Web design and development
How Much Does a Shopify Store Cost to Build?
The short answer
A Shopify store has two costs: the build, which is a one-off and ranges from a few hundred dollars DIY to five figures with an agency, and the running costs, which start with a plan from US$19 a month billed yearly and grow with apps and payment fees. The published build ranges are written by firms that sell the work and do not agree with each other, so treat them as a spread and price your own scope line by line.
How much does a Shopify store cost?
A Shopify store costs two different things: a one-off build, and a monthly bill that never stops. Published build prices run from about US$50 for a DIY store on a free theme to US$50,000 or more for an agency build, and the monthly platform fee starts at US$19 on Shopify's cheapest plan billed yearly. Most small businesses sit in the middle: a store set up by a freelancer or small studio, a Basic or Grow plan, and a handful of paid apps.
Every build range in this guide comes from a firm that sells Shopify work, so each is labeled with who said it and when we checked. We could not find a neutral survey of what Shopify stores cost, and we did not invent one. That is why the ranges below overlap and sometimes contradict each other. What you can price accurately is Shopify's own fees, which are on its pricing page, and your own scope, which no blog can know.
What do Shopify's plans cost?
Shopify's plans are the part of the cost you can read straight from the source. On Shopify's Pakistan pricing page, checked November 6, 2026, the US-dollar prices were:
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly (per month) |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | US$25 | US$19 |
| Grow | US$65 | US$49 |
| Advanced | US$399 | US$299 |
| Plus | From US$2,300 | Not listed |
Shopify's header on the same page says "Try 3 days free, then US$1/month for 3 months." Prices vary by country: the same pricing page fetched from a European address listed euros (Basic at €32 monthly or €24 yearly), so check the page in your own region before you budget. The plan is a running cost, not part of the build quote, and a build price should never be described as including it.
Two plan details change the real cost. First, plans carry different card rates when you use Shopify Payments. Second, using a payment provider other than Shopify Payments adds a third-party transaction fee. On the euro-priced page, those fees were 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus. The dollar page says only that the rate depends on your plan. If you take payments through a third-party gateway, that percentage is paid on top of the gateway's own fee, which is why the cheapest plan is not always the cheapest store.
What does a Shopify build cost: DIY, freelancer or agency?
Published ranges for the build itself depend on who is selling. We fetched four pages on November 6, 2026 and kept what each says, with its author:
| Source (who sells Shopify work) | DIY | Freelancer | Agency |
|---|---|---|---|
| ECOSIRE, updated September 25, 2026 | US$500 to US$3,000 | US$2,000 to US$10,000 (freelancer or small studio) | US$8,000 to US$50,000+ (small agency US$8,000 to US$25,000; established agency or Plus partner US$25,000 to US$50,000+) |
| Dynamic Dreamz, July 8, 2026 | US$50 to US$500 (free theme, self-built) | Hourly: junior US$15 to US$30, mid-level US$33 to US$70 | Professional small-business build US$2,000 to US$5,000; mid-market custom US$5,000 to US$15,000; Plus builds US$15,000 to US$80,000. Hourly: US/Canada agency US$120 to US$200 |
| eComStart, updated October 22, 2026 | Not stated | "a basic Shopify store setup for anywhere between $200 and $1,000" | "sometimes going beyond $5,000" |
The disagreement is the finding. One firm puts a freelancer build at US$2,000 or more, another at US$1,000 or less. One calls US$2,000 to US$5,000 a professional small-business build; another puts agencies at US$8,000 and up. None of the three says how its range was derived: ECOSIRE credits its research team and promotes its own services, and eComStart names no author and no source for its figures. Treat all of them as marketing ranges, useful for spotting an outlier quote, not for judging a fair one.
What explains the gap
The gaps come from scope, not from the label on the seller. A store with 20 products, a purchased theme and standard pages is a different job from one with 2,000 products to import, variants, a custom theme, subscriptions, a migration from another platform and tracking wired to your ad accounts. A quote for the first and a quote for the second are not comparable, whoever sends them.
