How much does a Shopify website cost?

A Shopify website is often perceived as a simple and affordable way to launch an online store. Shopify pricing plans cover hosting, security, and core ecommerce features, making it easy to get started quickly. However, the real cost of a Shopify website goes far beyond the monthly subscription. As soon as you need custom design, advanced ecommerce features, or integrations, the total project cost increases significantly.

The main cost drivers of a Shopify website are not the platform itself, but everything built on top of it. Custom themes or heavy theme customization are often required to differentiate a brand and improve conversion rates. In addition, advanced ecommerce needs such as custom checkout logic, complex product rules, or integrations with external systems usually require extra development. While Shopify is extremely powerful for standard ecommerce use cases, its architecture limits deep backend customization. As complexity grows, development often relies on workarounds, custom apps, or external services, which directly impacts cost and maintenance.

Shopify allows customization through Liquid templates, apps, and APIs. This makes it possible to implement advanced product logic, automation, and integrations with ERP, CRM, or marketing tools. However, most custom features are added around Shopify rather than fully embedded into the platform. Checkout customization, complex pricing rules, or non-standard workflows are often constrained by Shopify’s core structure. As a result, custom ecommerce features typically require additional development time, paid apps, or even custom Shopify apps

Shopify’s ecosystem relies heavily on third-party apps to extend functionality. Apps are commonly used for subscriptions, reviews, upsells, shipping rules, automation, and analytics. Most Shopify apps operate on monthly subscriptions, and complex stores often depend on multiple apps at once. Over time, these recurring costs accumulate and can easily exceed the Shopify plan itself. In addition, relying on third-party apps creates long-term dependencies. Pricing changes, app limitations, or discontinued services can directly impact store stability and maintenance costs.

Shopify handles infrastructure, security, and updates, which reduces technical maintenance at the beginning. However, scaling an ecommerce business introduces new challenges related to performance, SEO, and customization limits. As stores grow, merchants often need to refactor themes, replace apps, or rebuild parts of the store to support new requirements. These partial redesigns increase maintenance costs over time. For complex ecommerce projects, maintaining and extending a Shopify store can eventually become more expensive than moving to a custom solution.

The cost of a Shopify website depends mainly on design complexity, custom features, and app dependencies:

Basic Shopify Store: $500 – $1,500

Professional ecommerce website: $1,500 – $5,000

Advanced or custom-heavy ecommerce project: $5,000 – $20,000+