How much does an online store build cost?

The base package is $5,500 for a 5–8 week build. That covers a custom theme on Shopify or a custom Block theme on WooCommerce, a checkout that loads in under two seconds on a real-world 4G connection, tax and shipping configured — Stripe Tax handles over 11,000 jurisdictions across the US, Canada, UK and EU — and migration of up to 50 products, 1,000 customers and 12 months of order history. Sixty days of post-launch support is included. Larger catalogues and B2B builds are scoped separately, always as a fixed written price, so the number you agree to is the number you pay.

Should I choose Shopify or WooCommerce?

It depends on how you sell. Shopify costs $39–$399 a month plus a 0.5–2% transaction fee, launches in 4–6 weeks, and suits stores doing roughly $200k–$5M a year that want speed and simplicity. WooCommerce has no platform fee — hosting runs around $30 a month — takes 6–10 weeks, and suits stores in the $500k–$10M range, especially B2B. Either way you get a custom theme built for your brand, not a template bought off a marketplace. On the scoping call we recommend one platform and explain in plain terms why, based on your catalogue and how your customers actually buy.

My current store works, but it is slow and drowning in plugins. Do I really need a rebuild?

Maybe not, and we would rather tell you that early than sell a rebuild you do not need. The free store audit looks at load time, abandoned-cart rate, mobile completion and your plug-in stack, then gives you an honest read on whether a rebuild would pay for itself or whether targeted fixes get you most of the way. Slow, plugin-heavy stores usually fit one of three patterns we see constantly: apps stacking up until every page loads their scripts, a checkout that was never tested on an older phone over weak mobile data, or inventory and shipping setups that crack once volume grows. The audit shows which one you actually have.

Websites and stores

Ecommerce builds that don't break at Black Friday

Ecommerce builds on Shopify or WooCommerce that survive Black Friday. Stripe Tax + shipping zones + abandoned cart wired by default. From $5,500.

Get a fixed-price quote Send a message and we'll call you back

We reply within 4 business hours
4.8 from 16 Google reviews
Six countries

At a glance

Delivered by: Senior people, no junior hand-offs
Where: Brampton, Canada and Patiala, India
Every build: Fast on a phone, works with screen readers
You own: The code, the domain and every account

🛒 ECOMMERCE

Shopify or WooCommerce + custom theme · Stripe Tax + shipping zones · Up to 50 products migrated · From $5,500 · 5–8 week build

The most expensive ecommerce email a small-business owner reads is the one that arrives at 9 PM on Black Friday: "Your checkout has been throwing errors for 40 minutes. We're not sure why."

Most small ecommerce stores ride a slow-burn collapse for two years before they admit they need a rebuild. Plug-ins stack up. Page weight balloons. The mobile checkout starts dropping 30% of carts. The "Sale" badge on the homepage takes 4 seconds to render. Then Black Friday arrives and the cracks become a fire.

We rebuild these stores. Sometimes from a Shopify template that was bolted together in 2021; sometimes from a WooCommerce site running 47 plug-ins. Either way, the brief is the same: the checkout has to work at 100x normal traffic, mobile has to feel like a native app, and the inventory-shipping-tax stack has to be invisible to your customer and bulletproof to your operations team.

Why most ecommerce builds fail at the third week of operation

Three patterns we see consistently:

The plug-in tax. A Shopify store launches with five apps subscribed (reviews, upsells, abandoned cart, shipping, taxes). By month 18, that's 18 apps and $400/mo of recurring fees. The store is slow because every app is loading scripts on every page.

The "responsive" checkout that wasn't. The checkout flow tested fine on the developer's MacBook. On a 5-year-old Android with rural 4G, the address field times out and 22% of orders silently fail.

Inventory and shipping that can't scale. Manual stock adjustments work fine until you ship 200 orders a week. Then a single SKU mistake costs you $2k in chargebacks and a week of refund emails.

We engineer past all three.

