Transparent budgeting for your Shopify store

There are few things that frustrate business owners more than hidden costs. You start a Shopify store with a budget, and suddenly it costs three times as much. This does not happen because Shopify is expensive – it happens because the cost planning was flawed.

The typical cost traps: You pay for apps you don't need. You have a developer who is expensive but doesn't deliver proportionately. You want new traffic and then realize your store isn't built for growth and needs to be completely rebuilt. You commission a solution that is technically elegant but completely oversized for your current reality.

The opposite also happens: You save everywhere, and then the store doesn't run stably, the performance is poor, and you lose customers. Or you've invested so little that everything becomes expensive later because technical debt needs to be resolved.

Budgeting for a Shopify store is a balance between realism and vision. You need to understand what a decent store costs. Not the minimum, not the maximum – but the right size for your business stage.

At smplx., we have worked with stores from small to very large. We have had to manage with €500/month budgets and planned with 20k €/month. And we have learned who saves money and who wastes it.

The cost components of a Shopify store:

1. Shopify platform fees: This is straightforward. Shopify Basic costs from €29/month. Shopify Plus is for enterprise. There are tiers in between. This is budget that recurs regularly. Plan according to your revenue and feature needs.

2. Development and setup: This is often the biggest variable. A small store with a standard theme: 2k €–5,000. A store with custom development and integration with 3–4 systems: €15,000–30,000. A large store with complex requirements: €50,000+. This depends on complexity, not on the number of SKUs alone.

3. Theme and design: Shopify themes cost €120–370 as a one-time fee, or you custom-build a theme (5k €–15,000). Your website's design is not optional – it directly impacts sales. A better design multiplies your conversion rate.

4. Apps and plugins: This is where hidden costs arise. Every app costs monthly. Many stores pay €200–500/month for apps that help 20% of revenue. Some pay €500/month for apps that help 2%. The question is: Which app is ROI-positive?

5. Content and copy: A blog doesn't write itself for free. Product descriptions need to be reworked. Content marketing costs €1,000–3,000/month if you want to do it seriously. Many completely ignore this budget.

6. Marketing and traffic: This is not really a Shopify cost item, but it's relevant: traffic is not free. Organic traffic requires SEO investment. Paid traffic requires ad budget. With Shopify alone you are invisible. With traffic you are visible.

7. Maintenance, monitoring, and support: Is the store running on autopilot? That's expensive. Does the store have 24/7 monitoring and is stable? That costs less but is a baseline investment.

The smplx. pricing models:

We have four approaches that typically make sense:

Foundation (from 6k €): A new store, set up from scratch. Design theme, basic integration (payment methods, possibly ERP), initial product data. This is your startup investment.

Architecture+ (from 10k €): A store with custom development, more complex requirements, possibly a second or third integration. This is a store that scales later.

Scale (from 1.5k €/month): An existing setup that is regularly maintained, receives new features, and can iterate quickly. This is for growing stores.

SEO (from 1.35k €/month): Organic traffic is your problem. We build a content strategy, optimize, build authority. This pays for itself multiple times over.

What does it all cost in the first year? For a decent new store including setup, some development, and initial marketing: €15,000–25,000. That is not cheap. But it is the reality of a professional e-commerce business. Startup stores that budgeted €500 quickly realize that is not enough.

The most important insight: Cheap development is expensive in the future. A store set up for 2k € costs you €15,000 a year later because everything needs to be rebuilt. A store properly set up for €15,000 costs you maybe 5k € next year for optimization.

This guide shows: What does everything really cost? Where is investment worthwhile? How do you budget realistically? And how do you avoid the cost traps that 80% of stores fall into.