How much does an online store cost in 2026? Build and running costs

Most answers to how much an online store costs stop at the build price, but a store keeps charging you after launch. Here is the full picture for 2026: an AI-first team builds a custom online store from $1,500, a store with complex logic and integrations from $3,000 and a marketplace from $6,000, and running it costs hosting under $30 a month plus 1.3 to 2% of every card payment. A standard studio that writes the code by hand quotes 4 times the build price for the same store and takes 4 times longer.

Below are the build prices with their sources, what Ukrainian studios and freelancers charge, the five things that move the number, a month of running costs worked out in hryvnias next to a platform store, and real stores we have built. If you are still deciding between a store and a simpler site, the general price list is in how much a website costs.

How much does an online store cost in 2026?

We build every store on its own code, not on a rented platform. Our prices next to the same scope built by hand at a standard studio:

For the market side we checked published 2026 guides. Elogic, an e-commerce agency, puts even a small template store on a hosted platform at $5,000 to $40,000 and 1 to 4 months, a custom mid-market build at $80,000 to $250,000, and an integration-heavy B2B store at $125,000 to $400,000. Our traditional column starts well below those custom ranges, so the comparison is conservative, and our price is that column divided by 4.

The exact launch date depends on the catalogue and the integrations, so it goes into a one-page scope after the first call. Whatever the date, it is about a quarter of what a standard studio needs for the same store.

What do Ukrainian studios and freelancers charge for an online store?

The cheapest offers in Ukraine sit below our first tier, and it is worth knowing why. The WebCraft guide "how much an online store costs in Ukraine in 2026" (updated 2 May 2026) starts development at:

• UAH 15,000 for a simple store with up to 100 products,
• UAH 35,000 for 100 to 1,000 products,
• UAH 80,000 for 1,000 products and more.

The same guide then lists the integrations as separate lines: Nova Poshta from UAH 3,000, LiqPay or WayForPay from UAH 2,000, a CRM from UAH 5,000, 1C or an ERP from UAH 8,000, Rozetka or Prom export from UAH 4,000. It also says development is only 40 to 60% of the real launch budget, the rest being content, SEO and the first month of ads.

So the honest comparison is not $1,500 against UAH 15,000. It is a custom store with design, catalogue, payments, delivery, CRM and SEO basics included, against a template where each of those is an extra. Put both quotes on the same feature list before you compare the totals.

What drives the cost of an online store?

Five things decide how many hours a store takes:

1. Catalogue size and structure. Ten products with no variants is a weekend of data entry. Two thousand products with sizes, colours and wholesale prices need an import, filters that work and category pages Google can index.
2. Integrations. Payments, delivery by API, a CRM, an accounting system, marketplace export. Each one is a day or more, and payments add tests you cannot skip. In Ukraine the usual set is a payment provider, Nova Poshta or Ukrposhta, and KeyCRM, SalesDrive or Sitniks.
3. Checkout rules. Cash on delivery, instalments, promo codes, minimum orders for wholesale buyers. Every rule is another path to build and test.
4. Design. A clean design on a proven layout is cheap. A full design system, illustrations and animation belong on a separate line.
5. Who builds it, and how. When an AI pipeline writes the boilerplate, integrations and tests and a senior engineer directs and reviews every change, the same store takes a quarter of the hours. That is the whole reason for the 4x: fewer hours for the same working store, not thinner work.

What does an online store cost every month?

The build is paid once. These costs come every month, and they are third-party prices, so we quote them as published, without our 4x rule:

• Hosting. A custom store runs on its own hosting, usually under $30 a month with the domain. There is no platform subscription and no platform fee per order.
• Card acquiring. monobank's comparison table (1 September 2026) lists plata by mono and LiqPay at 1.3% for Ukrainian cards and 2% for foreign cards, and hutko and Portmone at 1.5%.
• Delivery, CRM and ads. Carrier fees per parcel, the CRM subscription, and advertising, which in most small stores is the biggest monthly line.

For comparison, a rented platform charges on top of that. Shopify Basic costs $29 a month billed yearly or $39 month to month, and if Shopify Payments is not available to you, as is the case for businesses in Ukraine, it adds a 2% fee on every order paid through another provider. Ukrainian platforms such as Horoshop and Prom have their own plans and per-order fees, compared in our website cost guide.

A worked example: a store that takes UAH 200,000 a month by card pays about UAH 2,600 in acquiring at 1.3%. The same turnover on Shopify Basic with an outside provider adds another 2%, about UAH 4,000 a month. Over a year that fee alone comes to about UAH 48,000, roughly 70% of the price of a custom store built by us, and the custom store keeps no such fee.

What online stores look like in practice

Ranges are easier to trust next to real work:

• Integrations as the product. For Meest Post we built integrations with Prom.ua, OLX, Shafa and Rozetka and with CRMs such as SalesDrive, KeyCRM and OneBox, plus a packaging shop on the site.
• What happens after the order. Sewing Lab sells around a hundred clothing models online. We built the system behind the store: production planning from CRM demand, cash-on-delivery reconciliation against postal registries, and automatic replies to buyers in chats.
• When a store becomes a marketplace. Find My Boat is a yacht charter marketplace with direct booking, payment in instalments and 16 currencies. The marketplace tier has its own breakdown in how much a marketplace costs.

How we price online stores at DForce

We do not quote from a price list. After a short call we write a one-page scope (catalogue, integrations, checkout rules, design level) and attach a fixed price and a date to it. The ranges above are where that number lands for most stores.

The price is 4 times lower and the work 4 times faster than traditional hand-written development because AI writes the code and senior engineers direct the work and review every change. You pay for the decisions and the review, not for typing the same cart for the hundredth time, and the store's code is yours.

If you have a store in mind, tell us about your products and the tools you already use on our online store development page, and we will come back with a fixed price for the version worth launching first.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to build an online store?

At an AI-first team like DForce, a custom-built online store starts at $1,500, a store with complex logic such as pricing rules or an ERP integration starts at $3,000, and a marketplace with several sellers starts at $6,000. A standard studio that writes the code by hand quotes 4 times these figures for the same scope: from $6,000, $12,000 and $24,000, and takes 4 times longer.

How much does an online store cost per month?

A custom store on its own hosting usually costs under $30 a month for hosting and a domain, with no platform subscription and no platform fee per order. The variable part is card acquiring: in Ukraine plata by mono and LiqPay charge 1.3% for Ukrainian cards and 2% for foreign cards (monobank comparison table, 1 September 2026). On UAH 200,000 of card sales a month, that is about UAH 2,600.

Why do some studios build an online store for UAH 15,000?

Because the price covers a template on a small catalogue, and the rest is billed as extras. The WebCraft 2026 guide starts a simple store at UAH 15,000 but lists Nova Poshta from UAH 3,000, LiqPay or WayForPay from UAH 2,000, a CRM from UAH 5,000 and 1C from UAH 8,000 on top, and says development is only 40 to 60% of the launch budget. Compare quotes on the same list of features, not on the first number.

How long does it take to build an online store?

It depends on the catalogue, the integrations and how much custom logic the store needs, so the launch date is fixed in a one-page scope after the first call. Because AI writes the code and senior engineers direct and review it, an AI-first team needs about a quarter of the time a standard studio takes for the same store.