If you were to open a brick-and-mortar store, you would have a pretty good idea of the costs involved. You would need to pay for a physical location, for the infrastructure of the story, for stock and supplies, and for the employees who will run it, among other costs. But when you open an eCommerce site, the costs involved may be less obvious since many of them are not visible. If you want to use the Magento platform to launch an eCommerce site, there are some key costs involved that you will need to be aware of.
In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the biggest costs involved in creating a Magento-powered store so you can budget appropriately for your big launch.
Magento software
The good news is that Magento software is open-source, meaning that you can access it for free. However, you may find that your business needs more support or more features than the open-source free software provides. First, you will likely benefit from using a Magento agency to connect with a professional developer to work on creating your store using Magento. Depending on your business’s needs, you may also choose to invest in the Enterprise Edition of Magento, which offers more features and support than the open-source version. It costs between $22,000 and $125,000.
Hosting costs
Your web store will need to live somewhere, and that somewhere is your hosting service. There are different kinds of hosting with different price points, and you will need to choose the one that best matches your business’s needs. The least expensive is shared hosting, but it often does not provide enough resources for large or complex stores. More likely, you will need a dedicated hosting service or a cloud hosting service. Each has its pluses and minuses, including costs. Dedicated hosting can run $500 or more per month, while cloud hosting typically runs about double.
Design and development costs
Design and development is another area where you have a key decision to make. If you use a pre-built theme, you can save money on design, but with the downside of having to work within someone else’s choices and potentially having a store that looks like others online. The cost savings can be significant, with pre-built themes ranging from $50 to $500 for many popular choices. On the other hand, a custom theme design can help you to stand out and can ensure that your store fits your specifications and is designed to meet your particular needs. The costs, however, are significantly higher, typically ranging between $2,000 to $15,000. At the highest end of the spectrum, sometimes running $50,000+, is custom development, where you go beyond the basics and develop unique features that must be built and configured from scratch.
Extensions and Plugins
Magento on its own often is not enough to run every aspect of your store. Many key aspects of the eCommerce experience, such as payment gateways, SEO tools, and shipping integration, require plugins and extensions to work in Magento. The cost of extensions and plugins can vary wildly depending on which you need and what you want them to do. Some may have minimal or no cost, while others can run as much as $1,000 each. That cost rises if your needs can’t be served with standard extensions or plugins and you need to have a Magneto developer custom build an extension for you. A custom extension might run you $10,000, depending on the size, scale, and complexity of the project.
Integration costs
Beyond the cost of extensions and plugins, there is also the cost of integrating third-party systems into your web store. For instance, the integration of payment processors like PayPal, Stripe, or others can be quite costly. Some of these may have setup costs ranging from $500 to $5,000. You will also need to have your Magneto store integrated with your business’s other systems to ensure smooth and seamless operations. However, integrating Magento with business systems such as ERP, CRM, and inventory management can run you anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000+ depending on the system, what you need it to do, and the complexity of the project.
These five costs only scratch the surface of the many costs associated with starting a Magneto-powered store. There are also costs associated with maintenance and repair, with SEO and marketing, and with training and supervision. If you are thinking about starting a store, it’s a good idea to speak with an expert to help develop a reasonable estimate of the costs you can expect to pay.
