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How much does an online store cost in 2026

Updated: 5 October 2026 · reading time about 8 minutes

The question "how much does an online store cost" has as many answers as there are ways to build one. The same store with a few dozen products can be launched for a small monthly fee, or you can spend tens of thousands of zlotys on it – and in both cases it can be the right decision. Below we break the price into parts, describe three typical models and show where the costs nobody mentions at the start usually hide.

What makes up the cost of an online store

No matter which platform the store is built on, the bill consists of the same items. What differs is which of them you pay upfront, which monthly, and which you do yourself.

• Platform or operating model. A ready-made subscription store, an open source system on your own hosting, or a store written from scratch. This decision sets all the other costs.
• Graphic design. A ready-made template is cheap, but looks like hundreds of other stores. A design tailored to your brand costs more, but it is easier to stand out.
• Integrations. Online payments, couriers and parcel lockers, marketplaces, price comparison sites, an accounting system and KSeF invoices. Each integration means work on configuration, testing and later maintenance.
• Content and product photos. Descriptions, photos, variants, categories. With several hundred products this is often the most time-consuming part of the whole project – and it usually falls on the owner.
• Migration. If you are moving an existing store, you also need to move products, customers, orders and URLs. A poorly done migration can cost you your Google rankings.
• Maintenance. Hosting, domain, SSL certificate, updates, backups, monitoring and security. This item does not disappear after launch – you pay it for as long as the store runs.
• Marketing after launch. SEO, Google Ads and Meta campaigns, email. This is a separate budget that should not be mixed with the cost of building. A store with no traffic does not sell, no matter how much it cost.

Three models – and how they spread costs over time

1. Subscription online store

A ready-made SaaS platform, or a store prepared by an agency and billed monthly. You do not buy software, you pay for using it together with hosting, updates and support.

• Pros: low entry threshold, fast start, no worrying about servers and updates. A predictable monthly cost.
• Cons: you pay for as long as you use it. What you can do is limited by what the platform allows, and unusual features can be hard or impossible.
• Hidden costs: sales commissions on some plans, paid add-ons and apps, higher subscription tiers as the number of products or orders grows. It is also worth checking whether and how you can export your data when you want to change platforms.

2. Open source: WooCommerce, PrestaShop and similar

The system itself is free, but a store built on it is not. You need hosting, a theme, usually a handful or a dozen plugins, and most often an implementer to connect it all together.

• Pros: a lot of freedom, a huge choice of extensions, data on your own server, no fees for the license itself.
• Cons: every plugin is separate code from a different author. Updating one can break another, and over time the store slows down and becomes hard to maintain.
• Hidden costs: paid plugin licenses renewed every year, developer hours at every major update, patching security holes, higher-performance hosting as the store grows. These expenses rarely appear in the first quote.

3. Dedicated store on custom code

A store written for a specific business, with no ready-made system underneath. Integrations are part of the code, not a collection of plugins.

• Pros: exactly the features you need, performance, security and no dependence on other people's add-ons.
• Cons: a higher one-off cost and a longer preparation time than with a ready-made store. It matters that the contractor can maintain it for years.
• Hidden costs: depend on the contract – if every change is priced separately and the final price depends on the number of hours, the budget easily gets out of hand. That is why it is worth asking for a fixed price and for exactly what it covers.

The cheapest online store – when it is enough and when it gets expensive

The cheapest online store is usually a ready-made platform on a basic plan, or a simple store on a free system with a ready-made theme. It is a sensible choice when:

• you are testing an idea and do not yet know whether the product will sell,
• you have a dozen or a few dozen products and one sales channel,
• you do not need unusual integrations or your own discount or delivery logic.

The problem starts when the store grows. A marketplace comes in, a second delivery method, KSeF invoices, ad campaigns that require accurate conversion tracking. Each of these is another add-on, another fee and another element that can stop working after an update. At some point the total cost of add-ons and fixes exceeds what a store built from the start with these needs in mind would have cost – and on top of that comes the cost of migration.

A simple rule: if you plan to sell through several channels or already know you will need integrations, calculate the cost over two to three years, not for the first month.

How we price stores at Axisway

We have two options that match two different situations.

• Subscription store – PLN 400–600 net per month, with no separate fee at the start. We agree the scope at a consultation, depending on what your store needs. If you want to run promotion alongside the store right away, there is also the Basic package for PLN 1,000 per month: a store or a promotional website, an AI agent for communicating with customers, Google SEO, promotion in Google Business Profile, setup of Google Analytics and ad channels – about 10 hours of our work per month.
• Store on unique code with AI – PLN 15,000 net, fixed price, regardless of the store's complexity. No off-the-shelf open source systems or plugins – we write and test the integrations ourselves: Tpay payments, InPost, WhatsApp, SMS, Google Merchant Center, Meta, Allegro, TikTok Shop, Ceneo and KSeF (the Polish national e-invoicing system). On top of that an MCP server that lets you manage the store from ChatGPT or Claude, and the Twinlix chatbot answering customers around the clock. We also migrate stores from WooCommerce and WordPress without losing Google rankings.

We describe the AI store in detail on the page online store with AI, and all the ways of working together in the online store development offer.

Sample calculation: subscription or one-off

Arithmetic alone does not settle the matter. A subscription includes maintenance, while with a store bought one-off you need to account separately for hosting and care. On the other hand, a store on custom code gives you a scope you usually will not get in a subscription. A subscription makes sense when you are starting and want a low entry threshold. The one-off option makes sense when you sell through many channels, need integrations and are planning for years ahead.

How to set up an online store – first steps

Before you choose a platform, it is worth sorting out a few things. The list below is general – for legal and tax matters, consult an accountant or a lawyer.

1. Business activity. Check in what form you will sell and what tax obligations apply to you, including invoicing.
2. Range and prices. Calculate your margin taking into account delivery costs, payment operator fees and returns.
3. Store terms and privacy policy. They must match how your store actually works, not be copied from another one.
4. GDPR and cookies. Consents for data processing and for marketing scripts, recorded in a way that can be demonstrated later.
5. Consumer rights and the Omnibus Directive. Rules for returns and complaints and the information about the lowest price from the last 30 days for promotions.
6. Payments and delivery. Choose a payment operator and carriers before you start building – integrations depend on them.
7. Content and photos. Prepare product descriptions and photos in advance. It is the most common reason for pushing back the launch.
8. Online store platform. Only now, knowing your needs, choose a model: subscription, open source or custom code.

Summary

The cost of an online store is not only the price at the start, but the sum of building, integrations, maintenance and changes over several years. A subscription lowers the entry threshold, open source gives freedom at the price of maintaining plugins, and a store on custom code costs more at the start, but does not generate extra charges for every add-on. Count marketing separately. And if the store is also meant to offer AI-based customer service, take a look at our article on how much AI implementation costs and at the description of chatbots for business.