What is in a Shopify build, and what drives the price?
A Shopify build is more than a theme with products in it. These are the lines that move a quote, and the ones worth asking a seller to itemize:
| Scope line | Why it changes the price |
|---|---|
| Theme and design | A free theme configured is cheapest; a paid theme is a licence on top; a custom theme is development time |
| Products and collections | Number of products, variants, imports, and who writes the descriptions and takes the photos |
| Payments | Which gateways, which currencies, and whether cash on delivery or manual payment is needed |
| Shipping and tax | Rates, zones, couriers, and any app that connects a carrier |
| Apps | Each app is a monthly bill and a setup job, so ask for the list |
| Migration | Moving products, customers and redirects from an old site, which also affects search traffic |
| Tracking | Analytics and ad events (purchases especially) set up and tested, not assumed |
| Content pages and policies | Shipping, returns, privacy and terms pages that match how you actually operate |
| Training and handover | Whether you can edit the store yourself on day one |
| Support after launch | Fixes, updates and changes, usually billed separately |
Hourly rates change the arithmetic. Dynamic Dreamz lists mid-level freelancers at US$33 to US$70 an hour and US/Canada agencies at US$120 to US$200, and it describes a hybrid model, US strategy with offshore delivery, at US$40 to US$80 blended. The same scope at three rates produces three prices, so ask for hours and rate, or a fixed scope, not just a total.
What does a Shopify store cost every month after launch?
The running cost is the one that surprises people, because it does not appear in the build quote.
- Plan: from US$19 a month billed yearly (see above).
- Domain: Shopify's domains page says domains "typically start at $9 USD/year, billed annually," with the exact price shown in your admin before you buy.
- Theme: free themes cost nothing; on its front page the Theme Store listed paid themes from US$100 (Strong) to US$400 (Stretch). That is a sample, not the whole catalog.
- Apps: priced by each developer. For example, in our research for a Pakistan store, the Courierfy app listed US$9.99, US$19.99 and US$99.99 a month; other apps will differ.
- Payment fees: the card rate if you use Shopify Payments, or the gateway's fee plus Shopify's third-party fee if you do not.
- Maintenance: changes, new products and fixes, either your time or someone's invoice.
Add these up for your own stack before you compare build quotes. A cheap build that needs five paid apps can cost more over a year than a dearer build that does the same job natively.
Which should you choose: DIY, freelancer or agency?
Choose by risk, not by price.
- DIY fits a small catalog, a free theme and an owner with a few weekends and no need for custom behavior. The cost is your time, and the risk is checkout, tracking or shipping rules that quietly do not work.
- A freelancer fits a defined job: a store to a clear spec with one person accountable. Check who covers it when they are unavailable, and what is handed over.
- An agency fits a store that must connect to other work: ads, SEO, email, inventory, or a migration where lost rankings are a real cost. You are paying for several skills and a process, not only build hours.
Our guide on agency, freelancer or software house for a website in Pakistan goes through the same decision for sites generally, and choosing a web development company in Islamabad lists what to check before you sign. If you are replacing an existing store, read how to redesign a website without losing SEO first, because the redirect and migration work is where cheap quotes most often cut corners.
What do the ranking cost pages leave out?
The three cost pages we read in full (ECOSIRE, Dynamic Dreamz, eComStart) share gaps, and each one is a place a budget goes wrong.
- Running costs are a side note. Build ranges are given separately from the monthly bill, and none of the three adds apps, payment fees and maintenance into a first-year total for you.
- The numbers have no stated method. Ranges are printed without saying how they were derived, and all three come from sellers of Shopify work. ECOSIRE's page, which also fills several search results as translated copies, names a research team, not a method.
- Payments are ignored. Whether you can use Shopify Payments at all depends on your country, and a third-party gateway adds a second fee. For a store selling in Pakistan this changes the whole set-up, which is why we wrote a separate guide to Shopify payments, cash on delivery and couriers in Pakistan.
A fair quote lists the scope lines in the table above, says what it excludes, and states the monthly costs you will carry afterwards.
