· 7 min read
How much does an online shop cost in the UK in 2026?
Short answer: a small online shop in the UK costs from about £300 a year if you set it up yourself on Shopify or Wix, around £1,000–5,000 if a freelance designer builds it, and £5,000–15,000 from an agency. Custom stores with bespoke features usually start around £15,000. On top of the build you pay a monthly platform fee and a small fee on every sale.
An online shop costs more than a brochure site because there’s more to get right: products, checkout, payments, delivery, returns and the emails customers get after they buy. Below are typical UK prices for 2026, what you pay every month and on every sale, and how to work out a realistic budget for your first year.
Prices at a glance · Three ways to get a shop · Shopify, WooCommerce or a builder? · What changes the price · Monthly and per-sale costs · Your first-year budget · Costs people forget · Do you need a full shop? · Common questions
Online shop prices at a glance
| How it’s built | Typical build cost | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself on Shopify, Wix or Squarespace | £0–500, plus your time | Testing an idea, a handful of products |
| Freelancer, Shopify store | £1,000–4,000 | Most small shops with up to a few hundred products |
| Freelancer, WooCommerce store | £1,500–5,000 | Shops that already run on WordPress or need more control |
| Agency, Shopify or WooCommerce | £5,000–15,000 | Bigger catalogues, integrations, a full brand |
| Custom or heavily integrated store | £15,000–80,000+ | Unusual pricing, B2B accounts, complex stock or fulfilment |
Typical UK market ranges in 2026, from several price guides checked in October and November 2026. London agencies usually sit at the top of each range.
The three ways to get an online shop
Set it up yourself
Platforms like Shopify, Wix and Squarespace let you start selling within a weekend. You pay a monthly plan, pick a theme (free, or a premium one for a one-off fee) and add your products. It’s the cheapest way to start, and perfectly fine for testing an idea. What you don’t get is help with the parts that decide whether people buy: how products are presented, how clear delivery and returns are, and how smooth the checkout feels on a phone.
Hire a freelance designer
A freelancer sets up and designs the shop around your products and customers: structure, product pages, filters, delivery rules, emails, payments and search set-up. Most small UK shops land somewhere between £1,000 and £5,000 this way, and you deal directly with the person doing the work.
Hire an agency
Agencies make sense for larger catalogues, several integrations or a full brand project with a team behind it. Expect £5,000–15,000 for a standard Shopify or WooCommerce build, and much more for custom work.
Shopify, WooCommerce or a website builder?
The platform shapes your monthly costs for years, so it’s worth choosing with the whole bill in mind, not just the build.
- Shopify: hosted, secure and simple to run. You pay a monthly plan (in the UK, Basic is about £19 a month billed yearly or £25 monthly, Grow about £49 or £65) plus card fees on each sale. Apps add features and often a monthly fee. The usual choice for most small shops.
- WooCommerce: a free plugin for WordPress, so you pay for hosting, a theme, paid extensions and someone to keep it updated. More flexible and you own everything, but it needs looking after. A good fit if you already have a WordPress site or need unusual features.
- Wix and Squarespace: fine for a small range of products alongside a mostly brochure-style site. They get limiting as your catalogue and order volume grow.
- Custom: only when a platform genuinely can’t do what you need, such as special pricing rules, B2B accounts or complex fulfilment. For most small businesses it isn’t needed.
Weighing a builder against a designer? See Wix, Squarespace or a custom website.
What actually changes the price
- Number of products and variants. Ten products in one size is a different job from 400 products in five sizes and colours.
- Product content. Photos, descriptions, sizes and care details often take longer than the design. If someone else has to write or shoot them, budget for it.
- Delivery and returns rules. Free delivery thresholds, click and collect, international shipping and courier labels all need setting up.
- Integrations. Stock, accounting, an in-store till, marketplaces or a fulfilment company each add work.
- Special features. Subscriptions, made-to-order products, gift cards, trade prices or bookings.
- Moving from another platform. Bringing products, customers and orders over, and keeping your Google rankings with redirects.
