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Basic – £1 for your first month then £19 yearly subscription
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Shopify – £1 for your first month then £49 yearly subscription
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Advanced – £1 for your first month then £259 yearly subscription
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Plus – $2,300 USD yearly subscription, no first month offer
As of February 2024, there were 4,628,418 live Shopify stores, and estimated 7,246,165 websites have ever used Shopify
Below, I’ll break down some different options and what you (and your team) can expect to spend on each. I’ll cover:
The price range of developing and launching a Shopify website
Representative options for every budget
Some pro tips to improve the effectiveness of your new Shopify store
Why should you carefully consider investing in launching a Shopify website.
An eCommerce business can’t prosper without acquiring relevant website visitors who have real intent to buy their product or service. There are scrapyards filled with businesses that couldn’t get traffic or a decent conversion to sales.
It doesn’t matter if you’re flying solo in a side-hustle or an established business selling to thousands of customers, converting website traffic to sales is crucial to your survival The better your traffic to sales conversion happens, the better your bottom line will be.
Getting traffic is hard work, let alone making sure it converts to sales, you must earn ranking for both with search engines to get picked up in their algorithms and it takes time. But it all starts with how well your new Shopify website is designed and developed.
Competitor and market analysis should be one of the first things you do. I strongly recommend you identify who the most successful competitors are in your space.
Your measure for this should not necessarily be who gets the most traffic, but who has the best combination of traffic volume and visitor engagement around their conversion rate of traffic to sale.
Once you know this you should establish the web locations, keywords, terms and phrases they collect traffic from, and what pages or website assets they do it with. With this data you can be sure to include the content and pages you need to succeed.
The most successful e-Commerce businesses consistently invest in competitor and market analysis
Many things must be right from the moment you launch your new Shopify site from a technical point of view, like the ability for a search engine to see and index all your pages.
The user interface, such as site navigation and page structure need to deliver a solid user experience, so that when people arrive in your new website they can easily navigate to what they want and complete a sale without resistance, otherwise that traffic just won’t convert and search engines will start dropping you down in their rankings. A lot of this aspect is unseen by the human eye but is crucial to winning trust from the likes of Google, and trust equals ranking.
For this reason, proper planning, scoping and research is vital to businesses regardless of size and how established you are already. I’ve seen eCommerce retailers who were ranking at the top of their competitor pack literally fall to the bottom overnight as they did not properly plan for the migration from their old site to their new Shopify site. Once you lose ranking it takes time to build it back, a situation no businesses stock movement can afford.
If you don’t create and have a well thought through post-launch marketing budget you will suffer as the landscape, we all operate in is constantly changing with intent, devices and technology.
The cost of developing and launching a new Shopify Store
I’ve worked on many Shopify projects in my time, and you probably won’t be surprised to learn that I’ve been involved in launching a wide spectrum of stores in terms of cost. At the low end I’ve seen total project costs as low as £5k, and then some projects I’ve worked on finished at £50k+.
From my experience the cost of creating and launching a Shopify Store will vary based on a few factors, which to be honest are all obvious.
Here are some examples:
The size of your product catalogue:
- In general, the more products you have, the more you’ll pay
The number of variants:
- Variants bring configuration complexities and may result in you needing to install a Shopify App, which has additional monthly subscription costs.
- It can also result in needing custom development to get the user experience working just right, which will cost you more.
Features like embroidery and pre-orders:
- Like variants, features are more than likely to need you to sign up to more Shopify Apps with monthly subs, pushing your costs up.
- These also often require additional development to get them working just the way you want.
Customizations in the admin like pre-order and embroidery flags:
- Don’t forget about the admin functions you need. Most things are achievable but are likely to involve custom development or Shopify Apps, which will push up your costs.
Customizing themes with over design:
- The way your store looks and feels is so important, specially making sure your brand remains strong and consistent.
- Even the best Shopify themes available will need some custom front end styling and development to get things just right. Expect to pay more.
