Although Magento is one of the best eCommerce platforms for online stores, there are a lot of business owners who are afraid to launch an eCommerce website on this CMS because they don't know the Magento costs involved.
In this guide to Magento pricing, we'll describe what investment expense you should be ready for and talk about the true cost of running a Magento store on a daily basis.
Table of Content
1. How Does Magento Pricing Work: Magento Pricing Explained
Magento (now Adobe Commerce) has the reputation of being one of the most expensive eCommerce platforms for your online businesses. And it is true, to a point. The truth is that this agnostic eCommerce platform itself is free of charge as long as most stores run the Magento Open Source version (aka Magento Community edition). But in order to answer the question "How much does Magento cost?", we need to take a look at all the different editions and licensing fees.
| Magento Edition | Description | Magento Pricing |
| Magento Open Source | Free as in “free beer” - the Magento Open Source edition (aka Magento Community edition) is 100% free to use by anyone. Developed with the help of the vast Magento community, it's the most popular edition on the market, with 83% of all the Magento clients running their stores on Magento Open Source (either Magento 1 or Magento 2). | FREE |
| Magento Commerce (Adobe Commerce) | Previously known as a Magento Enterprise edition, Magento Commerce is the advanced version developed by the Magento team. You get more cool capabilities (advanced warehouse and catalog management, in-depth admin roles, business intelligence tools) and the tech support of the Magento team. Magento Commerce is a great choice for large eCommerce businesses with huge workloads and complex business requirements. | Magento Commerce pricing depends on expected annual Gross Sales Revenue (GSR). Magento Enterprise pricing starts at $22,000 for $0-$1,000,000 GSR, and the max price is $125,000 for $25,000,000-$50,000,000 GSR. As you can see, the gap in the cost of Magento commerce is significant. The more successful your store is, the higher the Magento Enterprise cost will be. |
| Magento Commerce Cloud (Adobe Commerce Cloud) | Basically, it's the same as the Magento Commerce platform but in the cloud. Sometimes, it makes sense to go for the Magento Commerce Cloud edition if you think you can handle the associated costs. | Magento Commerce Cloud pricing is much higher than other options. That is because, this time, you will also get cloud web hosting. We are looking at $40,000-$190,000 values, which are also tied to annual Gross Sales Revenue. |
Total cost: None. Most eCommerce merchants opt for the Magento Open Source eCommerce platform. It's fully capable of dealing with even high-traffic spikes with no Magento fees for downloading the solution. However, if you miss some of the features Magento Commerce editions offer, most of the time, you can use an extension to get them.
Magento Open Source is free to download, but you still need to pay for hosting, setup, and customization. Because of these costs, some businesses opt for the more robust Magento Commerce edition. For more details, check out our article on .
Now, let's move on to other Magento website costs.
2. How Much Is Magento 2 Website Development: The Biggest Expenses
The Magento platform license itself might be free, but everything else is not. In our experience, there are three big cost factors that make Magento store development cost grow:
- creating a solid user experience and design;
- buying and debugging extensions;
- applying various frontend customizations.
Moreover, the final cost will depend on your business type, whether you’re a B2B or B2C brand. So, businesses considering Magento, especially in the B2B domain, should factor in not only the costs mentioned above but also the peculiarities of Magento B2B pricing.
2.1 User Experience and Magento Web Design Cost
Let's start with the basics. You'll need to create the UX of your online store. Whether you or want to build a brand new , you still have to craft a solid user experience for mobile, tablet, and desktop versions of your eCommerce website.
This means extensive wireframing, working with analytics and UX experts, purchasing Magento specialist consultations, figuring out ways to improve your sales funnel and conversions, etc. Even if you want something standard, it could be hard to find the solution that will satisfy you right from the start. And if you do, soon, this version may not be sufficient for your growing business. For those who already have a store and want to enhance its looks, we have a .
As far as UX is concerned, you need to work out what kind of design you want. One option here is to go with a ready-to-use theme. This is a good thing if you want to save money, but it robs your store of any individuality. Here are some Magento theme options to consider:
1. Out-of-the-box Magento themes
The platform comes with two prebuilt templates: a demonstration theme, Luma and Blank, as a basis for custom theme creation. Adobe recommends not using a default theme if you plan to modify it. Why? The reason is that during updates, the new version of the default files may replace your changes, and you'll lose all the work.
2. Ready-made Magento themes
These are the ones provided by third parties. Some examples include Martfury by Magebig, Fastest by Codazon, Market by Magentech, and others. Such solutions are individualized and let you tweak the store's appearance without much coding.