- Design. A lightly adjusted theme costs far less than a fully designed shop built around your brand.
Monthly and per-sale costs
An online shop keeps costing money after launch. These are the usual lines on the bill:
| Cost | Typical amount |
|---|---|
| Platform plan (Shopify, Wix, Squarespace) | £19–65 a month for most small shops |
| Hosting for WooCommerce | £10–50 a month |
| Card payment fees | roughly 1.5–3% of each sale, plus about 20–30p |
| Apps and extensions | £0–100+ a month |
| Domain name | £10–20 a year |
| Email marketing | free to start, then £10–50+ a month |
| Updates, fixes and support | £30–150 a month, or paid as needed |
Card fees add up quietly: on £5,000 of sales a month, a 2% fee is about £100 a month. On Shopify, using a payment provider other than Shopify’s own usually adds an extra transaction fee, so check that before you choose. More on looking after a site in website maintenance costs.
What a small shop really costs in its first year
Three typical examples, using mid-range market prices:
| Do it yourself | Freelancer-built | Agency-built | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build | £0–300 (premium theme) | £2,500 | £9,000 |
| Platform plan, 12 months | about £230–300 | about £230–600 | about £600 |
| Apps | £0–300 | £200–600 | £600+ |
| Support after launch | £0 (your time) | £0–1,200 | £1,200+ |
| First year, before card fees | about £300–900 | about £3,000–5,000 | about £11,000+ |
The cheapest option isn’t always cheapest overall. A shop that converts badly on phones can lose more in missed sales than the difference in build cost.
Costs people forget
- Product photography. Good photos sell; phone snaps on a kitchen table rarely do.
- Your time adding products. Hours per product if every description is written from scratch.
- Legal pages. Terms of sale, delivery, returns and privacy, which UK customers and payment providers expect.
- Packaging and delivery. Not a website cost, but it changes the prices and delivery rules the site has to show.
- Getting found. A new shop gets little traffic on its own. Budget time or money for search, social media or ads.
- Theme and app renewals. Some are yearly, and the cheap apps add up.
Do you need a full online shop?
Not always. If you sell a few items, take orders for made-to-order work or mainly sell in person, simpler options can do the job:
- A “buy” button or social selling on a regular website or Instagram, using a basic selling plan.
- An enquiry or order form for custom work, with payment by link once you’ve confirmed the details.
- Online booking if what you really sell is appointments or classes.
If you’re not sure which you need, landing page or full website walks through the same decision for regular sites, and how much a website costs in the UK covers non-shop sites.
Common questions
How much does an ecommerce website cost in the UK?
Usually £1,000–5,000 for a small shop built by a freelancer, £5,000–15,000 from an agency, and £15,000 or more for a custom store. Setting one up yourself on Shopify or Wix can cost a few hundred pounds a year.
How much does a Shopify store cost in the UK?
The Shopify plan itself is about £19–65 a month for most small shops, plus card fees on each sale. Having a freelancer design and set it up typically costs £1,000–4,000; an agency usually charges more.
How much does a WooCommerce website cost?
Around £1,500–5,000 from a freelancer and £3,000–12,000 from an agency for a standard shop, plus hosting, paid extensions and regular updates.
How much does an online shop cost per month?
For most small shops, roughly £20–100 a month for the platform and apps, plus card fees of about 1.5–3% per sale. Paid support or updates add more.
Is it cheaper to build my own online shop?
In money, yes: you can start for a few hundred pounds a year. In time, it can take weeks, and the parts that decide sales (product pages, delivery information and the checkout on a phone) are easy to get wrong.
How long does it take to build an online shop?
A small shop usually takes four to eight weeks with a designer, longer with many products, integrations or custom features. Having product photos and descriptions ready speeds it up the most. More in how long a website takes.
Can I move my shop to another platform later?
Yes. Products, customers and orders can usually be moved, but it takes planning, and redirects are needed so you keep your Google rankings.
Tatiana · UX/UI, web & product designer in the UK with 10+ years across B2B and B2C. I design and build websites, online shops, web products and apps for businesses of every size. Back to the site