How Much Does an Online Store Cost in 2025?

Thinking about launching an online store in 2025? Great! Before you dive in, it's worth carefully considering how much this venture might cost and what you need to watch out for. In this article, you'll learn about the most important cost factors involved in opening and running an online store.

Article summary

Opening an online store in 2025 is an investment whose cost depends mainly on the platform you choose, the level of customization, and your marketing strategy. You can go with a SaaS model (e.g. Shopify, Shoper) - quick to launch, with monthly costs starting from as little as 100 PLN, but limited flexibility - or an open source solution (e.g. WooCommerce, PrestaShop), where implementation costs run from a few thousand up to over ten thousand PLN, but you get full control over your store.

Basic costs also include a domain (from 50 PLN a year), hosting (anywhere from several dozen to 800 PLN a year, depending on the store's scale), and an SSL certificate - free or commercial (from 100 PLN a year). Additional expenses cover payment system implementation (e.g. PayU, Przelewy24 - a few hours of agency work, around 1000 PLN) and technical support (100-250 PLN/month).

Marketing costs are also worth factoring in - Google Ads campaigns, SEO, email marketing - which often start from 500 PLN a month, though real results require budgets in the range of 2,000-5,000 PLN/month. On top of that, in 2025 integrations with order management systems (e.g. BaseLinker, Apilo) and WCAG compliance are becoming increasingly important, in line with the European Accessibility Act.

Your own online store gives you independence from marketplaces, higher margins, and the ability to build customer loyalty. It's also a scalable form of selling - you can grow the store, automate processes, and reach customers across the whole country (or the world) without leaving home.

Is it worth opening an online store in 2025?

E-commerce has been booming in Poland for several years - driven by changing shopping habits and a series of improvements in the supply and payment chain. Ordering online is simpler and more convenient than ever!

Opening your own online store in 2025 is still a worthwhile investment, despite growing competition. Poland's e-commerce market is developing dynamically, with its value projected to reach 192 billion PLN by 2028, meaning an average annual growth rate of 8%. On top of that, the rising popularity of mobile and social commerce shopping is creating new ways to reach customers, and your own online store gives you full control over your brand, higher profits by avoiding marketplace commissions, and the ability to build lasting relationships with customers.

It's no wonder this business tempts so many people. Let's start with three reasons why it's worth entering e-commerce in 2025 - depending on your starting point:

1. You already sell on a marketplace (e.g. Allegro, Amazon, Erli)

Your own store is your own sales channel. You gain independence, control over your brand, and higher margins.

If you're already selling on marketplace platforms, you probably know that in recent years this has become harder due to product restrictions, commissions, and changes to terms of service - for example on Allegro. Opening your own store frees you from the costs and barriers these platforms impose:

• You build your own sales channel - you can build a customer database and run your own marketing (something marketplaces don't allow beyond ads and sponsorships);
• You increase your unit profit - without a 10-15% commission you're more profitable, and you no longer have to fight on margin with other sellers in the same marketplace (a fight that has intensified considerably since the Allegro Catalog was introduced);
• You grow your brand's visibility and image without operating "under cover" of the marketplace - giving you far more room to shape it;
• Promotions, campaigns, delivery and returns policy, listing content - you do all of it on your own terms!

Some sellers hesitate to move to their own online store, afraid of losing the customers and sales generated by the scale of marketplaces like Allegro or Amazon. You can always keep running your marketplace activity alongside your own store - software such as Apilo, Sellasist, or BaseLinker lets you manage everything from one place, giving you a single command center for multiple channels.

2. You have a brick-and-mortar store

Entering e-commerce is a way to extend your reach and build resilience against local downturns.

If you already run a physical store, you have an excellent foundation for building your online presence. You already have storage space, at least part of the setup needed to fulfill orders, and existing customers. Here's what you gain by opening an online store:

• Sales 24/7 - not just locally, but across the whole country or abroad;
• You can introduce an omnichannel model: in-store pickup, online reservations, discounts for offline customers. And customers increasingly search online before visiting, so not having a store can mean losing a potential sale;
• You can build a second sales channel on top of your existing physical one - running operations from one place and using the same stock and supply;
• You can test new products online without needing to stock them in-store - and vice versa.

Your own online store is a natural extension of your brick-and-mortar sales. You increase your reach and create additional value for your existing customers.

