E-commerce calculator
What will your online store cost?
Set the design level, product load and payment methods, then add the integrations your operations depend on. The quote includes hosting, care and a payment schedule.
- R850/hourOne rate for every service
- 40% depositto start the work
- Up to 12 monthsto pay larger projects
Add your company detailsThey appear on the quote, its PDF and any link you share.
These details stay in your browser. They're only sent to us if you request a formal quotation.
Next step
Turn this into a formal quotation.
Send us your details and we'll review this configuration, check anything that needs a closer look, and send a formal quotation with timelines and terms. The quote you've built here is attached automatically.
- Your detailsSo we know who to send it to.
- Your projectA few questions so the quotation fits.
Your request is with us.
We'll review your configuration and email you a formal quotation. Your reference is .
Keep a copy of what you built:
Price a single service
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Each one uses the same R850/hour rate and the same payment terms, so you can price a single service or combine several in the full agency calculator.
Website
A business website on WordPress or a custom CMS, from a few pages to a large content site.
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E-commerce
An online store on WooCommerce or Shopify, with payments, shipping and the integrations your operations depend on.
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Web apps and integrations
Customer portals, internal systems, dashboards, automation and API integrations, built in Laravel or PHP.
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Mobile app
Cross-platform iOS and Android apps, with the backend and admin tools behind them.
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Content and copywriting
Website copy, articles, product descriptions and case studies written to rank and convert.
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SEO
Technical, on-site and local SEO with content that earns rankings, reported monthly.
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Organic social
Planned, designed and published social content with community management and monthly reporting.
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Paid media
Google, Meta, LinkedIn and TikTok campaigns: tracking, ad creation and optimisation, with your ad spend shown separately.
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Hosting and care
Managed hosting, updates, backups, security and a support team for one website or a whole portfolio.
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What drives the cost of an online store
A store has more moving parts than a website: product templates, cart and checkout, payments, shipping rules and order emails all have to work before the first sale. Those are in the included items.
After that, cost depends on how much of your operations the store connects to. A store that takes orders and emails you is quick to launch. A store that syncs stock from your ERP, posts invoices to your accounting system and books couriers automatically takes longer to build, but saves hours of admin every week.
Loading products
If you’ll load products yourself, leave “Products we load for you” at zero. If you give us a spreadsheet, we import, clean and categorise products at about six minutes each. Writing product descriptions is in the content calculator.
What every store includes
These items are in every quote, whatever you choose further down, because the work can’t be done properly without them. Together they come to 68 hours at R850 an hour.
- Project setup and staging store. Repository, staging environment and deployment pipeline. (2 h)
- Store framework and theming. Platform configuration, base styling and editor experience. (10 h)
- Header, mega menu and footer. Including mobile navigation, mini-cart and search entry. (5 h)
- Homepage. Merchandised sections for categories, offers and featured products. (5 h)
- Category and product listing templates. Sorting, filtering and pagination. (6 h)
- Product detail template. Gallery, variants, stock status and related products. (6 h)
- Cart and checkout. Optimised checkout flow with guest checkout. (8 h)
- Payment gateway. One gateway such as PayFast, Peach, Yoco, Stripe or PayPal. (4 h)
- Shipping and tax rules. Zones, rates, free-shipping thresholds and tax settings. (4 h)
- Order notification emails. Branded customer and admin notifications. (2 h)
- On-site and product SEO. Product schema, metadata, sitemap and Merchant Center readiness. (4 h)
- E-commerce analytics. GA4 purchase funnel and conversion tracking. (3 h)
- Testing, launch and handover. Test orders, payment verification and training. (5 h)
- Meetings, reviews and content requests. Project liaison across the build. (4 h)
Basic, Standard and Premium compared
The design level has the biggest effect on the build price. Premium hosting is the default for stores because payment pages and sale-day traffic need the most reliable setup.
Design approach
| Level | What you get | Hours | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic: Brand-matched theme | A proven store theme styled to your brand. Your logo, colours and fonts; Theme layout blocks; One round of revisions. | 6 h | R5,100 |
| Standard: Custom store design | Original designs for home, category, product and checkout. Wireframes for the purchase journey; Custom key templates; Two rounds of revisions. | 24 h | R20,400 |
| Premium: Conversion-led design | Research-led UX focused on conversion rate. Customer journey research; Clickable prototype; Component design system; Three rounds of revisions. | 50 h | R42,500 |
Website hosting
| Level | What you get | Hours | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic: Shared hosting | Fine for brochure sites with modest traffic. SSD shared server; Free SSL certificate; Daily backups. | — | R420/month |
| Standard: Dedicated hosting slot | Resources reserved for your site only. This is what most businesses need. Reserved CPU and memory; Staging site; Daily off-site backups; Uptime monitoring. | — | R1,695/month |
| Premium: Managed cloud server | For high-traffic, campaign-heavy or e-commerce sites. Dedicated cloud server; CDN and web application firewall; Hourly backups; Priority incident response. | — | R3,950/month |
Maintenance and support plan
| Level | What you get | Hours | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic: Essential care | Updates and security. Content changes are billed when you need them. Core, plugin and theme updates; Security patching; Monthly backup check. | 1.5 h | R1,275/month |
| Standard: Growth care | Updates plus regular content changes and reporting. Everything in Essential; About 2 hours of content updates; Uptime and speed monitoring; Monthly report. | 4 h | R3,400/month |
| Premium: Priority care | A monthly time bank for continuous improvement. Everything in Growth; Same-day response; Small feature improvements; Quarterly review meeting. | 10 h | R8,500/month |
How the work runs
- Discovery. We map your catalogue, payment methods, shipping rules and the systems the store must talk to.
