional investment that might be omitted but the one that might make a big portion of the cost paid for the online store. However, all these costs might be included in developing the online store initially, when it comes to customized development services. The point here is you might want to invest in a customized online store instead of attempting to launch and grow a pretty standard website yourself. If you really need a highly professional and attractive online store, contact SOFTLOFT for the price tag and for the development services. The SOFTLOFT team has already got wealth of experience in developing custom online stores for international corporations, and we will be happy to help you to get one too.
