What does a Shopify store cost to build? Prices and examples for 2026

What does it cost to have a Shopify store built? The honest answer starts with a question back: what does the store need to do on day one? One market, one language and a clean catalogue is a different project from three countries, B2B next to B2C and a link to your ERP. Still, you do not have to guess. This guide lists the amounts we use ourselves, what moves them, and what Shopify and apps cost every month after that.

Most agency pricing pages stop at "from" or "get in touch". We give ranges, because without a number you cannot build a budget or compare proposals. Then we run the numbers over three years: the build, ongoing development, the Shopify subscription, payment fees and apps. That total is the figure that belongs in your business case, not the build price alone.

We are a Shopify Platinum Partner, so we are not neutral. Where a cheaper route fits better, we say so. A store with twenty products and no integrations does not need a €20,000 agency project. If you only want to know what the Shopify plans cost, read our overview of Shopify costs first. This guide is about the build and the total.

Amounts: status October 2026. Our ranges are indicative, excluding VAT, from our ebook "The Bottom Line" (September 2026). Shopify and app prices come from shopify.com/nl/prijzen (Dutch pricing) and the Shopify App Store. Apps often bill in US dollars. Check current prices before you decide.

Key takeaways

• Build: a Shopify store on an existing theme costs €20,000 to €30,000 with us. Custom design and build goes up to €110,000. Indicative amounts, excluding VAT.

• After launch: budget around €5,000 a month for development, Klaviyo, ads or all three. Over three years that is €180,000, more than the build.

• Three-year total: template €25,000 + 36 × €5,000 = €205,000. Custom €110,000 + €180,000 = €290,000. Both before Shopify's licence and apps.

• Shopify itself: Basic €21, Grow €59, Advanced €289 a month on annual billing in the Netherlands. Plus from €2,100 a month.

• Payment fees outweigh the subscription: at €1.5 million in revenue on Advanced you pay about €15,000 a year in payment fees and €3,468 in subscription.

• Biggest cost drivers: catalogue and history, integrations, B2B next to B2C, markets and languages, and custom design.

• Saving it yourself: clean your product data before the export, move B2B to release two, and start with the markets that pay today.

What a Shopify store costs to build: the ranges

These are the amounts we use. They appear this way in our ebook and in our proposals. We build every proposal up per phase, so the final figure for your project depends on the scope. But the order of magnitude holds.

A "template build" is not a bare install. It is an existing, paid theme from the Theme Store, set up with your brand, your navigation, your product data and your integrations. The difference with custom is the design: with a template you work within the theme's sections, with custom we design every page ourselves. Read more about both routes on our pages about Shopify development and Shopify store design.

Why we publish amounts

An agency that names no number leaves the work to you: three meetings, three proposals, and only then do you know whether you are in the right range. With a range, you can decide in one afternoon whether an agency fits your budget, or whether a smaller partner or a free theme makes more sense. And you see straight away whether a proposal of €8,000 or €150,000 for the same work is missing something, or adding something you do not need.

How the price is built up: five phases

A good proposal is never one number. We build the price up per phase, so you see where the money goes and where you can move things yourself. Ask every other agency for the same.

For a new store without an old platform, the data phase is small. In a migration it is often the heaviest. Migrations fail on data more often than on design, because nobody wrote down where each field lands. Read how we handle that on our page about Shopify migration.

Template or custom design: what fits you

The biggest price gap is between a template and a custom design: €20,000 to €30,000 against up to €110,000. So the question is not "what looks better", but "what does it add". We use The Logo Test for that: put your logo, your imagery and your colours on a good theme. If your brand survives that, design is not the bottleneck and a template is the right start.

A paid theme itself costs little. In the Shopify Theme Store, paid themes cost a one-off $170 to $500 (status October 2026), and Shopify also offers free themes. The money goes into the setup: your navigation, your product pages, your filters, your content and your integrations.

Our experience: most brands that say they need custom can start perfectly well on a template. Invest the difference in product data, photography and marketing. Custom becomes the right choice when your brand lives on experience, or when you need a feature that no theme has, such as a configurator.

What moves the price

Two stores with the same number of pages can differ in price by a factor of three. That is almost always down to one of these six drivers. For each driver you also see what you can do yourself.