While costs can vary massively, if you’re working with an agency its realistic to expect to pay between £5000 and £15000 for a Shopify site with small to medium size product catalogue, whereas a large product catalogue with many variants can cost upward of £20k+.
Large enterprise level retailers with whopping and ever-changing ranges, variants, features, functions and customizations can expect to pay upward of £50k+.
It’s worth mentioning that Shopify can be limiting in exactly what you can achieve, especially in its admin areas when compared to fully customizable website options from the likes of Magento. However, for a solution like this you can expect costs to be between £50k to £100k and beyond!
There are so many options which are low cost for those with small budgets, and premium options for larger retailers.
My list is certainly not an exhaustive list of the best options. No joke, there are literally thousands of options and agencies that promise to deliver the best work you’ll ever see and boost your sales into orbit. My list only represents a range of price points.
Let’s get cracking, kicking off with the free options…
Free Shopify training options
Everyone one loves something for free. However, finding quality training for free needs to be approached with caution to make sure you don’t waste your time on something that turns out to be worthless.
However, here are some quality free training options that will help you massively in creating and launching your new Shopify store by yourself.
Online training options
Shopify Academy: Shopify Development Fundamentals
This is an official Shopify course, and you’ll earn a Shopify fundamentals badge once you finish.
The course is designed to teach you all the essential skills you’ll need to create your new Shopify site. By the time you’ve completed the course you’ll understand how to customise your store and extend the functionality of the platform.
There are no skills needed to jump on the course, however some basic development experience might be helpful. The course is split into 4 modules; developing on Shopify; customising themes; exploring and extending Shopify’s data model; integrating with Shopify.
You can learn at your own pace and check that Shopify is the right choice for you before starting any development. We’ve all completed these courses and many more from the Shopify Academy here at TJB, I can vouch that these courses are put together very well and aren’t overly technical.
Google Skill Shop: Google Ads; Google Analytics; Google My Business;
Anyone launching a new Shopify site should 100% complete the 3 courses I’ve mentioned above.
This is all essential knowledge for any eCommerce business. The best part is they are totally free, and you can learn at your own speed. All our team, including myself, have completed all the Google Skill Shop courses, and I can personally vouch for how good these courses are.
You’ll gain some of the most important knowledge you need around how to Analyse your stores data once its live with Google Analytics
You’ll also fully understand Google Ads, and how to build and launch a campaign which converts clicks to sales.
Google My Business is a must for everyone regardless of how small or big you are, this course will ensure you maximise one of the best free business listing directories available.
All this Google Knowledge is so helpful in ensuring your new Shopify site has all the content and structure it needs to succeed.
Books & Podcasts
There are literally thousands of books and podcasts you can indulge around starting up a Shopify store.
While these won’t offer the degree of learning and interactivity, you’ll get from the free courses I’ve highlighted above, they are an amazing supplement to your learning path in further extending your knowledge and insight.
My top personal recommendations for someone starting out are below:
Shopify for Dummies
Don’t be fooled by the title, you may be familiar with the ‘for dummies’ lineup of books. I was and had used them as reference guides for other things in the past.
Seriously this is a great book that you’ll find becomes a permanent fixture on your desk. Paul Waddy, the author takes you through how to create and open a thriving Shopify store. The book covers everything from marketing and customer engagement to payments and shipping.
The Shopify Podcast
Shopify’s very own Podcast is a good place to check in. They release weekly podcasts with business owners who have Shopify stores, sharing their wins, loses, tips and tricks. It’s full of inspiration and solutions to many obstacles every Shopify business is faced with, from an online and offline perspective.
Pro tip: My Co-Founder & I read the same books and listen to the same podcasts at the same time, it really helps as we can discuss what we're learning, and it helps us retain everything we're picking up. You should try and hook in a friend, or maybe start a book and podcast group.
Mid-level options
Working with a freelancer or small/mid-size agency £5,000 to £30,000
Where you start with this option depends very much on your budget, time frame and industry.
