“I want an online store - how much will it cost me?” The answers on the market range from €200 to €20,000, and they are all “right”, because a store can mean ten different things. Here are the real numbers for 2026: what it costs to build, what it costs to run and where the hidden costs are that nobody mentions in the quote.
What determines the price of an online store
Four factors drive the price: the number and complexity of products (50 products with 3 variants is one thing, 5,000 SKUs with real-time inventory something else entirely); integrations - couriers, payments, invoicing, ERP; design - a template versus a unique look built to sell; and content - who is going to write 200 product descriptions? Professional online store development starts by clarifying these four points, before anyone talks money.
Price ranges in 2026
Starter store - from €1,250
Up to 100-200 products, WooCommerce, Econt/Speedy courier integration, cash on delivery and card payments, training on how to run it. This is our entry package: it covers everything a real small retailer needs, with no compromise on speed or the SEO foundation.
Store for a growing business - €2,500 to €5,000
Unique design based on your brand, hundreds to thousands of products, filters and search, automated emails (abandoned cart, follow-up), connection to invoicing software, multiple languages. This is where the store stops being a “website with a cart” and becomes a sales machine.
Large-scale platform - from €5,000 up
B2B portals with individual price lists, real-time inventory, ERP integrations, marketplace functionality. The price is set by the technical specification.
Running costs: the real monthly bill
Hosting
A store is heavier than an ordinary website: €100-200/year for quality NVMe hosting. A slow store = abandoned carts.
Maintenance
WooCommerce and plugin updates, backups, security. For a store, downtime costs real orders: a maintenance plan is not optional, it is insurance.
Payment fees
Card processors take 1-2.5% per transaction. Factor this into your margin from day one.
Marketing
A store without traffic is a warehouse. Budget for Google Ads and SEO from the start, not “once things get going”.
The hidden costs that quotes keep quiet about
Product content: photos and descriptions for 300 products are weeks of work, so agree in advance who will do them. Data migration from an old store or Excel. The legal minimum: terms and conditions, GDPR, a returns policy - in online retail the fines are real. Training: your team needs to be able to add products and process orders without a developer.
The most expensive store is not the €5,000 one - it is the €500 one that does not sell, so a year later you are building it all over again. The platform is one tenth of success; the rest is speed, trust and traffic.
WooCommerce, Shopify or something else?
For the Bulgarian market (Econt, Speedy, cash on delivery, Bulgarian invoicing systems), WooCommerce is the standard with the best balance of price and ownership - we covered the comparison in detail in WooCommerce or Shopify. The short answer: your own store on WordPress for a long-term business; a rented platform only for quick tests.
Conclusion
A realistic budget for a working online store in Bulgaria in 2026: from €1,250 one-off + €150-300/year in running costs, plus a marketing budget to match your ambitions. Anything below these levels is a compromise you will pay for later - with interest.
Take 3 minutes to describe your project to us, or simply send us what you sell and how many products you have - within one working day you will get a concrete quote with clear line items, not a vague price range.
