In this guide (7)
- 1The setup cost: what you see in the quote
- 2Recurring costs: what you don't see
- 3Fees: the cost that grows with revenue
- 4Maintenance and updates: who does them and at what price
- 5The 3-year comparison: traditional model vs fixed fee
- 6Checklist: what to ask before signing
- 7The alternative model: fixed fee with no commissions
You're requesting quotes for an ecommerce website. Every figure you receive is different from the others, and no one explains why.
A freelancer quotes you €2,500. An agency sends you a quote for €8,000. An American SaaS platform tells you "free, you only pay 2% on sales". Three completely different models, impossible to compare if you don't know what you're looking at.
This guide breaks down every cost item in an ecommerce quote, including the ones almost no one explicitly lists for you. By the end you'll know exactly what to ask — and above all what to calculate — before signing anything.
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The setup cost: what you see in the quote
The setup cost is almost always the only figure that appears explicitly in the quote. It's the one that gets compared, the one that's negotiated, the one that often determines the final choice. And, paradoxically, it's also the least important item in the total 3-year cost.
A standard ecommerce for an Italian SME in 2026 is built on three main platforms, each with a different cost range.
WooCommerce on WordPress has a setup cost ranging from €1,500 to €8,000 depending on complexity — number of products, variants, integrations with management software, graphic customization. The software is free, but the work of configuration, customization and integration is entirely up to the developer. PrestaShop follows the same pattern: zero cost for the license, variable cost for development, typically €2,500-10,000 for a serious project. Shopify has a different model: setup requires less technical work (it's a managed platform), so quotes start lower — often €800-2,500 — but the monthly fee is mandatory from the start.
The problem with comparing these quotes is that you're comparing different magnitudes. A €3,000 WooCommerce quote and a €1,200 Shopify quote are not the same thing: the latter comes with a monthly subscription starting at €29, transaction fees, and an ecosystem of paid apps that the former doesn't have. The setup cost is just the tip of the iceberg.
Recurring costs: what you don't see
After going live, the real bill starts. The recurring costs of an ecommerce are structurally higher than the setup cost over any time horizon beyond 12 months.
Hosting
An ecommerce needs dedicated hosting or a VPS with guaranteed resources: €5/month shared hosting can't handle the traffic, can't handle the peaks, and doesn't guarantee the response times that Google measures in Core Web Vitals. A decent VPS for an ecommerce starts at €20-50/month. With optimized configuration, CDN and backups included, it easily reaches €80-120/month. Over 3 years: €2,880-4,320 in hosting, which almost never appears in the initial quote.
Paid plugins and extensions
The base versions of WooCommerce and PrestaShop don't include many features essential for a professional ecommerce: advanced shipping management, electronic invoicing, polished transactional emails, abandoned cart recovery, advanced analytics, inventory management. Each of these features is added with paid plugins or modules, with annual licenses ranging from €30 to €300 each. A realistic setup requires 5-10 premium plugins: €300-1,500/year in software licenses alone, excluding configuration and update hours.
Themes and templates
Premium themes for WooCommerce and PrestaShop have annual or one-time licenses. A quality theme starts at €60 one-time, but more advanced themes with active support cost €150-300/year. And every major CMS update risks making the theme incompatible, requiring paid technical work.
Fees: the cost that grows with revenue
Fees are the sneakiest cost item because they never appear in the initial quote — and because they grow in proportion to your success.
Platform fees
Shopify applies a fee on every transaction ranging from 0.5% to 2% of the sale value, depending on the plan, if you don't use Shopify Payments as your gateway. On revenue of €50,000/month, a 2% fee amounts to €1,000/month — €12,000/year — on sales you've already generated. It's literally a variable fee that scales with your revenue, and no quote shows you its true cost over three years.
Payment gateway fees
To be clear, this cost exists with any solution: Stripe charges 1.5% + €0.25 per transaction in Europe, PayPal has similar fees. It's not a trap specific to any platform — it's the real cost of electronic payment that every merchant pays. However, it should be included in the margin calculation, because on significant volumes it has a substantial impact.