Magento themes pricing ranges from $60-$100. But that's what you get without any customization. If you want your store to look unique, get ready to spend a lot more money on custom UX/UI design. Magento theme development costs are high. However, you will find nothing as exclusive and functional as you can get. Look at these awesome created by established brands to get some inspiration.
Total cost: Depending on your resources, prepare to spend from $50 for a ready-to-use theme to $2,400-$40,000 on custom Magento themes and design solutions.
3. Custom Theme
Custom design is the best bet, as it gives you complete control over the look and functionality of your website. With a team of experienced developers, you can create a store that matches your specific business requirements and stands out against competitors.
You may either go for a total website overhaul or modify the key components/separate pages to boost UX and conversions. Take Onilab’s client, , as an example. The American multi-brand retailer was running on a standard Magento theme and couldn’t deliver a smooth shopping experience, especially for mobile users.
There was no need to revamp the whole store. Our team singled out the focal points, which were updating navigation, product pages, and checkout. Inspired by an app-like design, we incorporated a tab bar. It featured crucial links to the homepage, cart, wish list, and account.
As for filters, we put them in sliders to display options more prominently and optimize space. Additionally, we fixed the menu at the top for easy navigation. Adding a sticky bar with a price and CTA on the product page was a great move to foster accessibility.
The checkout process underwent drastic changes. The entire flow happens on one page, with the forms opening in pop-ups. Customers can easily view and edit information without having to scroll or wait for new pages to load.
2.2 Third-Party Extensions Costs
There are a lot of free third-party Magento extensions on the market. However, you need to spend a lot of money if you want the most useful ones. With the average price of $100, installing even 10-15 extensions will lead to $1,000-$1,500 just in extension costs.
Another thing to keep in mind is that developers test their extensions on empty Magento demo stores. You, on the other hand, will have dozens of modules on a busy online store that serves thousands of customers. Make sure you understand the implications of installing 10-20 unoptimized extensions at once.
If you want something special for your website, you may need the development of a custom Magento extension that would be a perfect fit for your business needs. With it, you can make your store more flexible, user-friendly, and memorable by adding customized features.
Our clients often ask, "How much does it cost to develop a Magento extension?". The pricing depends on specific functions, purposes, and use cases of custom modules. Thus, the price range for building the average Magento extension will vary from $2,500 to $5,000, excluding the cost of any design work.
Total cost: You’ll need to spend $1,000-$2,500 to get all the Magento extensions you want. Make sure you also have 2x-3x of this money for installation, compatibility testing, and bug fixing. In total, the budget for this stage should be $2,000-$10,000.
Learn more about Magento PWA Themes in our guide, ""
2.3 Frontend and Backend Costs
Let’s see what frontend work includes:
- implementing your custom design;
- integrating extensions into the current design;
- developing new functionality if needed.
The amount of effort you need to invest depends on your design complexity, the number of extensions, and other unique customizations that you couldn't find on Magento Marketplace and need to develop yourself. It also takes a fair amount of work to implement your layout and make the store work smoothly on phones, tablets, and desktops.
Have you ever heard of headless commerce and ? is a trendy methodology that means splitting the store's frontend from the backend. Sounds promising? Well, it is. A headless commerce platform provides grounds for developing a flexible architecture. With it, you can model the system according to your business needs. Besides, the headless approach allows you to deliver robust performance and a perfect UX for your shoppers regardless of the device they use.
Total Magento cost: The more extensions and design features you have, the more expensive it gets. Based on our experience, it takes between 2-4 months to complete frontend and backend work. Depending on the Magento developer cost, we are talking about $5,000-$67,000.
2.4 Overall Magento Launch Costs
Since all stores are different, it's kind of hard to estimate what your expenses will be like. Anyway, you may need to pay between $7,000 and $140,000. This is a rough estimate and should be treated just like that. We advise getting a real quote as your individual Magento eCommerce site cost will be vastly different.
40 Hours of Magento Services. FOR FREE
Try our custom development, optimization, support, and design services. One week, free of charge, no strings attached.
3. How Much Does It Cost to Run a Magento Website?
Once we understand what kind of expenses you are going to have during the launch period, let's take a look at how much it costs to run a Magento 2 site. Our day-to-day expenses will include Magento hosting, Magento development, and .
3.1 Infrastructure Costs
Magento hosting is a complex theme. We created an entire on choosing the best hosting provider. Depending on the degree of control you want to have over your server, you can opt for either unmanaged or managed Magento hosting.
The former means complete access to your server resources and greater responsibility as you need to tackle arising issues yourself. The latter involves specialists taking care of your website while you sacrifice certain freedom to set up the system as you desire.