3. You're not selling anything yet

E-commerce is one of the cheapest, most flexible, and most scalable ways to start a business in 2025! If you're worried that the "e-commerce train" has already left the station, think again - you can still compete successfully in this market. Just consider how well covered your product category already is online, and think about whether you can carve out a niche.

Starting to sell online through your own store has never been easier:

• You don't need premises or a large starting capital - you can run it from home
• You have access to tools that automate sales, marketing, and logistics
• You can build your brand step by step, test products, and change your offering - without the risk that comes with renting space or hiring staff
• In 2025, AI tools and SaaS platforms let you launch a store quickly, cheaply, and professionally

E-commerce is a way to get into business with minimal financial risk.

Let's move on to an overview of the costs and options involved in opening your own online store. Like any venture, it requires careful planning and analysis, and as e-commerce has grown in popularity, so has the number of available solutions. The right choice depends on what kind of store you have in mind and how you want to run it. This overview will help point you in the right direction and give you the knowledge you need to make a decision.

Choosing a domain - standard .com, or something more exotic?

A domain - for many, part of the brand, and probably the area with the widest price range. Standard extensions such as .pl or .com usually cost a few dozen złoty a year (a .pl domain is roughly 50-100 PLN/year).

But you might also want, say, a .tv domain if you're planning to sell televisions - and that one is pricier for obvious reasons. There are also nTLDs (new Top-Level Domains) - such as .store, .shop, .online, .io - which catch the eye and help you stand out, but come with higher fees you need to include in your budget.

Domains often lure you in with a promotional first-year registration price (e.g. around 30 PLN net for the first year), but the renewal cost of such a domain is usually much higher. On top of that, some domains have already been registered by resellers (so-called domain squatters) or flagged by registrars as "premium" because they're catchy. Prices for such domains can reach tens of thousands of złoty!

Before buying your dream domain, check whether there are any hidden costs - especially ones that only kick in later. Your budget needs to account for a one-time registration fee - often lower in the first year - and a fixed annual renewal cost. Also remember to renew the domain on time - otherwise your store will go offline!

The right hosting matters

Hosting is an extremely important part of any e-commerce venture, and choosing it well affects not only costs but, above all, performance, security, and the smooth operation of your store - something both you and, most importantly, your customers will notice. Here's what's worth knowing about hosting for an online store:

An online store, regardless of the platform (WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Magento, and so on), needs a stable server environment capable of handling:

• high traffic (especially during seasons like Black Friday),
• a database of products and customers,
• dynamic page generation (e.g. product filtering, login, cart),
• a payment process that has to be fast and error-free.

Hosting affects:

• page load speed (a key factor for both SEO and UX),
• operational stability - avoiding sales-killing downtime,
• customer data security - protection against DDoS attacks, malware, and so on.

Hosting costs are tied to the available CPU resources, RAM, disk space, and disk type (SSD, NVMe). Very often you can buy hosting bundled with a domain, and you'll frequently pay a promotional price for the first year. Still, it's worth reviewing the offer carefully, because costs may rise the following year - or you may lose extra features and services!

Besides the basic server fee, it's worth factoring in additional costs such as an SSL certificate (especially a commercial or wildcard one, from 100 PLN a year), an email server (if you need reliable business email, e.g. Gmail Workspace - from 20 PLN/month), backups (if you want a longer history or more frequent copies, that's 20-100 PLN/month), a CDN and WAF protection (for faster performance and security, especially under heavy traffic), and uptime monitoring for your site. Again - check the offer carefully, because these options aren't always included by default, though for anyone serious about e-commerce they're often essential.

Our advice: choosing cheap hosting may seem tempting at first, but for a store it's often a false economy. It's better to invest early in stability, fast loading, and good technical support - because every minute your store is down is a real loss in sales.

Types of online stores: SaaS vs. WordPress

The most important decision you'll have to make is choosing the platform on which you'll build your store. Opening an online store is very different from building a one-page website and involves both an extensive site structure and a wide range of functionality, along with the tools and systems needed to deliver it. There are two main types of solutions: SaaS (Software as a Service) platforms such as Shopify, Shoper, or PrestaShop, and stores built on open source platforms such as WordPress with the WooCommerce plugin. Each option has its pros and cons.

SaaS - flexibility, but with limitations

SaaS, or software as a service, is a model based on subscription fees. Choosing this option means using a ready-made platform provided by an external company. SaaS owes its popularity to a low entry barrier - you don't need to invest large sums upfront, and monthly fees start at around 100 PLN. But what looks attractive at first glance has its pitfalls.