Freelancers
Hiring a freelancer can be more cost efficient than an agency, but with them being solo operators it tends to take longer to get your store up and running. You’ll also have to do a lot of project management.
No one single person can handle every technical aspect of what you need, so be prepared to maybe put a freelance team of 3 – 5 members together to get all the bases covered. Freelancers also normally have multiple projects on the go, so you may not get the consistent workflow or level of commitment you want.
Freelancers can be found in many online directories, such as People Per Hour. You can get matched to suitable freelancers quickly, and the platform manages every aspect of payment. You can set up project milestones and even connect 3-4 freelancers together in a single chat channel. You will need to invest a lot of time in communications with your freelancers, as you’ll be the project manager.
If you’re not interested in the freelance route, hiring an agency to work with you can be a good alternative.
Agencies
This will be a more expensive route and will cost more than a freelancer. Agencies have more overheads, usually have offices and other operating costs. This can be helpful as they are usually under more pressure to deliver quicker, to make sure they keep their cash flow coming so they can keep up with their costs.
A small to mid-size agency can have a team of 3 – 10, will be collectively multiskilled and can normally handle most of the technical aspects in house, outsourcing what they can’t. They will also take care of project management which means you have more time to focus on your product, service and offering.
There are thousands of small to mid-size agencies you can pick from, and it can be difficult to know where to start.
You should search for an agency who has experience working in your market and can provide you with examples of previous work and successes. Testimonials and case studies are a good measure you can use but be careful not to get drawn in by these alone, as they could be biased.
Their ability to manage your project and collaborate with you effectively is important, you don’t want them to take control, they need to support and qualify your decisions and should always be using market and competitor research to guide the project and your decisions.
Be careful with recommendations too, just because they did a great job for someone you know doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get the same outcome, there are so many variables at play in every project.
You can expect to pay between £85 and £95 per hour for agencies in this bracket. Although many are happy to agree to fixed costs for your project.
High end option
Working with a full spectrum agency £30,000 to £100,000+
Full-spectrum service agencies are a sensible choice if you have the budget.
They will have teams of 20 – 100 all in-house. They’ll also be multi-skilled in every aspect of what’s needed and will have many years of experience. They all started as small to mid-size agencies and have grown through success and experience.
They can be a very solid choice but won’t suit every business looking to launch a Shopify store due to their high costs. Hourly rates can usually be between £105 and £150 per hour, and most will offer fixed prices for projects. Full spectrum agencies will usually always offer flexible payment terms with some aspects of the project based on performance and delivery.
They will insist on your commitment to comprehensive competitor and market research to ensure you get the right outcome and results once your store is up and running. This is very important to their growing PR and credibility. These agencies will normally walk away without your commitment to this as they can’t afford to be associated with a project that doesn’t deliver strong results.
Their nature is usually over delivery as this brings them much respect, credibility, attention and reputation.
They will have systems and processes developed that will provide full transparency in all aspects of your project and deliverables.
Their service is also fully custom and tailored to your exact requirements, there are literally no limits to what they can turn themselves towards.
Note: Expect to pay for upfront market research and competitor analysis with full spectrum service agencies, even if you have your own, as they will want to qualify everything you’re thinking of.
Pro tip: You can achieve the best results by actively incorporating your freelance team or agency into your business, making them an extended part of your company and culture. A good freelancer or agency will be well experienced in being able to support this.
Finding the best option for you
Since COVID-19 the number of Shopify Stores have massively grown from 1,287,547 in March 2020 to a whopping 4,628,418 by February 2024, and the average Shopify merchant uses 6 apps in their store for additional functionality.
It’s inevitable that you will need to extend the Shopify platform to achieve the visitor experience and functions you need and want.
Ecommerce is more competitive than ever, its imperative merchants stay in the front of the pack, by ensuring their stores have the latest in-demand consumer user experiences and functionality.
All the options I’ve outlined can help you do just that.