Ecommerce website cost in Canada: the three bills behind every store
Every online store has a build bill, a running bill and a per-order bill. Comparing quotes without separating them is the most common reason Canadian owners overspend in year one.
The build bill is what you pay once to get the store live: design, catalogue setup, checkout configuration, tax and shipping rules, integrations and testing. This is the number most quotes show.
The running bill is monthly or yearly: your Shopify plan, or hosting and plugin licences if you run WooCommerce; paid apps; theme renewals; email marketing; your domain; and any maintenance plan.
The per-order bill scales with sales: card processing on every transaction, plus extra transaction fees on Shopify if you use a third-party payment provider, plus shipping labels, packaging and returns.
A store that looks cheap to build can be expensive to run if it depends on a dozen apps. A store that costs more to build can be cheaper over two years if the custom work replaces subscriptions. That is why the ecommerce website cost Canada buyers should compare is the first-year total, not the build price alone, and why this page ends with a first-year table rather than a single figure.
How much does a Shopify store cost in Canada?
A Shopify store costs a build fee, a monthly plan billed in Canadian dollars, app subscriptions, and payment fees on each sale. Shopify's Canadian pricing page lists four plans, Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus, with prices shown in CAD and a lower monthly equivalent if you pay yearly.
The plan decides more than features. According to Shopify's Canadian pricing page, third-party transaction fees apply when you use a third-party payment provider instead of Shopify's own payment processing, at 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus. That fee sits on top of whatever your payment provider charges. For a growing store, that difference alone can justify moving up a plan or switching to the built-in processing.
Build costs on Shopify are usually lower than on other routes because hosting, security and checkout are handled by the platform. Most of our work goes into theme customisation, collection structure, product templates, tax and shipping settings, and connecting the apps you actually need. Our Shopify builds start at US$750.
Where Shopify gets expensive is app creep. Reviews, subscriptions, bundles, wholesale pricing, translation, advanced search and loyalty each tend to be a separate monthly charge. Before adding one, ask whether a small theme change could do the job. Our Shopify developer page for Canada goes deeper into what a build includes.
WooCommerce and ecommerce website cost in Canada: build and running costs
WooCommerce itself carries no monthly platform fee, but hosting, premium extensions, security and upkeep all cost money. WooCommerce describes itself as an open-source platform without monthly platform fees; everything around it is your responsibility.
The running bill therefore looks different. You pay for hosting good enough to handle checkout traffic, which is not the cheapest shared plan. You pay for any premium extensions, such as subscriptions, bookings or advanced shipping, usually as yearly licences. You pay for a theme if you use a premium one. And someone has to apply WordPress, WooCommerce and plugin updates, test them and keep backups, which is either your time or a maintenance plan.
In exchange you get control. You can change almost anything, keep your data on hosting you choose, and avoid per-order platform fees. For merchants already on WordPress with a content-heavy site, or with pricing rules that would need several Shopify apps, WooCommerce often costs less over two or three years.
Our WooCommerce builds start at US$750, the same as Shopify, because the effort shifts rather than shrinks: less theme restriction, more setup and testing. After two free months of fixes, care that covers updates and backups starts at US$120/mo. The WooCommerce developer page explains when that trade-off makes sense.
When is a custom ecommerce build worth the extra cost?
A custom build is worth it when your selling model does not fit a product catalogue with a cart. Typical cases are B2B ordering with customer-specific price lists and credit terms, made-to-order products with quoting, multi-vendor marketplaces, rental or booking commerce, and subscription boxes with complex rules.
Custom commerce starts at US$900 with us and takes six to twelve weeks. You avoid platform plans and app subscriptions, but you take on hosting, security updates and a longer build. Card processing still applies per order.
There is a middle route we often suggest: keep Shopify or WooCommerce for the storefront and build only the unusual part as a custom module, such as a dealer portal that places orders into the store, or a quoting tool that creates draft orders. That keeps the ecommerce website cost in Canada closer to a standard store while solving the workflow a template cannot.
