Ecommerce pricing confuses buyers because two different costs get tangled: the build (one-off) and the platform (forever). This guide separates them with 2026 numbers, so you can see what you're actually signing up for over three years, not just at the invoice.
Build costs in 2026
- Shopify store, standard: $4,000-$9,000. Theme customised properly, up to ~100 products loaded, payments, shipping rules, GST configured. Three to five weeks.
- Shopify store, custom design: $8,000-$15,000. Bespoke design, custom sections, subscriptions or bundles, POS sync. Five to eight weeks.
- WooCommerce: $5,000-$18,000. More flexible, more of everything to configure. Right when you need WordPress content alongside, or want out of platform rent.
- Custom / headless: $25,000-$100,000+. For serious catalogues, unusual selling models or performance at scale. If you're asking whether you need this, you don't yet.
The forever costs, honestly
Shopify Basic runs about $56/month in 2026, plus transaction fees unless you use Shopify Payments, plus apps: the average Australian store runs $50-$150/month of app subscriptions on top. Call it $1,500-$2,500 a year of platform rent. WooCommerce swaps that for hosting ($30-$80/month) and plugin licences, roughly half the ongoing cost, in exchange for more of the maintenance being your problem. Neither is wrong; they're different deals. Our Shopify vs WooCommerce guide goes deep on the trade.
Merchants compare build quotes to the dollar, then ignore the $2,000 a year of platform rent for the life of the store. Over five years the ongoing costs usually exceed the build. Price the whole deal.
What actually drives your build price
Catalogue size and mess. Fifty clean products load in a day. Two thousand products in a chaotic spreadsheet with no photos is a project of its own; data migration is the most underestimated line in ecommerce quotes.
Integrations. POS sync (Square, Lightspeed, Vend), accounting (Xero, MYOB), shipping (Australia Post, Sendle, couriers) each add $500-$2,500 depending on how standard your setup is. Name every system in your brief.
Selling model. Straight retail is cheap. Subscriptions, pre-orders, wholesale pricing tiers, age-gated products (alcohol needs verification) and bookings-plus-products each add real scope.
What a good 2026 store includes without asking
Sub-2-second loads on mobile (most Australian ecommerce traffic is phones), GST-correct invoicing, abandoned-cart email flows, Google Shopping feed, structured data for product rich results, and analytics that show you which products actually make money. If a quote treats any of those as extras, it's a 2019 quote with a 2026 date on it.
The bottom line
A proper Australian online store in 2026 costs $4,000-$15,000 to build and $1,000-$2,500 a year to run, before marketing. The build quote matters less than the three-year total and the conversion rate. Three written quotes from vetted ecommerce developers, free, within 24 hours, will show you your real range.