Although Shopify has long been famous for its low technical-required store building and DIY ability, the story doesn’t go as expected when it comes to Shopify B2B eCommerce businesses.
Since corporate customers highly demand a lean online shopping experience, merchants are paying much attention to the Shopify B2B website development to make their website more professional.
However, this puts a burden on the financial account of wholesale companies. Some questions like “How much does building a fundamental Shopify B2B store cost?” are raised. In this article, we’ll break Shopify B2B building costs into categories that follow the order of the web development process (from domain seeking to launching stages) so you can estimate the initial investment and balance your budget.
Also consider Magento platform, don’t you? READ Magento B2B pricing for precise estimation.
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Basic Steps to Set up a Shopify B2B Webshop
Table of Contents
- Sign-up for a Shopify account to join the community.
- Upload products to your Shopify web store.
- Beautify store appearance by making some interface modifications related to themes, colors, typography, logo, and so on.
- Purchase and then set up a domain.
- Install Shopify B2B applications to infuse enough B2B capabilities into your website.
VISIT B2B website features to approach nearer to the gate of a B2B web development project.
Shopify B2B Web Development Costs Breakdown
Includes the cost of the building phase:
- Hiring B2B Shopify experts;
- Shopify license fee;
- Shopify theme/ template;
- Shopify B2B applications;
- Cost of content.
Includes monthly-recurring expense:
- Domain Name;
- Payment processing costs/ Monthly subscription costs – Basic Shopify, Shopify, Shopify Advanced, and Shopify Plus;
Lie outside the minimum required expenses, which involves additional costs:
- Website content optimization costs;
- Enhanced SEO ability;
- UX/ UI boost;
- Security updates.
Domain Name ($10 – $500/Year)
You know, eCommerce platforms available as SaaS, like Shopify, don’t require users to host it yourself. Instead, the hosting price has been included with the software license fee.
Yet, utilizing Shopify, you’ll need to purchase a domain name separately. A new domain generally costs you from $10 – $15 per year; meanwhile, you may need to pay $20 – $500 for an expired domain.
We drop here minimum domain prices from trustworthy providers for reference.
Registrar | .com | .org | .us | .me |
NameCheap | $8.88/year | $11.98/year | $3.88/year | $3.88/year |
GoDaddy | $0.99/year | $10.17/year | $7.99/year | $3.49/year |
HostGator | $12.95/year | $12.95/year | $5.95/year | $15.00/year |
Shopify Pricing Plans ($29 - $2000/ month)
To leverage the Shopify platform, merchants will have to pay a subscription fee for using their license monthly. Currently, it offers 4 main pricing plans, which are suggested for B2B websites, as follows:
- Basic Shopify: $29 / month
- Shopify: $79 / month
- Advanced Shopify: $299 / month
- Shopify Plus: Start at $2,000/month
Among them, only the last one – Shopify Plus – covers all crucial B2B features for a website.
Nevertheless, not everyone is willing to afford its high cost.
In case you want to build a B2B website without spending a fortune, you can choose the three others and then install supportive Shopify B2B apps. This saves tons of money while still delivers above-par site performance and satisfactory customer experience.
Don’t know which plan best fits your business? Read more:
Payment Processing Costs (2.9% + 30¢/ transaction)
Shopify introduced Shopify Payments as its all payment method which allows users to accept credit card payments on the website.
In fact, Shopify Payments is available only in 13 countries at the moment; therefore, you had better grab their payment terms for your region.
If you’re in one of 13 countries supported by Shopify Payments, then you get almost the same rate as PayPal.
If you’re not and have to use a third-party payment service, then you’ll pay that particular payment gateway’s fees, plus a 2.0% additional fee. Actually, it doesn’t sound like a huge amount at first, but it can’t be a cost-effective option in the long term.
Features | Basic Shopify | Shopify | Advanced Shopify |
Monthly Price | $29.00 | $79.00 | $299.00 |
Online Credit Card Rates | 2.9% + $0.30 | 2.6% + $0.30 | 2.4% + $0.30 |
In-Person Credit Card Rates | 2.7% + $0 | 2.5% + $0 | 2.4% + $0 |
Transaction Fees | Shopify Payments = 0.0% Other Processors = 2.0% | Shopify Payments = 0.0% Other Processors = 1.0% | Shopify Payments = 0.0% Other Processors = 0.5% |
Hire B2B Shopify Experts
No matter how large a B2B website development project is, you would need to form an in-house team or choose a trusted agency due to its complexity. So, consider your resources carefully and decide which option will serve your business better.
