- An Artbrain custom store starts at €4,500, with online payment as a €450 indicative add-on.
- A priced first-year subtotal excludes storage, backups, carrier tariffs, compliance, content and VAT on services.
- A standard €80 EEA Stripe card payment costs €1.45 at the published German tariff.
- One-off Artbrain work costs €45 per hour; maintenance is from €200 per month after a review.
- EU selling can require work on withdrawal, price history, VAT, accessibility, privacy and invoicing.
A store budget is more than the number at the bottom of a development quote. For a European small or medium business, the useful number is the cost to launch, operate for a year and take each payment. That means separating build work from hosting, domain renewal, consent management, support, payment processing, product data, data protection and processor agreements, and country-specific compliance work.
How Much Does an Online Store Cost in 2026? A custom store from Artbrain starts at €4,500, with a 4–8 week delivery window for the starting scope. That is the launch layer, not a first-year total. Add the recurring services you select, such as a domain, hosting, a cookie-consent tool and maintenance after the included 60 days. Then add annual payment-processing costs based on every successful payment. A standard EEA card payment through Stripe Germany, for example, is 1.5% plus €0.25. EU selling also needs a budget line for returns, sale-price history, VAT setup, accessibility, data protection and processor agreements and, where relevant, domestic e-invoicing. A simple store can therefore begin at €4,950 when online payment is added; a data-heavy, multi-language store needs a different scope. Treat every figure here as indicative. The final scope, price and delivery plan should be fixed after a brief.
The first-year cost formula
A useful way to read any ecommerce proposal is:
First-year cost = launch work + fixed annual services, including chosen maintenance + annual payment-processing costs + compliance and accounting work.
| Cost layer | What belongs here | Why it is separate |
|---|---|---|
| One-off launch | Storefront, catalogue, checkout, agreed design, data import, integrations and migration | It pays for the work needed to go live. |
| Fixed recurring costs | Domain, hosting, paid tools, consent management and chosen maintenance | These renew even when no order is placed. |
| Cost per order | Payment gateway and, on some hosted platforms, a platform transaction charge | It rises with sales and payment method mix. |
| Compliance and finance work | Returns flow, VAT, price history, accessibility, privacy and country-specific invoicing | It depends on markets, products and business model. |
For a custom Artbrain store, the starting launch price is €4,500. The starting scope includes catalogue and cart functions, checkout, filtering and search, customer account and wishlist, administration and basic SEO. The starting scope covers delivery options at checkout, including pickup points and address delivery with one carrier connection. Connecting a further named DHL, DPD or GLS carrier has an indicative price of €350. Online payment and data exchange with an accounting system are add-ons too, not assumptions hidden inside the base price. Ask for every required payment, carrier and back-office connection to be named in the written scope.
The ecommerce service page explains how we build stores, and you can request a free task review there. We agree on the exact cost after a short review of your task. A short project brief lets us confirm the catalogue, markets, integrations and delivery conditions before work starts.
Three ways to launch an online store
Hosted SaaS platform
A hosted platform suits a new shop with a conventional catalogue, a short deadline and a team willing to work within the platform’s checkout, data model and app ecosystem. Hosting and core technical operations are normally bundled into the subscription.
The limits are usually commercial rather than visual. A standard product catalogue may fit well, but supplier-specific availability rules, unusual dealer prices, exact data exchange with accounting or a complex migration can become workarounds, paid apps or a reason to choose another route. Before choosing SaaS, ask whether your payment method, target countries, product options, tax logic and data export are supported on the plan you will actually buy.
Open-source CMS
An open-source store can fit a business that wants control of its hosting and can accept responsibility for updates. The software licence itself does not settle the budget. Hosting, theme work, extensions, payment and delivery connectors, security updates, backups and maintenance remain real costs. It can be a sensible route for a familiar, relatively standard catalogue when the team has a clear owner for technical upkeep.
The main limit is often ownership of maintenance rather than ownership of code. A cheap initial build can become expensive if several extensions have overlapping duties, an update breaks checkout or no one knows who owns the hosting account. Ask for an extension list, renewal prices, update responsibility and a recovery plan before comparing it with a custom quote.
Custom development
Custom development suits a business whose store must reflect its actual data and operations: a supplier feed with complicated variants, stock synchronisation with the accounting system, a migration where search traffic matters, or a customer-specific price rule. At Artbrain, a store starts from €4,500, with 4–8 weeks for the starting scope. The contract defines the final scope, price, timeline and payment milestones. In client projects, hosting accounts, code and data belong to the client, with code ownership transferring after final payment unless the contract says otherwise. The price includes 60 days of post-launch support. Hosting, domain and paid services are separate.