The two stacks we work in

	Shopify	WooCommerce
Best for	Brands prioritising marketing velocity, channel sales (Amazon, Instagram Shop), POS integration	Brands needing custom checkout flows, B2B portals, complex pricing rules, lower per-transaction fee at scale
Theme approach	Custom theme (not a marketplace template)	Custom Block-theme
Monthly fee	$39–$399 + 0.5–2% transaction	$0 platform + ~$30 hosting
Time to launch	4–6 weeks	6–10 weeks
Sweet spot	$200k–$5M annual	$500k–$10M annual + B2B

What we wire by default

Checkout speed: Sub-2-second checkout on a real-world 4G connection
Stripe Tax for automatic sales tax across 11,000+ jurisdictions (US + Canada + UK + EU)
Shipping zones with rate calculation per region, not flat-rate guesses
Abandoned cart flow (3-email sequence over 7 days)
Post-purchase flow (review request at day 14, repeat purchase nudge at 60 days)
Inventory sync with your fulfilment system (ShipBob, ShipStation, or in-house)
Real-time dashboards in /admin showing sales, top SKUs, abandoned-cart recovery rate

Migration: bringing your old store along

We've migrated stores from Wix Stores, Squarespace Commerce, BigCommerce, Magento, and (most often) older Shopify stores with messy theme histories.

What comes with you: products, customers, order history, reviews, SEO redirects (so you don't lose Google rankings).

What we leave behind: junk plug-in data, abandoned customisations, inventory you stopped stocking 18 months ago.

Migration is included in the build cost up to 50 products, 1,000 customers, and 12 months of order history. Larger migrations are scoped separately.

Pricing

Ecommerce package starts at $5,500 for a 5–8 week build with up to 50 products migrated. Larger catalogs and B2B portals are quoted after a discovery call.

Includes 60 days of post-launch support — if anything's broken, we fix it free.

What this looks like in practice

Stores we have shipped are at /work, live and openable. Ask us for the one closest to yours and we will send you the link rather than a composite we cannot name.

Talk to us about your store

We'll audit your current store free — load time, abandoned cart rate, mobile completion, plug-in stack — and tell you honestly whether a rebuild pays back. Most don't, until they do.

Get a free store audit → — or start an ecommerce build

In every project, every tier

What you get regardless of what you buy

One fixed price

The scope and the number are agreed before work starts. No surprise add-ons.

Loads in under a second and a half

Speed is something we build to, not something we measure at the end and apologise for.

Built for phones first

Designed on a phone-sized screen and then opened out, because that is where your customers are.

Found on Google from day one

The things search engines need are in place before launch, not bolted on six months later.

Works with screen readers

Keyboard navigation and assistive technology are tested on every page, not just the home page.

Support after launch

We are still here after the invoice clears. Care plans start at $49/mo if you want us on call.

How it runs

From your first message to launch

Brief
You tell us the goal. We reply within 4 business hours.
Scope
A 30-minute call, then a fixed-price proposal within two business days.
Build
You watch it happen in the client portal, not in a status email.
Launch
We ship, measure, and hand over every account and password.

Proof

Recent work

Browse all 22 →

Before you decide

Questions people ask about ecommerce builds that don't break at black friday

The base package is $5,500 for a 5–8 week build. That covers a custom theme on Shopify or a custom Block theme on WooCommerce, a checkout that loads in under two seconds on a real-world 4G connection, tax and shipping configured — Stripe Tax handles over 11,000 jurisdictions across the US, Canada, UK and EU — and migration of up to 50 products, 1,000 customers and 12 months of order history. Sixty days of post-launch support is included. Larger catalogues and B2B builds are scoped separately, always as a fixed written price, so the number you agree to is the number you pay.
It depends on how you sell. Shopify costs $39–$399 a month plus a 0.5–2% transaction fee, launches in 4–6 weeks, and suits stores doing roughly $200k–$5M a year that want speed and simplicity. WooCommerce has no platform fee — hosting runs around $30 a month — takes 6–10 weeks, and suits stores in the $500k–$10M range, especially B2B. Either way you get a custom theme built for your brand, not a template bought off a marketplace. On the scoping call we recommend one platform and explain in plain terms why, based on your catalogue and how your customers actually buy.
Maybe not, and we would rather tell you that early than sell a rebuild you do not need. The free store audit looks at load time, abandoned-cart rate, mobile completion and your plug-in stack, then gives you an honest read on whether a rebuild would pay for itself or whether targeted fixes get you most of the way. Slow, plugin-heavy stores usually fit one of three patterns we see constantly: apps stacking up until every page loads their scripts, a checkout that was never tested on an older phone over weak mobile data, or inventory and shipping setups that crack once volume grows. The audit shows which one you actually have.

The general before-you-call questions live on the FAQ page.

Ready to talk about your project?

One sentence about the goal is enough to start. We will tell you honestly whether this is the right service for it.

Get a fixed-price quote See pricing

We reply within 4 business hours.