How Much Does It Cost to Start an Online Store?
How much does it cost to start an online store? See real platform prices, three worked budgets and what you can skip, from about $700 to $1,800.
In this guide
How much does it cost to start an online store? In our example budgets below, about $700 covers the first six months of a small store that doesn't hold stock, and about $1,800 covers one that buys a first batch of 100 units. You can spend less, but those budgets include a real test of your marketing, and that's what most beginners forget to fund.
The store itself is the cheap part. The money goes on stock and on getting people to visit. Here is what each item costs and which ones you can safely skip.
Prices below are US prices checked in November 2026. Anything marked as an example is an assumption for the arithmetic, so replace it with your own quotes.
The costs you can't avoid
A store platform
Shopify: As of November 2026, Shopify's Basic plan is $39 a month in the US when billed monthly, and less when paid yearly. Shopify says prices can vary by location, so check the price shown for your country. It was also offering a 3-day trial and then $1 a month for your first three months on most plans.
Shopify's 2026 platform guide also lists a $5 Starter plan, aimed at selling through social media and links rather than a full store. Availability seems to vary by account, and the fee on each sale is higher, so treat it as a side option.
WooCommerce: The plugin is free, but you need hosting. WooCommerce's own estimate is $25 to $350 a month for most stores, and it lists extensions at $29 to $299 a year each. Small stores can start lower. Hostinger, for example, listed WooCommerce hosting at $167.52 for a 48-month term, renewing at $16.99 a month.
Our Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison works through which is cheaper at different sales levels. For most beginners, the difference is small.
A domain name
Budget about $12 to $20 a year for a .com, which is our estimate of the usual range rather than a fixed price. Registry prices went up on November 1, 2026, and registrars set their own margin on top. Cloudflare Registrar says it doesn't mark up domain prices, so it's a useful benchmark. Always check the renewal price, not just the first-year offer.
Payment processing
This costs nothing upfront, but it's a real cost on every sale. On US stores as of November 2026, the standard online rate is 2.9% + 30¢ with Shopify Payments on Basic, WooPayments and Stripe. On a $30 order, that's $1.17.
International cards usually cost more. Stripe and WooPayments both add 1.5%, plus another 1% if currency conversion is needed.
Business registration and legal basics
This varies too much by location to give a useful figure. In some places you can start as a sole trader for little or nothing. In others, you'll pay for registration, a licence, or both. Check your local business authority before you budget, and ask an accountant if you plan to form a company. Sales tax and VAT rules also apply in many places, and products such as cosmetics, supplements and children's items can carry extra requirements.
The cost that changes everything: your product
Your product model has more effect on your budget than any other decision.
| Model | Money needed before your first sale | What you're paying for |
|---|---|---|
| Print on demand | Low | Samples only |
| Dropshipping | Low | Samples only |
| Make it yourself | Low to medium | Materials and tools |
| Buy wholesale or import | Medium to high | First batch, freight and packaging |
Print on demand and dropshipping don't need a stock budget, but they usually leave a thinner margin on each sale. Printful, for example, says it's free to use with no monthly fee on its standard option. We compare these trade-offs in dropshipping vs holding inventory.
Always pay for samples. It's the cheapest quality check you'll ever run, and photos of your own sample are often better than the supplier's.
If you're buying stock, work out the full cost per unit before you order:
Landed cost per unit = (product cost + shipping to you + duties and fees) ÷ number of units
For example, 100 units at $7 each, plus $150 in freight and $50 in duties and fees, comes to $900. That's a landed cost of $9 per unit, not $7.
Three example budgets for your first six months
These budgets use Shopify Basic at $39 a month, which is $234 for six months, or $120 if you get the $1 offer for the first three months. We've used the full price so that you don't budget around a promotion that might change.