Ask yourself three questions before paying for custom: would more than three paid apps be needed to approximate the workflow; does the workflow give you a real edge over competitors; and do you have someone to own the platform after launch? Two yes answers usually justify it. One or none usually means a standard platform plus a small custom piece will do.
What do apps, plugins and themes add to ecommerce website cost in Canada?
Apps and themes are where store budgets quietly double. A theme is usually a one-time or yearly purchase; apps and premium extensions are usually monthly or yearly subscriptions that stay for the life of the store.
We start every quote with an app list and a reason for each item. Common categories and our usual advice:
- Reviews: worth paying for if you collect reviews actively; cheaper options often do enough for small catalogues.
- Translation: Shopify offers its own translation tooling; paid apps add automation but your translator should still approve the copy.
- Subscriptions and bundles: genuinely hard to build well, so an app is often the right answer.
- Wholesale and B2B pricing: an app for simple tiers; custom work once customer-specific pricing and terms appear.
- Page builders: rarely needed on a well-built theme, and they tend to slow pages down.
- Upsell pop-ups and countdown timers: often cost more in speed and trust than they earn; test before committing.
- Shipping rate apps: useful when you need live carrier rates at checkout rather than flat or table rates.
Review the app list every six months. Stores frequently pay for apps a previous developer installed for a campaign that ended long ago. Removing them lowers the running bill and often speeds up the store.
What payment processing fees should a Canadian store budget for?
Budget for a percentage of every card sale plus, on most providers, a small fixed amount per transaction. Rates depend on the provider, card type, whether the card is domestic or foreign, and your plan, so request the current rate sheet from the provider you pick.
On Shopify, the provider choice interacts with your plan. Using Shopify's built-in processing avoids the extra third-party transaction fee described earlier. Using another provider adds that plan-based percentage. On WooCommerce there is no platform transaction fee, only what your provider charges.
Three details catch Canadian merchants out. Foreign cards, including many US buyers' cards, often cost more to process than domestic ones. Refunds may not return the original processing fee, depending on the provider's terms. Chargebacks carry their own fee, win or lose. None of these belong in a build quote, but all belong in your first-year budget.
We connect whichever card and wallet checkout you choose and test it end to end. We do not resell payment processing and do not add a margin to it. If your provider is a Canadian processor with its own integration needs, the payment gateway integration page covers that work.
How much does a bilingual English–French storefront add to ecommerce website cost?
A French storefront adds three costs: translation of product and policy copy, setup of language-specific URLs and navigation, and testing checkout, emails and notifications in both languages. Translation is usually the biggest and is paid to your translator, not to us.
On Shopify, languages are handled through its multi-language features and translation tooling, with each language on its own URL path. On WooCommerce, a multilingual plugin does the same job, typically with a yearly licence. On a custom build, language is part of the data model from day one, which is cheaper than adding it later.
The setup work we price includes a language switcher that keeps shoppers on the same product, translated collection and product URLs, correct language tags for search engines, French transactional emails, and layouts that tolerate longer French text on buttons and menus. We do not write French copy ourselves; you supply or approve every translated word.
If you sell to Quebec, the language requirements are legal, not only commercial. Our Bill 96 website requirements page explains the obligations and how the build supports them, and your own lawyer should confirm what applies to your business. Adding French during the first build is almost always cheaper than retrofitting it, because templates, URLs and email flows are built once.
Shipping, packaging and fulfilment: costs outside the website that still hit the budget
Shipping is usually a Canadian store's second-largest variable cost after the products themselves, so it deserves a line in any ecommerce budget even though it is not website work.
Canada Post runs a Solutions for Small Business program that it describes as free to join, with discounted shipping rates and label tools for members. Many stores also compare couriers and shipping-label services, especially for heavier parcels or US-bound orders. Your store needs to show accurate rates at checkout: flat rates are cheap to set up but can lose money on remote postal codes; live carrier rates cost more to set up and sometimes need an app.