You have four basic options for your Magento store:
a) Shared Hosting
This is when your store shares server resources with other websites located on the same machine. This option is reserved for lightweight sites that don't require a lot of CPU and RAM to function: think blogs, simple landing pages, portfolio showrooms, etc.
Using a Magento 2 shared hosting is not the best idea if you want your website to work seamlessly and expect acceptable performance. Be ready to pay $10-$25 as a shared hosting cost per month.
b) Virtual Private Server
VPS is the golden middle in terms of value for your money. It's the best option for small to medium Magento stores. Great for high flexibility and high-performance hosting. It also supports better security than shared hosting. Optimal choice to start your Magento shop.
VPS hosting will have different prices based on your needs. In 2024, expect to see VPS Magento hosting pricing between $60 and $300 a month.
c) Dedicated Hosting
The largest stores will need to own custom-built machines in order to deliver the best performance to their customers. Dedicated servers were created just for that. It's a great solution when you need to control every aspect of your server, from hardware to firmware to software. Literally everything.
Expect to pay up to $2,000 a month for the comfort, though. Buying the machine is also a big up-front payment. Server hardware is expensive.
d) Cloud Hosting
The largest stores might consider buying a dedicated server or hosting in a cloud. It's a good idea for dealing with huge workloads and user spikes. Both solutions offer almost complete independence in server configuration, which is important for advanced setups. Expect to pay up to $4,000 per month for cloud hosting, though.
Answering the question, "How much does it cost to host a Magento site?" we would like to outline the basics:
- Magento cannot function well on shared hosting; it will be too slow;
- Choose a VPS (Virtual Private Server) for your first Magento run and upgrade to the cloud or dedicated server later;
- Look for a specialized Magento hosting provider; this way, you can get better tech support and host on servers optimized specifically for Magento stores;
- Don't save on infrastructure; in eCommerce, a faster store = more sales.
Total Magento hosting cost: Get ready for $10-$4,000 per month based on your hosting plan. A more realistic estimate for an average store will be something in the range of up to $600.
3.2 Costs of Third-Party Services
Magento can work pretty well by itself. You get the store and the managed Magento hosting. Everything works. But after a while, you decide you want to deal with workload spikes better, install a faster search, investigate dips in performance, or integrate Magento SEO and promotion services inside the store.
Every third-party service is going to cost you money. From getting an email server to working with a new business intelligence tool for BI insights – prepare to pay. New Relic, Algolia, AWS Simple Email Service, and Magento Business Essentials will make the lion's share of your monthly budget. You may need to dish out $100-$3,000 per month for the luxury of being among the best-equipped stores on the market.
3.3 Development and Support Costs
Your mileage may vary, but most stores continue to develop new features after the release. There's always something to do in a busy store. From to troubleshooting and new feature development, the store requires at least one experienced Magento developer to be ready to solve unique issues on a monthly basis.
If we are talking about maintenance costs, it could be anywhere between a full-time commitment of 40 hours per week to random assignments like installing security patches and fixing bugs for 5-10 hours a month. Costs will also vary from $150 to $5,000, depending on the workload.
4. Total Cost of Running a Successful Magento Store
Here's the big picture of the Magento eCommerce cost. We can sum up all the expenses of starting an online store:
| Type of Expense | Minimum Cost | Maximum Cost | On Average |
| Hosting | $10 | $4,000 | $600 |
| Third-party services | $100 | $3,000 | $500 |
| Maintenance and development | $150 | $5,000 | $1,000 |
| Total | $260 | $12,000 | $2,100 |
Calculating the Magento Cost: Major Takeaways
To predict the cost of Magento for your eCommerce business, you first need to answer one question, "How deeply do you want to customize the store?" As seen in this Magento pricing guide, you can start with Magento Open Source, which is free. It's a basic Magento edition that can perform all the needed functions.
But in the case of Magento Open Source, you'll need to take care of the domain name cost, purchase an SSL certificate (a secure sockets layer), look for Magento developers to set up the store, etc.
Yet, the Magento license cost includes two other options:
- Magento Commerce (Adobe Commerce);
- and Magento Commerce Cloud (Adobe Commerce Cloud).
These are more advanced solutions with a more complex Magento pricing model. That's where Magento pricing depends on your Gross Merchandise Value (GMV). And these are just Magento license options alone. The Magento store cost may also include payment providers' fees, the marketing cost, Magento support, and more.
Want to get an accurate Magento 2 pricing quote in 2024? Or maybe you are worried you pay too much for hiring Magento developers? Let's see if we can help you with without spending a fortune on eternal tweaks. Contact the Onilab web development agency for no-obligation Magento pricing breakdown, professional technical support, and personalized assistance.