Integrations: the biggest unknown

An ERP integration is rarely a checkbox. The question is which system owns which data: the price, the stock, the customer, the invoice. Two systems that both think they own the price is a bug you find in production. So before the proposal, write down which system owns what, and have your ERP vendor confirm that a working Shopify connector exists. More on our page about Shopify ERP integration.

B2B: start with release two

Shopify has B2B built in: company accounts, catalogues per customer group and payment terms. On Basic, Grow and Advanced you can use three active B2B catalogues, on Plus an unlimited number. Volume tiers and approval flows are not standard Shopify objects; they often stay in your ERP. B2B next to B2C doubles every test scenario, and every extra week of testing costs money. If B2C is the larger part of your revenue, launch B2C first and add B2B in release two. Mason Garments runs B2C and B2B on Shopify Plus; see our page about Shopify B2B.

Markets and languages

Stoov merged four stores into one Shopify Plus store: conversion rose 13% and the site became 50% faster. One store with a market per country costs less to maintain than a store per country. That does not mean you should launch ten countries on day one. High Clean is now live in eleven languages, but every language means translating, checking and maintaining. Start with the countries where you make revenue today.

What Shopify itself costs (in short)

This guide is about the build. What Shopify itself costs, with every plan, card and iDEAL rate, third-party provider fees and Shopify Plus, is in How much does Shopify cost?. In short (October 2026, shopify.com/nl/prijzen): Basic €21, Grow €59 and Advanced €289 a month when billed yearly, Shopify Plus from €2,100 a month. With Shopify Payments an iDEAL payment costs €0.29, or €0.15 on Plus. Those are the numbers the three-year example below uses.

Apps: the cost that grows quietly

Shopify does a lot out of the box, but almost every store runs a handful of apps: email, reviews, loyalty, shipping, translations. Each app is small. Together they are a fixed cost that grows with your orders or your customer base. A few examples from the Shopify App Store, status October 2026:

Watch the jumps. Smile costs $79 up to 1,000 orders a month; at 1,001 orders it costs $199. Klaviyo bills on active profiles, so a list full of inactive contacts costs money. Sendcloud charges per label. For every app, look at your busiest month, not the average. Our overview of the best Shopify apps lists the options, prices and pitfalls per category.

A rule of thumb from our own work: do not buy an app to close a gap nobody measured. Every app loads scripts, has a subscription and has to move along in a migration or theme update. The cheapest app is the one you do not need.

Total cost over three years

A store is an investment over several years. That is why we always calculate three years. First Shopify alone: subscription and payments for an example store. Then the total including build and ongoing development.

Shopify Grow, Advanced and Plus side by side

Example: a Dutch store with €1.5 million in online revenue, 20,000 orders a year (average €75), payments through Shopify Payments. 60% of orders go through iDEAL | Wero (12,000 orders, €900,000), 40% by card (8,000 orders, €600,000). We use the standard online card rates; your actual rate depends on the card type. Amounts exclude VAT.

What stands out: on Grow and Advanced, payment fees are many times larger than the subscription. They fall per plan, but not enough to earn back Advanced or Plus on rates alone at this revenue. So you choose Advanced or Plus for the features: more staff accounts, more reporting, unlimited B2B catalogues, expansion stores, or the checkout options of Plus. Not for the payment fees.

If you keep a third-party payment provider

If you keep your current payment provider instead of Shopify Payments, you pay the Shopify fee on all your revenue, on top of that provider's fees. For the same store with €1.5 million in revenue:

Rule of thumb: the subscription difference between Plus and Advanced is €21,732 a year. Plus saves 0.4% in third-party provider fees. From about €5.4 million in revenue through a third-party provider, Plus pays for itself on that fee alone. Below that, switching to Shopify Payments is usually the biggest saving you can make.

The total: build, ongoing development and Shopify

Now everything together. Two routes over three years: a template build on Advanced and a custom build on Plus. Build and retainer are our indicative amounts. Shopify costs come from the table above. For apps we assume €300 a month.

Two lessons from this table. One: the build is only a small part of the total. On the template route, the build is less than 10% of three years. Anyone comparing proposals on build price alone is comparing the wrong number. Two: the retainer is the largest item. It also returns the most, because that is where the improvements, campaigns and email flows that drive revenue sit. A store that stands still after launch is outdated after two years.