Additional costs tied to integrating features such as parcel locker support, advanced reports, or custom templates can significantly increase your monthly spend. As a result, instead of that initial hundred złoty, you end up paying 500-600 PLN a month, which adds up to 6,000-7,000 PLN a year.

WordPress + WooCommerce - full control over your store

An alternative to SaaS platforms is building a store on WordPress using the WooCommerce plugin. This solution gives you much greater flexibility and control over your store's features. You make a one-time investment to build the store (from 5,000 to 15,000 PLN), but afterward you don't have to pay ongoing fees just for the software itself. That doesn't mean there are no monthly or yearly costs - there are, just somewhat lower.

The main difference is that with WordPress you have full control over your store - you can modify the code, add new features, change the store's appearance, and optimize it for SEO. With SaaS, these options are limited.

If you'd like to learn more about popular SaaS and open source solutions, and what actually sets a WordPress store apart from a Shoper store and a Shopify store, we encourage you to read our article, where we compare these solutions in more detail. What matters most is matching the store to your scale: for instance, don't overpay for Magento if you have a small catalog, and don't lock yourself into an overly simple SaaS if you're planning rapid growth and need unique features.

Decision: outsource it or do it yourself?

One of the key questions you need to ask yourself is whether to build your store on your own or hand it over to professionals. Each option has its pros and cons, but they share one common denominator - lack of experience can cost you a lot of time and money.

Outsourcing the store to specialists

Handing the store's construction over to a marketing agency or a web developer seems like the more convenient option - but remember that as the store owner, you're the one who should know what you need. If you don't have a clear vision and plan for what features your store should have, you risk ending up with a project that will require costly fixes down the line. Of course, a good agency will analyze your needs and offer advice, but the vision itself really has to be yours.

Make sure to think through the key elements of your store carefully:

• Features - what will the purchase process look like, which payment methods will be available, do you want to implement marketing automation?
• Look and UX - which products should be front and center, how should categories be arranged? If you're not sure where to start, consider a UX/UI consultation or an audit of your current store.
• SEO and optimization - which keywords do you want to focus on, and how should the site be optimized for search engines?

Building and launching the store yourself

If you decide to build the store yourself, you need to be aware that saving money at the start can mean long-term problems. Without the right technical knowledge, configuring the store, optimizing the code, and integrating payment and logistics systems can turn out to be far more time-consuming and costly than you originally expected.

Thinking about building an online store but not sure yet what it should look like or what features it should have? Get inspired by our portfolio and discover new ideas for your own online store!

Extra costs you need to keep in mind

The cost of adding products (stocking the store)

Adding a product catalog to a newly launched store is another cost factor that's often underestimated when planning a budget. Depending on how many products you have and how much ready-made data is available, you have two options: adding the products yourself or outsourcing the task to specialists.

As part of the initial implementation, agencies often offer to add a set number of products within the project price (say, a dozen or a few dozen items). If your catalog is bigger, there's usually a per-product surcharge, typically in the range of a dozen or so złoty per product. For more complex products (many variants, attributes, custom descriptions written from scratch), the unit cost can be higher.

Once the store is up and running, there's also the matter of ongoing catalog management. If you frequently add new products or update product information, you can handle this in-house (a cost in the form of your own team's time) or outsource it, for example as a maintenance service. Automation can also play a role: integrations with suppliers via XML/CSV files or an API can partly automate product uploads, though implementing such an integration also involves a one-time development cost.

Integrations with WMS and marketplace systems (BaseLinker, Apilo, etc.)

Integration with external sales and warehouse management systems has become almost standard for online stores in 2025, especially those operating across multiple channels. Many sellers treat their own store as a complement to marketplace sales (e.g. Allegro, Amazon), which is why it's crucial to keep stock levels and orders from every channel under control in one place. This is where tools like BaseLinker, Apilo, and Sellasist come in, integrating your store with marketplaces, couriers, invoicing systems, and more.