Selling to the United States adds its own questions: customs paperwork, duties and taxes on the buyer's side, and whether to show prices in USD. Rules on duties change, so check the current position with your carrier or customs broker before promising “no duties” at checkout.
On the website side, we set up shipping zones, rate tables or live rates, free-shipping thresholds, packaging weights on products and label printing from the admin. Those settings are part of the build price. The per-parcel cost is yours to negotiate. When we build a quote, we ask how many orders you expect per week, because that shapes which shipping setup pays off.
Does setting up GST, HST, PST and QST add to the cost?
Tax setup is part of our store build, but multi-province selling adds testing time. The Canada Revenue Agency's rate table shows why: HST rates differ between Ontario and the Atlantic provinces, while other provinces charge GST with or without a provincial tax on top.
Both Shopify and WooCommerce can charge tax by the shopper's province. Our job is to configure it, mark products correctly as taxable or not, handle shipping tax, and test orders to every province you sell into. Whether you must register for provincial taxes outside your home province is a question for your accountant; we build what they confirm.
The hidden cost is on the accounting side. If orders flow into your books without the right tax codes, someone fixes them at filing time. That is where a QuickBooks Online integration developer earns their fee, by posting each order with the tax code your bookkeeper approved.
Ecommerce website cost by catalogue size
Catalogue size changes the build cost less than people expect and the data work more. Fifty products entered by hand and five thousand products imported from a supplier file are very different projects, even if the storefront looks identical.
Up to about 50 products
Usually one product template, a handful of collections and manual entry by your team after training. This sits comfortably at our starting price of US$750.
A few hundred products
Spreadsheet import, variant structure planning, collection rules and filters. Import mapping and clean-up appear as a line in the quote.
Thousands of products
Supplier feeds, scheduled inventory updates, search and filtering that stay fast, and careful URL planning for SEO. Often needs custom sync code.
Configurable or made-to-order
Product options that change price, lead times or production files. This is where custom modules or a custom build at US$900 start to make sense.
Product photos and descriptions are the costs owners forget. We build templates that make good content shine, but we do not photograph products or write your descriptions. Budget for those separately, and start early: they are often what delays a launch, not the code.
What does it cost to run an online store for the first year?
Add the build, twelve months of platform and apps, your domain, email marketing, card processing on expected sales, shipping, and a marketing budget. The table further down lists each line for Shopify, WooCommerce and custom so you can fill in your own numbers.
A realistic first-year plan for a Canadian store has six parts. The build, once. The platform, monthly or yearly. Apps and extensions, mostly monthly. Card processing, as a percentage of forecast sales. Shipping and packaging, per order. Marketing, including SEO, ads and email, which is where most growth comes from after launch.
Maintenance deserves a specific line. With us, the first two months after launch include free fixes; after that, a care plan starts at US$120/mo. Shopify stores need less technical upkeep than WooCommerce stores, but both need someone to review apps, fix broken layouts after theme updates, and keep policies and product data current.
SEO is the other line that is easy to skip and hard to catch up on. Store category and product pages compete with large retailers, so ongoing work often matters more than the launch setup. Our SEO pricing guide for Canada explains what each monthly budget buys; our own monthly SEO starts at US$150/mo.
Hidden ecommerce website costs in Canada that owners miss
The costs that surprise owners are rarely the big ones. They are the small recurring charges and the one-time jobs nobody put in the plan.
- Theme renewals for updates and support after the first year.
- Apps billed in USD, which move with the exchange rate.
- Email marketing plans that step up in price as your list grows.
- Chargeback fees and refunds that do not return processing costs.
- Accessibility fixes if your organisation falls under Ontario's AODA rules.
- Privacy and consent tooling for analytics and marketing pixels.
- Product photography, lifestyle images and short videos.
- Returns handling: labels, restocking and damaged stock.
- A second language added after launch instead of during the build.
