Website design
What Does an E-commerce Website Really Cost? Seven Items to Check Before You Sign
Ask for quotes on an online store and the numbers can differ several times over. Usually neither agency is overcharging or cutting corners. The quotes simply don't cover the same things. A low quote may leave out hosting, product entry or ongoing operations, and those costs show up after you've signed.
Here are the seven items that make up the real cost of an e-commerce website, and the question to ask about each.
1. Domain name
Your domain is your web address (for example yourstore.vn), renewed every year with a registrar.
Ask: Whose name is the domain registered under? Make sure it's your company's, so you keep it if you ever switch providers.
2. Hosting and infrastructure
Hosting is where your website lives. Slow or unreliable hosting loses customers and hurts your Google rankings.
Ask: Is hosting included, and for how long? Is there an SSL certificate (https)? Are backups taken regularly?
3. Design
You have two main options: a template tailored to your brand (faster, cheaper), or a fully custom design (unique, slower and costlier). For most new stores, a well-tailored template is the sensible choice.
Ask: Does the design work properly on phones? How many revision rounds are included?
4. Selling features
This is where quotes differ most. A real online store needs far more than product pages:
- Product, variant (colour, size) and stock management
- Cart, checkout and payment
- Order management and reconciliation
- Multichannel selling (website, social media, marketplaces)
- Promotions and discount codes
Ask: Which features are included and which cost extra? How are new features priced later?
5. SEO groundwork
A site that isn't SEO-ready is close to invisible on Google, and fixing it after launch always costs more than building it right.
Ask: Does every page get its own title and description? Is there a sitemap, structured data and fast loading? (See also: What makes a website SEO-ready?)
6. Product entry and content
Loading hundreds or thousands of products takes real work, and many quotes leave it out.
Ask: Who enters the products? Is bulk import from a spreadsheet supported? Who is responsible for copy and images?
7. Operations and maintenance after launch
This is the item people forget most. A website needs security updates, backups, monitoring and changes as your business evolves. Without someone looking after it, it slowly decays.
Ask: Who runs the site after handover? Is the operations fee monthly or yearly, and what does it cover? How fast are change requests handled?
How to compare quotes fairly
Ask every provider to list all seven items in the same table, then compare the total cost of year one plus year two. Year two shows what the site really costs to keep running, which an initial quote rarely makes obvious.
Watch out for:
- A single number with no breakdown.
- A domain or hosting account registered to the agency instead of you.
- No clear answer on who runs the site after launch.
All-in pricing at Simplify
At Simplify Technology, every website plan includes first-year hosting, the selling features of our Salify platform and SEO groundwork out of the box. We handle bulk product import, and our engineers keep running your site after launch on a clear monthly plan. You get a detailed quote before you sign, with no hidden fees.
