If you consider Magento / Adobe Commerce as a new platform for your eCommerce business or you are already running a web store on Magento but thinking about Magento upgrade, redesign, or migration to an alternative frontend solution (Hyva, VueStorefront, etc.), it’s essential to understand the true up-to-date cost of a Magento website. Several factors influence the cost implications, including website complexity (features, third-party integrations, modules), design, development and customization, and hosting and infrastructure. Despite the development itself, you also need to take into account the cost of maintenance and support.

It’s impossible to give a quick, fair answer to the question, “How much does a Magento / Adobe Commerce website cost?” But due to our 12 years of experience with Magento we can explain what factors you need to consider and what approximate price range to expect.

Let’s explore these factors and insights into estimating the total cost of ownership.

The complexity of the website can impact the cost of building a Magento store. For example, a web store with a large number of products, custom requirements, and integrations will increase the cost of development and customization. According to Magestore, the cost of developing a Magento website can range from $10,000 to $500,000, depending on the complexity of the project. From our experience, the typical range is from $20,000 to $250,000. For super complex projects - the sky is the limit. As a hourly rate varies significantly depending on agency type, developers level, and country so it’s hard to compare but the simple web store development on Magento takes 300-640 hours.

What is included in the development of a simple Magento store:

Planning and Preparation: 20-40 hours, depending on the complexity of the project and the level of detail in the requirements.

Theme installation and minor customization (Frontend Development): 80-240 hours for installation and setup of a ready theme or minor changes for the default Luma theme or Hyva (minor changes: changing colors, fonts, brand identity, minor layout adjustment, shapes, shadows, icons, etc.) coding the user interface, and ensuring compatibility.

Backend Development: Setting up the Magento environment, configuring features, and integrating extensions may require around 80-160 hours.

Payment/ Shipping methods setup: ~40 hours

Product and Content fulfillment: Adding products, images, and content can vary significantly based on the number and complexity of the data, ranging from 20-80 hours.

Testing and Quality Assurance: 40-80 hours.

Deployment and Launch: Deploying the store and setting up the production environment can typically take 20-40 hours.

What does increase the complexity of the project:

Integration with third-party systems (CRM, ERP, PIM, reviews systems, some payment systems, marketing and analytics systems, etc)

Custom theme development based on provided designs

Custom business logic that differs from the default

Catalog size and variety of product types (configurable, bundled products with multiple options)

Choosing between custom design and ready-made themes for a Magento website depends on the business’s needs and budget. Custom design costs more but brings uniqueness and more customization capabilities, while ready-made themes are less expensive and quicker to implement.

Developing an appealing website that caters to the customers’ preferences is equally important to feature development. It takes about 2-8 weeks for UX and UI designers to design a layout that suits your business requirements and meets customer expectations.

The biggest expenses in website creation are the costs of development and customization. This includes both frontend and backend development. Often, a high degree of customization is needed, which can result in extra expenses such as custom extensions, integrations, and functionalities.

Magento Theme Development (frontend development)

The cost of custom theme development can vary greatly and depends on several factors:

frontend technology stack (Magento Luma theme, Hyva theme, Vuestorfront theme)

design complexity (how does custom design differ from the default theme that was used as a base)

Page Builder functionality (there are multiple page builders available for Magento stores, but all of them increase the complexity of development)

custom functionality (custom frontend features that require backend changes. For example, you need to display notifications or prompts to inform customers about loyalty program updates.)