Custom is not automatically the right answer for every first shop. It is most defensible when the cost of forcing the business into a template is visible: duplicate product work, staff corrections, unreliable stock, missing redirects, manual invoice handling or checkout rules that a platform cannot express cleanly.
What makes one store cost more than another?
Catalogue structure and source data
Product count alone is a weak estimate. The important questions are where product data comes from, whether fields are consistent and how many variations a customer can select. A few hundred simple products in a prepared spreadsheet can be straightforward. A catalogue with size, colour, compatibility, bundles, images from several sources and changing availability needs more mapping, validation and testing.
Our Ukrainian client store Airstep illustrates the difference. It has more than 6,700 products and synchronises prices, stock and sizes from four supplier XML feeds. The task is not merely displaying a large number of product pages. It is making the imported data searchable and safe enough for a buyer to use. A supplier file should be included in a brief, with a sample export and a note on how often it changes. That gives a developer something concrete to estimate.
Design and checkout decisions
Custom design is included in the base configuration. Premium UI/UX is listed as a €2,500 indicative addition. The price moves when a business needs more than a branded product grid: guided product selection, unusual product builders, multiple buyer roles, detailed content templates or a checkout that has to explain regulated goods. The right question is which screens and buyer decisions must be designed, not whether the homepage looks premium.
Integrations, migration and redirects
Agree which data is exchanged, how often, how failures are handled and who maintains the connection. The indicative price for online payment is €450, data exchange with an accounting system through a connection or CSV file is €800 and a product feed, an export to shopping platforms or marketplaces, is €550. These are indicative prices, assuming a normal integration and available documentation. The remote system, its data quality and its error handling can change the scope.
Migration is another separate job. The Ukrainian client store Safari Zbroia had 3,000 SKUs and automated exchange with the 1C accounting system every 15 minutes. Its SEO migration created 10,315 redirects after reviewing historical and live missing URLs. That is why a proposal should say how products, customers, orders, images, metadata and redirects will be handled, rather than simply promising a migration. The ZHNIV-AGRO case is a smaller-catalogue example: around 219 products moved from OpenCart to Next.js with SEO redirects preserved.
Languages, currencies and B2B rules
Language is not a button that translates a store correctly. It affects product content, navigation, emails, search, SEO fields, legal texts and support. Multi-language at €450 and multi-currency at €350 are indicative additions. The Ukrainian client store Novavroda has three languages and 38 admin sections. That is a useful reminder that the admin experience grows alongside the customer-facing store.
B2B pricing, dealer approvals, credit limits, VAT validation, minimum order rules and customer-specific assortments deserve their own discovery. They change what an order means, who can see a price and when an invoice is created. Do not label these requirements as a generic CRM connection. Only a written rule set and sample customer scenarios can produce a responsible estimate.
Recurring costs after launch
For each recurring service, record who is responsible, when it renews and who has account access. A domain can look cheap in year one and change at renewal.
A consent tool can also be a recurring line.
Artbrain includes 60 days of post-launch support. After that, one-off support work costs €45 per hour, or a maintenance plan starts from €200 per month following a review. For a first-year illustration that begins at launch, ten months at €200 equals €2,000 after the included two months. It is an assumption for budgeting, not a mandatory plan. Hosting, domain and paid modules or services remain separate.
Sellers based in the UK should check UK rules separately, including when they sell to EU customers.
Reduce the budget without weakening the store
Phase the work around a complete buying path. Launch the catalogue, search, checkout, one delivery workflow, the necessary payment method and a reliable order process first. A product comparison tool, quick view, reviews, SMS, email marketing, an installable browser-based store app (PWA) and additional marketplaces can wait if they do not change the first sale. These are separate additions with indicative prices, which makes phasing visible rather than pretending every feature belongs in version one.
Prepare the product table before development begins. Include stable product IDs, names, descriptions, categories, prices, VAT treatment, variants, images, stock source and delivery restrictions. Supply a sample supplier feed and name the person who can answer data questions. This reduces repeated mapping work and avoids loading a bad catalogue into a finished design.
Keep legal work focused on real markets. Do not build a multi-country tax or invoice flow for countries you will not sell into this year. Equally, do not postpone the compliance needed for the country and customers you are launching for. A phased plan is sensible when it postpones optional features, not when it postpones a returns process, payment testing or a lawful price-reduction rule.
How to compare agency quotes
Send every agency the same short brief, product sample and target countries. Then compare the answers line by line. A lower number is meaningful only when the scope is the same.
- Catalogue and data: how many products, variants, images and source files are included? Who cleans bad data?