The retainer is not mandatory. You can make it smaller or take work in-house (see below). But do put it in your budget. A business case that stops at launch does not add up.

How to lower the cost yourself

You do not save the most money by negotiating the hourly rate, but by cutting work or doing it yourself. These are the points that make the biggest difference in our projects:

The most important point is the scope freeze. Every idea after the fixed scope goes on a list for after launch, with a date when you reopen it. That way twelve weeks do not become twenty. Ask your agency how they handle this, and be strict yourself.

Freelancer, agency or in-house team

Not every store needs to be built by an agency. Below is an honest comparison. We do not quote other people's rates, only where each option is strong and weak.

A common mix: an agency for the build or migration, then an in-house person for content and merchandising, with the agency on retainer for development and specialist work. Compare a retainer of around €60,000 a year with the full cost of one experienced developer, including recruitment, employer costs and cover. A retainer gives you a team; a hire gives you one person who is there every day. Both can be right.

When a cheaper route is better

A Shopify agency is not always the answer. In these situations we recommend a smaller route ourselves:

• You are just starting. With a few products and little revenue, Shopify Basic with a free theme is enough. Your first €20,000 is better spent on product and marketing.

• Your current theme works. If you already run on Shopify with an Online Store 2.0 theme and hit one problem, solve that one problem. A new store for one problem is too expensive.

• You have no integrations. Without an ERP, WMS or POS, and with a small catalogue, a good freelancer or studio can do it well.

• You have no budget for after launch. An expensive store without development, marketing and email earns less than a simple store with a good marketing budget.

• You are in the middle of a rebrand or ERP switch. Wait. Two big changes at once make both more expensive.

The other way round: do not start with the cheapest route if you already know you will need B2B, a second country or an ERP integration within a year. Then you build twice. Malelions moved from Lightspeed to Shopify Plus with 180,000+ customers; OGÉR moved from Magento to Shopify Plus with POS, after which revenue rose 45% according to their CCO. Projects like these need a team.

Comparing proposals: what to look for

Put proposals side by side on the same points, or you compare apples with oranges. Our checklist, for our own proposals and other agencies' alike:

• Price per phase: discovery, build, data, launch and aftercare. Never one number.

• What is not included: app subscriptions, theme licence, content entry, translations, photography, onboarding with your payment provider.

• Hours per integration, with the vendor's connector confirmed in writing.

• The redirect map: who makes it and who signs it off before launch.

• The retainer next to the build: years one to three on the same page.

• Two references from brands with a similar project, with a phone number.

A fuller method, with a scoring model and what to do when the cheapest proposal really is the best, is in our article on comparing Shopify agency proposals. Clients judge us that way too. Jansen Holland, which moved from WooCommerce to Shopify, wrote in a public review: "Our migration from WooCommerce to Shopify was handled smoothly and professionally, with excellent support throughout the process."

Time is a cost too

A project that overruns costs twice: extra hours and a later start of your new revenue. The biggest fixed date in ecommerce is Black Friday. Black Friday 2026 (27 November) is too close to move before it. The next one is Friday 26 November 2027. For a migration with a mid-sized catalogue and two integrations, we plan six weeks to choose an agency, four weeks for the scope, twenty weeks for build and testing, and six weeks for launch and hypercare. If you want to sell on a new store on Black Friday 2027, you sign by February 2027 at the latest.

Our view

We are a Shopify Platinum Partner. We earn money on Shopify projects, so read this guide with that in mind. Still, there are situations where we do not recommend Shopify. A product configurator with hundreds of combinations runs into the limit of three options and 2,048 variants per product. A group with four brands pays for four contracts on Plus. And anyone who wants to keep control of code and hosting is better off looking at an open-source platform. A comparison of the alternatives is in our overview of ecommerce platforms.

For most Dutch brands that sell seriously online, Shopify is the route with the least operational burden: no hosting, no security updates, no upgrade projects. But only if you budget the total. A €25,000 store that stands still afterwards costs more than a €25,000 store with a plan for the months that follow. So budget the build, the subscription, the payment fees, the apps and the ongoing development. Then you know what building a store really costs.