How much does an e-commerce website cost?

The short answer

Most UK small businesses pay somewhere between £2,500 and £6,000 for a professionally built online shop. That is the typical range we see for shops of up to a hundred or so products, with card payments, delivery options and the usual pages. Larger catalogues, trade pricing, subscriptions or links to stock and accounting systems push the cost higher.

These are typical ranges, not fixed market rates. Platform prices in particular change regularly, so always check the current figures before you decide.

Where the money goes

An online shop is a brochure website plus a small business system. Here is what makes up the cost.

Platform set-up. Choosing and configuring Shopify, WooCommerce or another platform: currency, tax, checkout settings, order notifications and staff accounts. If you are undecided, our Shopify vs WooCommerce guide compares the two for UK sellers.

Design. The home page, collection pages, product pages, basket and checkout all need to work well on a phone, because that is where many shoppers will browse. Good product page design does more for sales than almost anything else on the site.

Products. This is the hidden one. Each product needs a title, description, price, photos, weight, variants (size, colour) and stock levels. If you have a clean spreadsheet, importing is quick. If products need writing from scratch, it can be the biggest single task in the project.

Delivery and returns. Delivery zones, weight-based or flat rates, free delivery thresholds, click and collect, and a clear returns process. Getting this wrong costs money on every order.

Payments. Connecting a payment provider such as Shopify Payments, Stripe or PayPal, and testing that orders, refunds and receipts behave properly.

Legal and trust pages. Terms of sale, privacy policy, cookie notice, delivery and returns information. UK consumer law gives online shoppers specific rights, including the right to cancel most orders within 14 days, and your pages need to reflect that. A solicitor or a reputable template service is worth using here.

Search set-up. Product and category pages that Google can understand, with structured data so prices and availability can show in results.

The running costs

This is where shop owners most often get surprised. A rough picture:

• Platform fees. Hosted platforms like Shopify charge a monthly plan fee, from around £20 to £30 a month for entry-level plans, rising for larger plans. WooCommerce itself is free, but you pay for hosting, typically around £10 to £40 a month for decent WordPress hosting.
• Card processing. Every payment provider takes a cut, often around 1.5% to 2.5% of each sale plus a small fixed fee. Some platforms add their own transaction fee if you use an outside payment provider.
• Apps and plugins. Reviews, subscriptions, product filters, delivery labels, email marketing. Many have free tiers, and paid ones commonly cost from around £5 to £50 a month each. A few of these add up quickly.
• Theme or licence renewals. Some premium themes and plugins charge annually for updates.
• Maintenance. Updates, backups and small changes, either your time or a care plan.

As a working budget for a small shop, allow roughly £30 to £150 a month before card fees. Write your own list of the apps you expect to need and price them before you commit to a platform.

Our e-commerce prices

At Waltham Websites, online shops sit in two packages, both fixed price:

• Gold, £4,995: a bespoke design and a shop of up to 100 products with card payments, an AI chat assistant trained on your business, 6 town pages and a keyword plan, live in 14 days once we have your content.
• Diamond, from £6,500: advanced e-commerce, larger catalogues, custom features and integrations, branding and ongoing support, scoped with you.

If you already have a shop that is not performing, a Gold redesign at £3,495 includes product and content migration, with old addresses redirected so you keep what you have earned in Google. More detail is on the e-commerce website design page and our prices page.

When DIY is the right call

Paying an agency is not always sensible. A DIY shop on a hosted platform is often the better choice when:

• You have fewer than 20 or so products and they are simple, with no complicated variants.
• You are testing demand. Spend on stock and marketing first. A clean template shop is enough to find out whether people buy.
• You are happy with a standard look and willing to spend a few evenings learning the platform.
• Most sales happen elsewhere, at markets, by phone or on Etsy, and the shop is a convenience.

Hosted platforms are designed for owners to set up themselves, and their help guides are generally good. The common DIY mistakes are thin product descriptions, slow pages from oversized photos, confusing delivery charges and missing legal pages. Avoid those and a DIY shop can serve you well for a long time.

Professional help starts to pay for itself when the shop needs to rank in Google for competitive products, when you have lots of products with variants, or when you need it to connect to stock, accounts or delivery software.

How to keep the cost down

1. Prepare your product data first. A spreadsheet with titles, prices, weights, variants and descriptions saves more money than any other single step.
2. Take decent photos. Consistent light, plain background, same angle. A phone and a window can do a reasonable job for many products.
3. Start with fewer apps. Add them when a real need appears, not because a theme demo used them.
4. Keep delivery simple at launch. Two or three clear options are easier to build and easier for customers.
5. Decide what success looks like. Orders per week, average order value, repeat customers. It helps everyone focus the budget where it counts.

What to send when asking for quotes

Shop quotes vary widely, often because each builder has guessed at different things. You will get quotes you can actually compare if you send everyone the same details:

• Roughly how many products you have, and how many have variants such as size or colour
• Whether product data and photos already exist, and in what form
• Where you deliver, and how you want to charge for delivery
• Whether you need to sell to trade customers at different prices
• Any software the shop must connect to, such as your accounts package or a stock system
• Whether you sell in person too, and want one stock count for both
• Your budget range and the date you want to be live

Ask each provider to list what is included and what is not, especially product loading, copywriting and legal pages.

For general website pricing beyond shops, see how much a website costs in the UK. If you are planning a launch around a date like Christmas, how long it takes to build a website explains realistic timescales.

Next step

If you would like a fixed price for your shop, see our prices or get in touch with a rough product count and what you sell. We will recommend a platform and a package, or tell you plainly if a DIY shop is the better place to start.