How to get a Shopify quote you can compare
- Write the scope first: number of products, variants, payment methods, shipping zones, apps you already know you need, and whether you are migrating.
- Ask each seller to price the same list, with hours and rate if they bill by time.
- Ask what is excluded: theme licences, apps, photography, copy, migration, and support after launch.
- Ask who owns the store, the theme code and the accounts at the end. They should be yours.
- Add the running costs to each quote and compare the first-year total.
- Check tracking: ask how purchase events will be tested, because ads and reporting depend on them.
How 1920 Agency approaches a Shopify store
1920 Agency is an independent agency based in Islamabad, with locations in Rawalpindi and Lahore, working with clients in the US, UK, Australia and Pakistan. We do not publish prices for our own work: we map the job first, then quote, and the quote lists what is included. The sections above are the questions we expect a buyer to ask us.
Where a store needs to sell as well as exist, the build and the marketing have to agree. For the footwear brand Muzaree, we run Meta ads on the Sales objective, optimizing for purchases, and the Muzaree case study shows the store behind them. If you want a Shopify store scoped that way, see our web design and development service.
Sources
All pages checked November 6, 2026.
- Shopify Pakistan, pricing (USD plan prices, trial wording; the euro-priced version of the pricing page was used for third-party transaction fee percentages)
- Shopify, domains
- Shopify Help Center, Theme Store
- Shopify Theme Store
- ECOSIRE, Shopify store setup cost 2026 (published June 6, 2026, updated September 25, 2026)
- Dynamic Dreamz, Shopify development cost in Los Angeles (July 8, 2026)
- eComStart, Shopify freelancer vs agency (published August 19, 2025, updated October 22, 2026)
- Shopify App Store, Courierfy (app price example, checked November 5, 2026)
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to build a Shopify store?
It depends on who builds it and what is in scope. Published figures we checked on November 6, 2026 run from US$50 to US$500 for a DIY store with a free theme (Dynamic Dreamz) up to US$8,000 to US$50,000 or more for an experienced agency (ECOSIRE). Both firms sell Shopify work, so use the numbers as a spread, not a benchmark.
How much does Shopify itself cost per month?
On Shopify's Pakistan pricing page, checked November 6, 2026, Basic is US$19 a month billed yearly (US$25 billed monthly), Grow is US$49 (US$65), Advanced is US$299 (US$399) and Plus starts at US$2,300. Shopify's header offers three days free, then US$1 a month for three months. Prices differ by country, and the same page viewed from a European address showed euros.
Is it cheaper to hire a freelancer or an agency for Shopify?
Usually a freelancer quotes less, but the sources disagree on how much. eComStart says US$200 to US$1,000 for a basic setup, ECOSIRE says US$2,000 to US$10,000 for a freelancer or small studio, and Dynamic Dreamz lists mid-level freelancers at US$33 to US$70 an hour against US$120 to US$200 for US and Canadian agencies. The difference that matters is what the quote includes, not the headline.
Do I have to pay for a Shopify theme?
No. Shopify's help centre says you can explore free and paid themes in the Shopify Theme Store. The paid themes we saw on the Theme Store front page were listed from US$100 (Strong) to US$400 (Stretch), but that is only the sample shown on that page, not the whole catalog.
What are Shopify's third-party transaction fees?
They apply when you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments. On the euro-priced version of Shopify's pricing page we fetched on November 6, 2026 the rates were 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus. The US-dollar page says only that the rate depends on your plan, so read your own plan's rate in your admin before you budget.
What hidden costs does a Shopify store have?
The usual ones are apps billed monthly, a domain (Shopify says domains typically start at US$9 a year), payment processing fees, a paid theme if you want one, product photography and copy, and ongoing maintenance. None of these appear in a build quote unless you ask for them to be listed.
Does 1920 Agency publish Shopify store prices?
No. 1920 Agency is based in Islamabad, with locations in Rawalpindi and Lahore, and quotes after mapping the job: products, payments, shipping, tracking and who maintains the store after launch. The quote lists what is included so you can compare it line by line.