Option 1: Hire Shopify B2B Experts/ Agencies to Build a Well-performed Website
Target: Small-to-large B2B website, complex product line, many customization needs, high competency of expanding business, quick time-to-market.
Rates: $25 – $200/ hour.
We highly recommend this option as it’s the safest and most effective for B2B website development. If you’re seeking a comprehensive and professional solution to Shopify B2B web development, hiring a trusted agency or team of B2B experts is perfect.
B2B agencies will go with you throughout the site-building process from requirement exploring to after-launching phase. Not only that but, with a B2B-driven mindset, agencies are competent enough to construct a website with full features for wholesale transactions.
When it comes to pricing, agency rentals fluctuate based on the expertise of each agency and their portfolio value.
Option 2: Do it yourself (DIY) to Setup a Basic Online Store
Target: Extremely small B2B store, simple product storage, no customization needs, no expansion goals, tight budget.
Thanks to the versatility and low code requirements of Shopify, merchants can still build a basic online store themselves. But remember that, that DIY website only stays at the basic level. Thus, we recommend this option for store owners whose business demands are extremely low and simple.
For instance, you can “play” with the configurations at the backend and set up a basic look for the storefront. Then, install some Shopify B2B apps into your store so it at least can serve a small number of B2B buyers.
Frankly, choosing option 2 only helps you save money, while you’re limited in choices of attractive themes and other high quality add-ons. You should only use free themes since paid Shopify wholesale themes require development and some coding done.
Option 3: Form an In-House Development Team
Target: medium-to-large B2B businesses, consistent technical requirements, decisive goals for further expansion, large budget.
Rates:
- A junior developer: $60 000 – $80 000/ year;
- A senior developer: up to $120 000 a year.
One major benefit that many medium-to-large B2B businesses choose to build their own team of in-house developers is fast turnaround time and the ability to control the entire project cycle.
Option 4: Hire a Freelancer
Target: Small-to-medium B2B website, not too many customization needs, no fear to take risks, small budget.
Rates:
- Developers in some regions of Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East: $61-$80/ hour.
- Developers in Canada and the US: $81-$100/ hour.
- Shopify web developers from Asia: $20-$50/ hour, depending on the level of expertise needed.
A freelance developer doesn’t require too much of your expenses. Instead, depending on their qualifications, experience, and country, an hourly rate of freelancers can even be reduced by more than half compared to that of web agencies. That’s just the average market price, of course; you should prepare your mind that some developers can charge as much as an agency does.
To minimize the risk of freelancer incompetency, make sure that you understand their level of expertise regarding development, design, customization, and so on.
Shopify B2B Themes (Free - $180)
Fortunately, there are a plethora of Shopify themes available and all of them are well-designed to be fully responsive and make your storefront more appealing and impressive. The prices would range from $0 to $180.
Besides the Shopify theme store, many theme providers on the market sell delightful themes that help empower your brand identity.
Shopify B2B Apps ($10 - $150/ month/ app)
Every B2B Shopify store needs to be equipped with essential apps to serve corporate customer journeys satisfactorily.
Normal Shopify Plans haven’t included B2B abilities, so apparently merchants must amplify their website with wholesale modules unless they want to lose potential corporate buyers due to bulky order placement.
Shopify Plus offers some wholesale functionalities, it fails to accommodate advanced business demands though. This fact raises a high desire for applying supportive apps.
Thanks to the huge community, Shopify provides more than 2400 tools and add-ons for different needs. The prices for paid apps vary and most of them are available on a monthly subscription basis. The B2B application prices vary from $10 to $150 per month.
Note: In brief, the above details disclose just explicit and countable costs. It’s hard to clarify flexible B2B development costs such as customizations, unexpected issues and more as these depend on outside factors like specific business need depth, developer charge, etc. Therefore, to define the cost exactly, we suggest you to consult with B2B experts before commencing an online B2B Shopify store building project. The team will tell you how to create a profitable website.
Summary: Total Cost of Ownership for Owning a Shopify B2B Website
Generally speaking, Shopify B2B website development costs will range from $1000 to $10000+. Bear in mind that your building cost would soar when you make more sales and if you‘re utilizing a third-party payment service.
A basic B2B Shopify website will usually cost $3,500 to $5,000, with the following features:
- Professionally designed website structure accommodating up to 25 products;
- Simple contact form;
- On year of hosting support;
- Up to 10 pages of professionally written content
- …
A fully optimized website will normally cost $6,000-$10,000 and it includes features such as:
- Advanced product filter;
- Related products/ Abandoned cart feature;
- Custom payment gateway;
- Custom cart page, email notifications, and invoices;
- 35-42 pages of professionally written content;
- …