Everything except the platform price is an example, not a quote.
| First six months | Lean, no stock | Small stock | Stock on WooCommerce |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform or hosting | $234 | $234 | $102 |
| Paid extensions | $0 | $0 | $79 |
| Domain | $15 | $15 | $15 |
| Samples | $75 | $75 | $75 |
| First stock (100 units at $9) | $0 | $900 | $900 |
| Packaging (100 units at $1) | $0 | $100 | $100 |
| Scale and shipping supplies | $0 | $40 | $40 |
| Business setup (example) | $100 | $100 | $100 |
| Test marketing | $300 | $300 | $300 |
| Total | $724 | $1,764 | $1,711 |
The hosting line in the third column uses $17 a month at a renewal rate, for six months. On Hostinger's listed offer you'd actually pay for the whole 48-month term upfront, which improves the monthly rate but takes more cash on day one.
Notice how small the platform choice is. Switching from Shopify to WooCommerce saves $53 here. Cutting your first order to 50 units saves $500. If you need to reduce your budget, look at stock first.
Costs you can put off
Beginners regularly spend money here too early:
- A custom logo. Set your store name in a clean font for now. Pay for a logo once people are buying.
- A premium theme. Shopify's theme store includes free themes, and Storefront is a free WooCommerce theme. A clean free theme is enough to test whether a product sells.
- Professional photos. A recent phone, daylight and a plain background will carry you through your first orders.
- Email software. Klaviyo's free plan covers up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month as of November 2026. That's enough to start a simple email marketing setup.
- Shipping software. In the US, Pirate Ship says it charges no monthly fees or markup on labels.
- Apps. Install them only when you can name the problem they solve. Monthly subscriptions are easy to forget.
How much should you spend on marketing?
A new store gets no traffic by itself, so a store with no marketing budget is mostly a plan to wait. The $300 in the examples isn't enough to grow a business. It's enough to find out whether strangers will buy.
Set your budget using your margin. Take the example of a $30 product from our guide to starting a store, with $13.83 profit before marketing. If you spend $300 on ads and get 15 sales, each sale cost $20, which means you lose $6.17 per order. If you get 30 sales, each cost $10, and you keep $3.83 per order.
That simple test tells you more than weeks of planning. Run the same numbers using our guide on how to calculate profit margin.
If you have more time than money, you can replace some ad spend with SEO, social content and community posts. Those channels are cheap but slow, so they need patience.
The monthly cost of running the store
After launch, your regular bill looks something like this. Here's an example with 50 orders a month at $30 each:
| Monthly item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sales | $1,500.00 |
| Shopify Basic | -$39.00 |
| Card fees (2.9% + 30¢ per order) | -$58.50 |
| Left before product, shipping, ads and returns | $1,402.50 |
The card fees are 2.9% of $1,500, which is $43.50, plus 50 orders at 30¢, which is $15.
Fixed platform costs matter less as sales grow. At 50 orders, the plan adds 78¢ per order. At 5 orders, it adds $7.80, which is why low-volume stores should keep subscriptions to a minimum.
Don't forget to set aside money for refunds, reshipments and the next stock order. If all your sales revenue is spent as it arrives, you can be profitable on paper and still run out of cash.
How to start with less money
If $700 is too much right now, cut in this order:
- Validate first. Test demand for the product idea before you pay for anything. A landing page or a pre-order can cost you almost nothing but time.
- Choose a no-stock model or order the smallest batch your supplier allows.
- Sell one product. One product needs one set of samples and one focused message.
- Replace ads with effort. Friends, family and relevant communities can bring your first orders.
- Pay monthly at first. Annual plans are cheaper only if the store lasts a year.
Avoid borrowing to fund a first test. Until you have sales data, a loan is a bet on a guess, and a small first order is a much safer way to learn.
Your next step
Copy the budget table above and replace every example with a real number: a supplier quote, a shipping rate and the price of your domain. Then add 10% as a buffer for what you forgot. If the total is more than you can afford to lose, reduce the first order before you cut the marketing test, because the test is what tells you whether to continue.
