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Ecommerce Platform Cost Calculator

Work out your real annual cost - subscription, transaction fees, apps and the theme nobody budgets for.

Enter your numbers

Total completed orders, not sessions or visitors.
Gross merchandise value divided by order count.
Reviews, email, subscriptions, upsells. $80-250/month is typical once a store is live.
Premium themes run $180-400. Custom design is a different order of magnitude.
Turning this off adds the platform's third-party payment surcharge.

Year 1 all-in cost

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Subscription, apps, payment fees and one-off design cost for twelve months.

Monthly subscription

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The number on the pricing page.

Monthly payment fees

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Card processing plus any platform surcharge for third-party payments.

Monthly app spend

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The layer most store owners underestimate.

Cost per order

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Year-one total divided by annual order volume.

Subscription as a share of total cost

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The advertised price is the smallest line on your bill. This is how small.

3-year total cost

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The number that actually matters when you compare platforms.

Estimates only. Vendor pricing and contract terms vary - always confirm figures on a written quote. Results update as you type and nothing is sent to a server.

Ecommerce platform pricing pages quote a monthly subscription and stop there. Your actual bill is that subscription plus payment processing, plus the apps you cannot run a store without, plus a one-off theme, plus a surcharge if you use a payment provider other than the platform's own.

On a typical 1,000-order-a-month store that difference is several thousand dollars a year, and it moves the ranking of platforms around. This calculator models the full stack so you are comparing what you will actually be billed.

How to use this calculator

  1. Pick the platform tier you would realistically start on. Entry tiers usually lack the reporting or multi-currency support you need within a year.
  2. Enter your real order volume and average order value. Payment fees scale with GMV, so a $100 AOV store pays very differently from a $15 one.
  3. Be honest about app spend. Few live stores run on zero apps - reviews, email, and subscriptions alone are usually $80-150/month.
  4. Uncheck the native payment option if you plan to use Stripe or PayPal directly. Shopify adds 0.5-2% on top in that case, which is the single most-missed line item.
  5. Compare the 3-year figure across platforms. On subscription alone Shopify looks mid-priced; on total cost the ranking changes.

Want to price this against a live Shopify plan?

Shopify is the most common starting point for stores in this volume band. The Basic tier carries a 2% third-party payment surcharge, which is why the checkbox above changes your bill so much.

See Shopify pricing

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Comparing no-surcharge platforms?

BigCommerce does not add a fee for using outside payment providers, which matters if you have negotiated rates with Stripe or PayPal.

See BigCommerce pricing

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Frequently asked questions

Why is my real cost so much higher than the advertised monthly price?
The subscription is roughly 15-30% of a live store's bill. Payment processing scales with revenue, and apps are the third leg. Platforms advertise the one number that looks smallest.
Does it really matter which payment provider I use?
On Shopify it can. Using a provider other than Shopify Payments adds a surcharge of 2% on Basic down to 0.5% on Advanced. At $65,000 monthly GMV that is $1,300/month on Basic - more than the subscription itself.
Is WooCommerce genuinely cheaper?
The plugin is free and there is no platform surcharge, but you pay for hosting, security, and developer time. Budget $600-1,800/year in hosting and maintenance, plus the cost of anything that breaks. It wins on total cost only once you have volume or in-house engineering.
How should I use the cost-per-order figure?
It is your platform overhead per sale. Compare it against your gross margin per order. If platform cost eats more than about 8-10% of gross margin, the issue is usually app sprawl rather than the subscription tier.

Next steps

If the three-year number surprised you, the next useful step is to model the same store on a second platform and compare cost per order rather than subscription price. Related calculators are in the sidebar.