Stores collecting customer data fall under federal privacy law too. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner's PIPEDA summary says the law applies to private-sector organizations that collect, use or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activity, which covers online stores. We build consent banners, clear forms and secure checkout; your lawyer confirms your policies. The AODA compliant website page covers the accessibility side.
How to compare ecommerce website cost quotes in Canada without getting burned
Put every quote into the same three columns: build, running and per order. A quote that only shows the build is incomplete, whoever sent it.
Then check what each build line actually includes. Useful questions: how many product and collection templates are designed; who imports products and how many; which apps are assumed and who pays for them; whether tax is tested for every province you sell into; whether a French storefront is included or extra; who owns the theme licence and code; what happens after launch; and how many revision rounds are included in the design phase.
Red flags: the store is built in the developer's own platform account; the theme licence is in their name; apps are bundled into a “platform fee” you cannot see; or maintenance is compulsory with no exit. Quotes from marketplaces such as Upwork or Fiverr can be fine for small, well-specified jobs, but ask the same questions, because the cheapest bid often leaves tax, shipping and testing to you.
Finally, compare time to launch. A store that goes live four weeks earlier starts earning four weeks earlier, which can outweigh a small difference in build price.
Building your store with a remote team in India: how it works from Canada
You approve designs and test the store in your morning; we build in ours. Our evening hours in India overlap with Eastern and Pacific mornings, so calls fit before your day gets busy and progress arrives by the next morning.
The first two weeks of a store project look like this. In week one you share brand files, a product spreadsheet, shipping and tax details, and access to a Shopify account or hosting in your name. We agree the app list and send a homepage and product-page design. In week two you review the designs, we import a sample of products, and you get a preview link to click through on your phone.
Communication runs through WhatsApp, seven days a week, plus video calls at milestones. Quotes are in USD and payable in USD or CAD by Wise, bank wire or PayPal, against milestones written into your quote. Invoices come from India; ask your accountant how to record them.
Your store, domain, theme licence, apps and payment accounts are always in your name. We work as staff or collaborator accounts that you can remove at any time. What we do not do: photo shoots, in-person training, warehouse setup or legal advice. If you want to understand the wider model, the guide to outsourcing web development to India covers it.
Worked example: pricing a first-year budget for a hypothetical Halifax skincare brand
Imagine a small skincare brand in Halifax with 40 products, selling across Canada and planning a French storefront for Quebec buyers in year one. This is an illustration of how we would build the budget, not a real client.
Build. A Shopify store with a customised theme, three collection types, one product template with ingredient and usage tabs, subscription options for bestsellers, shipping zones by region and tax configured for every province. That fits our store plan starting at US$750. The French storefront is a separate line, with the brand's translator supplying copy.
Running. A Shopify plan chosen for the expected volume, a subscriptions app, a reviews app and email marketing. Nothing else until sales justify it.
Per order. Card processing through Shopify's built-in payments to avoid the third-party transaction fee, and shipping through a small-business program with rates shown at checkout.
After launch. Free fixes for two months, then a decision between care from US$120/mo or handling updates in-house, and a monthly SEO budget for collection pages.
The brand now has a first-year figure it can plan around, with every line owned by a named provider. That is the point of pricing ecommerce this way.
Ways to lower ecommerce website cost in Canada without cutting corners
The cheapest store is the one built to your real first-year needs, not to a wishlist. These choices save money without hurting the shopper's experience.
- Launch with one product template and add variants of it later.
- Start with the fewest apps that cover must-have features, and add others when sales prove the need.
- Choose the payment setup and Shopify plan together, so you are not paying a third-party fee you could avoid.
- Import products from a clean spreadsheet rather than paying for manual entry.
- Plan French URLs and templates in the first build even if translation arrives later.
- Pay yearly for platform plans once you are sure you will stay.
- Keep the theme close to its structure and change design where shoppers notice, not everywhere.
- Review apps twice a year and cancel anything unused.
If you already have a store that costs too much to run, send us the app list and your plan; we will tell you what we would remove. Reach us through the contact page or WhatsApp.