Here at Explosion Digital, we’re no strangers to WooCommerce. In fact, we use WooCommerce to build many of our clients’ unique websites. It’s honestly our go-to.
A huge reason for this is that WooCommerce is technically free. It costs nothing to sign up on WooCommerce and start using its services. However, to build a successful e-commerce website, you may need a few extra tools and plugins to push you forward.
That way, WooCommerce’s pricing can be a little difficult to understand. Don’t worry, though! We’ve put together this blog to give you a better understanding of how much it costs to build an e-commerce website using WooCommerce.
Read on to learn more!
How Much Does WooCommerce Cost?
So, as we mentioned earlier, WooCommerce is technically free. You don’t have to pay anything to make an account and get started. You do need a WordPress account to use WooCommerce, though. And WordPress is also free.
By this logic, you could very well get started right now and have a website up and running by the end of the day. Technically.
Of course, you’ll have just a very basic skeleton of an e-commerce website. In truth, you usually get what you pay for. Nothing worthwhile is free, and that’s why web development is actually an investment.
You can do with just a WooCommerce account alone, but know that in order to truly excel, you’ll need a few more tools and plug-ins. So, let’s take a look at how much it really costs to make a successful e-commerce site using WooCommerce.
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As we said earlier, nothing worthwhile is free. You usually get what you pay for. Especially when it comes to an e-commerce website. You make money by investing money first. If you’re looking at WooCommerce because it’s “free”, remember you will have to pay some amount of money if you want to see stellar results.
Of course, it all depends on your budget at the end of the day. WooCommerce is extremely accommodative that way as it allows you to pick services that fit your specific needs. Here are 6 main costs you simply cannot ignore:
1.Hosting:
This is the first on the list as it is absolutely non-negotiable. You cannot have a website without proper hosting. Luckily, on WooCommerce, hosting starts at just £2.62/month. Of course, the price varies according to the provider you use.
You can also go in for a VPS (Virtual Private Server) for more reliability, security and performance. In that case, it could range anywhere from £17.48 – £26.23 a month, reaching a maximum of £87.42.
The better you want your hosting to be, the more you’ll have to pay, of course. And hosting isn’t something you want to cut corners on. Your website’s hosting defines its performance.
2. Domain:
Another non-negotiable cost is your domain. Now, how much you pay for your domain really depends on the name you wish to keep for your website.
Suppose you want something simple, like your own name, it should come up to £13.07 using A2 hosting. Ideally, you’ll want to pick a name that incorporates a few integral keywords to help with your SEO. For example, if your website sells art supplies a domain name like “artsuppliesforbeginners” or “artsupplies101” could help drive in traffic.
Another thing you can do is purchase a pre-existing “aged” domain. This could be beneficial as it could help you rank faster since Google already has a history with it.
3. Theme:
Your website’s theme defines the way your customers view your business. This includes everything from layout to colour scheme to overall style web design london. Your theme should ideally suit your brand while also being functional.
WooCommerce has many themes available in their shop, most of which are free. Other paid-for themes usually cost £34.10, £69.07 or £112.78 yearly, and some themes only have a one-time fee.
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4. E-commerce Extensions:
Just as your theme should be functional, there are certain extensions that are absolutely necessary for an e-commerce website. It truly depends on what you need from your website. Here are a few must-haves when it comes to extensions:
– Payment Processing:
A big reason we use WooCommerce as our go-to is due to the fact that it’s fully integrated with various e-commerce payment gateways. Including (but not limited to) Stripe, Authorise, Square and PayPal.
Integration does come with literal costs, though. Most of these payment gateways have monthly subscriptions + transaction fees. Luckily, these prices tend to be low. Stipe and PayPayl cost just £0.26/transaction + 2.9% of the purchase price.
– Sales:
There are three distinct WooCommerce plugins we’d suggest to make sure transactions go smoothly depending on what your business sells.
1. WooCommerce Pre-Orders: This feature allows customers to “pre-order” products before their official release. Price: £112.78/year.
2. WooCommerce Subscriptions: With this extension, you can offer people products/services on a subscription basis. This means your clients get new products regularly while recurring their payments. Price: £173.97/year.
3. WooCommerce Bookings: This extension works for companies that offer services and products on a reservation basis. For example, rentals and appointments. “Bookings” helps you streamline the process and avoid unnecessary emails and calls. Price: £217.69/year.
– Shipping:
Shipping ultimately depends on your company, but it’s great news to know that WooCommerce automatically calculates shipping charges and taxes from leading carriers. This comes with your WooCommerce dashboard, free of charge.
WooCommerce Shipping is also a great free extension that allows you to print shipping labels directly from your dashboard.
5. SEO & Marketing Plugins:
On the topic of extensions and plugins, there are a few plugins you definitely need in order to draw traffic to your site. Here are a few of them, including their prices:
– AutomateWoo: £86.55/year
– Constant Contact: £17.48, £39.34, £170.48 monthly plans
– LiveChat: £22.73, £28.85, £43.71 monthly plans
– WooCommerce Google Analytics: Free
– WooCommerce Points and Rewards: £112.78/year.
– Yoast WooCommerce SEO: £60.32/year
6. Security:
Last, but certainly not least, you’ll want to pay for security on your website. Cybercrime is a real issue in today’s world, and chances are people may just try to hack/break into your website.
If your site is just a blog/markets services, an SSL certificate + simple security software should suffice. In the case of E-commerce websites, however, you’ll need way more security. Since you accept payments from customers, their details could be a target for cybercriminals and you’ll want to keep them and yourself safe.
One of the first things you need to do is make sure to keep your WordPress edition up to date. Newer versions tend to update security patches to keep your website as safe as possible. Next, you should use a Web Application Firewall (WAF) to keep WordPress separate from the rest of your WooCommerce website. This ensures that your e-commerce store will be safe in case hackers are able to breach your WordPress site.
We recommend using:
– Cloudflare: £0 – £174.85/month
– Sucuri: £174.84 – £437.11/year
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How Much to Spend on Woocommerce Website Development?
Now that you know the costs you can’t avoid, it really depends on you at the end of the day. The best thing about WooCommerce is the fact that it supports complete personalisation and your budget is ultimately dependent on you.
If you’re content with using a free theme and paying the same for your necessary plugins and extensions, you’ll need to spend at the very least £8.74/month to cover hosting and domain registration. For your security requirements, Cloudflare also offers a free version, though we strongly advise you to at least pay £17.48 per month for their Pro Plan. You can never be too safe.
If you opt for free Cloudflare, the total monthly cost of your WooCommerce site could be just £8.74.
But that would be really minimal.
You may easily spend more than £174.85 per month on your WooCommerce website if you chose to bulk up any of the aforementioned features, such as selecting a theme and plugins that will give your site the functionality it requires.
Depending on your present objectives, you may add an additional £43.71 to £87.42 to that sum to support your marketing initiatives using the extensions we discussed in section 5.
Conclusion
We hope this blog helped give you some clarity. If you’re not too keen on handling web development on your own, you can always hire our experts here at Explosion Digital.
We can help you build a website from scratch or simply update your pre-existing one to WooCommerce. Since we’re a digital marketing agency, all the tools you need come with our monthly plans. So, you wouldn’t need to pay extra for tools and you’d have an entire team dedicated to marketing your brand. Want to learn more and get a custom quote? Contact us today!