- Design. Home, category, product, cart and checkout designs at your chosen level.
- Build and integrations. Store setup, payment gateway, shipping, and any accounting, stock or courier integrations.
- Products and testing. Products are loaded or imported; we place real test orders end to end, including refunds.
- Launch. We go live, monitor the first orders closely and train your team on order management.
Ways to manage the budget
- Launch with one payment gateway. Add more payment methods once you know what your customers ask for.
- Load products yourself. Leave the product slider at zero if your team can upload from a spreadsheet.
- Phase integrations. Start with accounting, then add the stock feed once order volumes justify it.
- Use Basic design for a smaller catalogue. A theme-based store suits fewer products and a simple purchase journey.
Before you request a quote
Have these ready and the formal quotation will be faster and more accurate:
- Roughly how many products you sell and how many variants they have
- A product spreadsheet or export, if you have one
- The payment gateway and courier you use, or would like to use
- Your shipping rules: zones, rates and free-shipping thresholds
- Your accounting or stock system, if the store should connect to it
- Your current store address, if you’re moving platforms
E-commerce pricing questions
A few useful answers before you decide.
What's included in every store?
Setup and a staging store, platform configuration and theming, navigation with a mini-cart, the homepage, category and product templates, cart and checkout, one payment gateway, shipping rules, order emails, product SEO, e-commerce analytics, testing and launch. That’s 68 hours before design and extras.
WooCommerce or Shopify?
WooCommerce gives you full control and no platform fees. Shopify is quicker to run but charges a monthly subscription and transaction fees, billed by Shopify. The build hours are similar. We’ll recommend one based on your catalogue and integrations.
Are payment gateway fees included?
No. Gateways such as PayFast, Yoco or Stripe charge you a fee per transaction directly. We set the gateway up; you choose the provider and sign up with them.
How many products can the store handle?
There’s no practical limit on either platform for most businesses. What changes the price is who loads them. If you give us a spreadsheet, we import, clean up and categorise products at about six minutes each; if you load them yourself, leave the slider at zero.
What's the difference between the design levels?
Basic styles a proven store theme to your brand. Standard designs the purchase journey from homepage to checkout. Premium adds customer research and a prototype focused on conversion rate, which pays for itself on stores with meaningful traffic.
Can the store sync with my stock or accounting system?
Yes. The accounting integration posts orders, invoices and payments to Xero, Sage or QuickBooks. The stock and ERP feed keeps stock levels and prices in step with your inventory system. Both remove hours of manual admin every week.
Do you set up couriers?
The courier integration adds live shipping rates at checkout and generates waybills through services such as The Courier Guy and Bob Go. Without it, you set flat or zone-based shipping rates, which are included in every store.
Can I sell to businesses with different prices?
Yes. The wholesale and B2B add-on gives customer groups their own prices, quote requests and account terms, alongside the normal retail store.
Can you migrate my existing store?
Yes. Set the products slider to your catalogue size, and tell us in step two which platform you’re moving from. Customers and order history can usually come across too; the formal quotation confirms what your current platform allows.
What are the terms for hosting and care?
Monthly services are on a 12-month contract with a 3-month minimum, and the contract renews for another 12 months unless you give one calendar month’s notice before it ends. If you need to stop early, you pay 3 months’ fees after the month you give notice, starting with your one calendar month’s notice. For example, notice in month 3 means you’re billed for months 1 to 6. The commitment covers our fees, including campaign and boosting commission; ad and boost spend paid to the platforms isn’t included.
How long does a store take?
Every quote includes a timeline. Work starts after a 3-week lead time, then runs at about 30 hours a week, so a 90-hour project goes live roughly 6 weeks after you accept the quote: 3 weeks of lead time plus 3 weeks of work. The timeline doesn’t include time spent waiting for feedback, content, approvals or meetings, so quick turnarounds keep it on track. Your formal quotation confirms the dates.