Apps and integrations on Shopify
The Shopify ecosystem works through paid apps for any feature not included in the base plan. Each app has its own monthly fee: €15/month for automated emails, €25/month for abandoned cart recovery, €30/month for advanced shipping management. A functional Shopify ecommerce for an Italian SME typically requires 5-8 active apps: €150-300/month in app store costs, €1,800-3,600/year, which no one writes into the quote on day one.
Maintenance and updates: who does them and at what price
An ecommerce site on WooCommerce or PrestaShop requires constant updates: WordPress/PrestaShop core, theme, every single plugin. Every update is a potential breaking point: plugins incompatible with each other, features that stop working, layouts that shift. Who manages these updates, and at what cost, is one of the most important questions to ask before signing a quote.
If the agency does it, it's usually a separate maintenance contract: €50-150/month for a basic service, €200-500/month for a service that includes active monitoring, tested updates and emergency interventions. Over 3 years: €1,800-18,000 in maintenance, outside the initial quote.
If you do it yourself, the cost isn't in euros but in time and risk. Every update that isn't done is a vulnerability that stays open. In 2025, over 11,000 vulnerabilities were recorded in WordPress components — plugins, themes, core. An ecommerce site with payment data and customer delivery addresses is a high-value target for anyone automatically scanning for these vulnerabilities.
The 3-year comparison: traditional model vs fixed fee
When you put together all the line items — setup, hosting, plugins, maintenance, platform fees — the picture changes radically compared to the initial quote.
| Cost item | WooCommerce (3 years) | Shopify (3 years) | KeideaCMS Business (3 years) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial setup | €2,500-5,000 | €800-2,500 | Included |
| Hosting (3 years) | ~€2,160 | ~€1,044 (Basic plan) | Included |
| Premium plugins/apps (3 years) | ~€1,800 | ~€5,400 (app store) | Zero |
| Maintenance (3 years) | ~€2,400 | Managed by Shopify | Included |
| Platform fees (3 years)* | Zero | ~€3,600+ | Zero |
| Platform subscription (3 years) | Zero | ~€1,044 | €3,564 |
| Estimated 3-year total | ~€8,860-11,360 | ~€11,888-13,588 | €3,564 |
*Shopify fees calculated on revenue of €5,000/month with the Basic plan (2% fee on external gateways). Payment gateway fees (Stripe/PayPal) exist with any solution and are not included in the comparison.
Checklist: what to ask before signing
Before signing any ecommerce quote, ask these questions in writing and demand written answers:
Does the quote include hosting, or is it separate? On which infrastructure?
Which premium plugins or modules are needed, and what is their annual licence cost?
Who manages updates to the CMS, theme and plugins after go-live? At what cost?
Does the platform charge commissions on sales? What percentage, on which plan?
What happens if I want to change provider? Can I export the catalogue, customers and order history?
Does the domain remain my property and can I transfer it freely?
Are there additional costs for every change to the site after launch?
Does the contract have a binding minimum term? What penalty applies in case of early termination?
If the quote does not explicitly answer at least six of these eight questions, it is not a complete quote: it is a setup figure hiding years of undisclosed costs.
The alternative model: fixed fee with no commissions
There is an ecommerce model that structurally solves the hidden-cost problem: an all-inclusive fixed fee, with no platform commissions and no paid plugins.
KeideaCMS Business includes, in a single annual fee, the complete ecommerce solution (catalogue, variants, cart, checkout, order management), dedicated hosting on Italian servers, maintenance, updates, direct support and setup. Zero commissions on sales — what you earn is entirely yours. Zero plugins to buy. Zero surprises on the invoice.
The fee is €1,188/year (€99/month), with setup included in the first year. Over 3 years the total cost is €3,564 — less than many WordPress or Shopify ecommerce sites cost in hosting, plugins and maintenance alone over the same period.
If you are considering building an ecommerce site with no platform commissions, you can request a free quote with an analysis of your specific situation.
KeideaCMS Business
Fixed-fee ecommerce: €1,188/year, all-inclusive, zero commissions on sales.