- Integrations: name the payment provider, carrier, accounting system and feed. Ask what happens when data exchange fails.
- Migration: are products, customers, orders, images, metadata and redirects included? Is a redirect map tested?
- Ownership: who owns the domain, hosting account, source code, design files, product data and third-party accounts after final payment?
- Payment and acceptance: are milestones written down? Before acceptance, run a test order, a refund, delivery calculation, stock update and email receipt in the agreed languages.
- After launch: how long is included support, what does it cover, how are incidents handled, how are backups kept and is restoration tested? Also ask what later work costs and which third-party services renew separately.
Red flags include an unnamed “integration”, an unlimited catalogue without a data source, a migration without redirects, a fixed price with no acceptance tests, accounts owned only by the agency, and recurring tools left out of the first-year view. A professional proposal can state exclusions clearly. That is more useful than a low headline price that moves later.
How long does an online store take?
Artbrain’s ecommerce service page states 4–8 weeks for the starting scope. The clock depends on decisions and inputs, not only programming. A prepared catalogue, confirmed payment and delivery choices, and one person empowered to approve content keep a project moving. Product-data cleanup, custom buyer flows, accounting exchange, several languages, legal review across markets and a migration with redirects take longer because they require decisions and testing outside the screen design.
A practical delivery plan should name the first usable catalogue, integration test dates, content deadline, acceptance checks and launch owner. It should also say what happens to unfinished optional features. A store can launch in stages, but the initial stage still needs a working purchase, refund and customer communication path.
What our store cases show
The first three examples below are stores for clients in Ukraine. They show technical and operational complexity, not a claim about European market conditions. Airstep combines a 6,700+ product catalogue with four supplier XML feeds. Safari Zbroia combines 3,000 SKUs, 1C synchronisation every 15 minutes and 10,315 migration redirects. Novavroda combines three languages with 38 admin sections. Each is a different reason a simple “per page” estimate fails.
CESIOME is a separate international example for an English-speaking audience. It uses USD pricing, Stripe card payments and a three-step purchase without an account. It shows why payment, language and checkout decisions need to be named early. The portfolio is a useful way to inspect the resulting products, but it does not replace a scope for your own catalogue, countries and back-office processes.
Plan the store budget around your actual workflow
Our ecommerce projects start from €4,500. Tell us about your catalogue, markets and required connections, and we will define a practical scope, timeline and fixed project price before development starts.
FAQ
What is included in the €4,500 starting price for an online store?
The starting scope covers the core store functions such as catalogue, cart, checkout, filtering and search, customer account and wishlist, administration and basic SEO. It is a starting scope, not a substitute for a written specification. Online payment, accounting sync and several other integrations are additional work. We review your task for free and agree on the scope, timeline and price before work starts.
How should I calculate the first-year cost of an online store?
Add the launch work to recurring services such as domain, hosting, consent management and chosen maintenance. Then estimate payment fees from expected order count, average order value and payment mix. Keep carrier commercial tariffs, advertising, product photography, legal advice and accounting advice separate unless they are expressly included in a proposal.
How much does card payment processing cost for an €80 order?
At Stripe Germany’s published standard EEA-card tariff, 1.5% of €80 is €1.20. Adding the €0.25 fixed charge makes the payment cost €1.45. The fee changes with the merchant country, card origin, payment method, currency conversion and commercial tariff, so use this as an arithmetic example rather than a universal rate.
Are hosting, domain and maintenance included in an ecommerce build?
At Artbrain, the store project includes 60 days of post-launch support. Hosting, domain and paid modules or services are separate. After the included period, one-off support costs €45 per hour and a maintenance plan starts from €200 per month after a review. The exact service mix should be listed in the contract.
Do I need to budget for EU accessibility if my business is small?
Ecommerce is covered by the European Accessibility Act. A service microenterprise exemption applies to fewer than 10 persons and either annual turnover or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding €2 million. Covered services provided to consumers after 28 June 2025 can be subject to transitional provisions and exceptions. Check your case with a qualified adviser. Accessibility work can affect product selection, cart, checkout, payment and content processes.
What should be tested before an online store is accepted?
Agree acceptance tests before development ends. At minimum, test an order, payment confirmation, delivery calculation, stock update, customer email receipt and refund path. For a multilingual or multi-market store, test the agreed languages, currencies and tax logic as well. A migration should include checks for important redirects and key search pages.
Why does a B2B online store need a tailored estimate?
Dealer prices, approvals, credit terms, VAT validation, customer-specific catalogues and invoice rules change who can buy, what they see and how an order is processed. Those rules need written examples from the business. We review the accounting and customer workflows for free and agree on the scope, timeline and price before work starts.
