If you've Googled "how much does an online store cost," you've seen three answers: $30/month (Shopify Basic), $8,000 (custom agency build), or "depends" (most other articles).
All three are technically true. None of them are useful. The actual answer is what scale do you need to support, and for how long?
01The three real budgets
DIY tier ($30-100/mo) — Shopify, Wix, Squarespace. Works for the first 50 orders/week. Beyond that, the templates start fighting you. You'll hit performance issues, custom-checkout requirements, inventory sync problems. You can build a real business here — but you'll outgrow it inside 12 months if you're selling anything seasonal or growing.
Agency tier ($8-15k upfront + maintenance) — Custom site, your code, your hosting. Looks great. Costs land at month 3 when the agency hands it over and you realize you now own the maintenance. Plugins update, things break, the agency's no longer on retainer. You pay them again or hire a freelancer to keep it running. Most offline-business-going-online founders regret this tier within 6 months.
Ready team subscription ($2,500/mo) — Custom build, owned by a team, ongoing capacity. The team handles the upgrades, the integrations, the seasonal campaigns. Scales to 1,000+ orders/week without re-platforming. Costs the same as the DIY tier when you add in the founder's time saved.
02The hidden costs nobody mentions
The sticker prices above don't include the ongoing tail:
Apps and integrations add up fast. Every "free trial" you start during setup converts to a $20-80/month subscription. Payment processing eats 2.9% of every order. Email and SMS marketing add another fixed bill. If you're self-hosting (the agency tier without ongoing support), AWS / Vercel / hosting climbs as you scale.
The realistic number for an offline business building their first online store at moderate scale (200-500 orders/month) is $2,800-4,500/month all-in by month four. Founders who plan for $300/month find themselves $300/month over budget by month two.
03How to actually budget
Three numbers to nail before you commit to any tier:
- Realistic orders/week target by month 6 — this determines whether DIY survives or breaks. Below 50, DIY works. Above, you need real capacity
- Your effective hourly rate for ops time — if you're running the offline business at $80/hour, every hour you spend on store maintenance is an $80 cost. The agency tier looks cheap until you add this in
- Seasonality — if you have a Q4 spike, the DIY tier may struggle exactly when you need it most. Plan platform for peak, not for average
Once you have those three, the math chooses the tier for you. Most offline businesses going online with growth ambitions land on the ready-team subscription model because it's the only one that holds across all three numbers.
04What a ready team actually includes
For ~$2,500/month, you get: build, hosting, integrations, monthly campaign support, A/B testing on the checkout, monthly performance reviews. No upfront capex. Cancel anytime. Scales to 1,000+ orders/week on the same plan.
The reason the math works: you're sharing a team across multiple businesses. The cost of capacity is spread, the quality bar stays high, and you get the team that's already debugged your category of business.
05What to do this week
Skip the "how much does it cost" question. Replace it with these three:
- How many orders per week do I want to handle by month 6?
- How many hours per week am I willing to spend on the store myself?
- What's the realistic seasonal peak?
Write the numbers down. Bring them to whichever vendor you talk to. If they can't quote you against those three, they're guessing.
The free founder tech audit includes a cost-projection section specifically for offline businesses launching online — useful even if you don't end up working with us.