Integration costs come in two forms:

• A one-time integration setup cost - for example installing a module, configuring connections, and any custom adjustments for your specific store. For popular platforms (WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Shoper, etc.) there are ready-made plugins for integrating with BaseLinker or Apilo, which keeps the cost to a minimum (it's often part of a standard store implementation). Still, configuring and testing the integration takes a specialist's time - it's worth budgeting extra work for this within the project.
• A recurring subscription cost for using the WMS/omnichannel system - using services like BaseLinker or Apilo comes with a monthly fee, usually tied to scale (number of orders, listings, or revenue). For example, Apilo offers plans starting from around 23 PLN net per month (up to 100 orders), through 129 PLN (up to 500 orders), all the way to higher professional packages of 249 PLN and more per month.
  BaseLinker also runs on a volume-based subscription model - a new pricing list introduced in December 2024 raised rates, which larger stores in particular will feel. For small sellers the cost may be moderate (a few dozen złoty), but large e-commerce businesses exceeding 5,000 orders a month get moved to the Enterprise plan, where the cost increase can exceed 100,000 PLN a year. This shows how important it is to budget an appropriate amount for these integrations, matched to your expected sales scale.

Integration with systems like BaseLinker/Apilo is especially worthwhile for medium and large stores - automating processes (auto-listing, stock synchronization, order retrieval) saves time and reduces mistakes. For the smallest online stores selling only through their own channel, this cost may be optional, but if you're planning multichannel sales, you should treat it as a fixed part of your store's running costs.

Marketing costs after launching the store

Building the store is just the beginning - it's equally important to drive traffic and sales to it through marketing. An e-commerce marketing budget after launch can significantly exceed the cost of building the store itself, which is why it's worth factoring in already at the project launch stage. The key areas and their typical costs are:

• Google Ads campaigns (including search ads and banner remarketing) - the fastest way to generate traffic and sales, and incredibly useful right at the launch of a site or store - though you need to budget for it. According to market data, a reasonable minimum Google Ads budget for a store is around 4,000 PLN net a month. Campaign costs depend on the CPC rate in your industry and the competition - and can grow along with your scaling ambitions.
  Remarketing (targeting ads at people who visited the store but, say, didn't make a purchase) is usually part of the Google Ads or Facebook Ads ecosystem and fits within the overall ad budget. Still, it's worth setting aside part of your budget specifically for remarketing campaigns, since they tend to be highly effective at closing sales. For example, a remarketing campaign on the Google network or Facebook might cost a few hundred złoty a month but often generates a very good ROAS, especially with higher site traffic.
• Email marketing and marketing automation - staying in touch with customers via email (newsletters, transactional emails, abandoned cart reminders, loyalty programs) requires investing in tools and content, since sending emails manually stops making sense once you have more than a dozen or so customers.
  Simple newsletter tools (e.g. MailerLite) have starting packages from around 40-50 PLN a month, usually limited by the number of contacts. More advanced platforms with e-commerce-focused marketing automation can cost more, depending on the maximum number of contacts and the range of features.
  The advantage of email marketing and marketing automation is that it bundles many marketing tools into one monthly cost and has a low implementation difficulty - tools like GetResponse are very easy to learn and backed by an extensive knowledge base and customer support.
• Other promotional channels - although this question focuses mainly on ads, remarketing, and email, for a complete picture you should also keep in mind SEO and content marketing, as well as social media. These activities also generate costs. Effective SEO for a store handled by a professional agency is an expense of at least 4,000 PLN net a month (this figure covers technical optimization, content, and link building). Content marketing (e.g. running a company blog for SEO purposes) can cost from around 1,500 PLN a month upward. Meanwhile, an active social media presence and campaigns on Facebook/Instagram add another 2,000+ PLN a month (not counting the ad budget). These elements should be chosen based on your strategy - a small store might start by focusing on cheaper forms (e.g. running its own Facebook page), while a larger one might invest broadly across all channels right away.

In summary, marketing costs after launch are essential and should be broken down by channel. It's a good idea to plan for a monthly marketing budget that's at least several times higher than the monthly cost of the store's technical upkeep.

For example: if hosting, domain, and support cost 300 PLN/month, you could spend 3,000 PLN/month on marketing (a conservative estimate) - of course, the exact proportions depend on your sales goal.

Summary

To sum up, opening an online store in 2025 is an investment whose costs depend on the choices you make - we hope this article helps you estimate your expenses more accurately. SaaS platforms offer convenience and a low entry barrier, but may turn out more expensive in the long run. WordPress gives you greater flexibility and control, but requires a one-time investment.

What matters most is that, as a business owner, you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve and which strategy you're choosing. If you have questions about building an online store, sales strategy, or marketing, you can always consult an agency that will help you pick the best option for your business - leave us a message below!

The decision is yours - act with intention, plan for the long term, and invest in growing your e-commerce business. Good luck!