This guide was created by ecommerce developer Jovan Vuković of StuntCoders, a certified Woo Agency Partner. It draws from the agency’s experience in assessing, advising, and building websites for high-volume ecommerce businesses.
The total cost of ownership (TCO) for an ecommerce platform is influenced by a complex set of factors, ranging from business type, product complexity, markets served, and internal capabilities.
A business generating $50M annually could run on a highly efficient and minimal architecture with a small catalog, while another with similar revenue might manage tens of thousands of SKUs, serve multiple languages and currencies, and require advanced ERP and CRM integrations.
So, it makes sense that these businesses will incur different costs for their different needs.
On WooCommerce, that’s true for every single facet of their business. With a tiered-plan SaaS solution, like Shopify, it isn’t.
In this guide, we’ll explain how only WooCommerce allows business costs to be customized for efficiency with precision using three real merchant examples to illustrate this advantage.
Why is total cost of ownership (TCO) important?
↑ Back to topTCO is the most important factor of growth and scalability. Without complete control over ecommerce operating costs, it is impossible to pull the most effective levers influencing your operating margins and financial growth.
Defining your total cost of ownership
↑ Back to topWhen an agency assesses platform costs for an ecommerce migration, they look at the following factors:
- Complexity: Is the business solving for a simple need or a complex problem? What feature sets are required?
- Market footprint: Is the merchant operating in a single country, region, or are they a global business? What are the language needs and distribution channels?
- Content demands: How many SKUs does the business need? This will determine resource requirements for content management, QA, translation, and SEO, among other things.
- Operational overhead: The number of shipping methods, payment methods, accounting platforms, warehouse setups, and marketing automation tools all affect TCO.
This makes TCO highly variable and personalized. An agency’s role is to help businesses map out these variables and understand the implications of their business model on platform costs.
Core components of TCO
↑ Back to topStuntCoders defines the total cost of ownership for an ecommerce business as follows:
“TCO is the cumulative cost of launching, operating, scaling, securing, and evolving the digital storefront, encompassing infrastructure, technical debt, vendor and human costs, and long-term optimization investments.”
Capital expenditures (CapEx)
Capital expenditures include the initial platform setup and the costs associated with domain acquisition, legal and compliance frameworks, and foundational counseling.
For an ecommerce website, initial platform setup often includes the following:
- Custom theme development
- UX and UI design
- Bespoke plugin development
- Third-party system integrations
Each of these expenses will be unique to business requirements, and may come from different sources depending on how a business chooses to build and maintain its online store.
Operational expenditures (OpEx)
Operational expenditures are more easily calculated, usually in the form of subscription fees, one-time costs, or volume-based pricing.
These costs also vary depending on your website maintenance strategy — whether this responsibility is given to an agency or in-house team.
Hosting and infrastructure
WooCommerce is open source software, which means that hosting and infrastructure can be customized to your business needs. On a SaaS platform, hosting and infrastructure are included in subscription fees, which lack flexibility and don’t allow for resource adjustment during the typical peaks and troughs of a cyclical ecommerce business.
Costs for hosting and infrastructure might include:
- Dedicated virtual private server (VPS)
- Managed hosting
- Cloud providers
- Autoscaling architecture
- Global content distribution network (CDN)
- Caching strategies
Security and compliance
All businesses need to adhere to standard security and compliance practices. Some of these may be covered by hosting and payment providers, but others may need to be adopted based on the data you collect.
Security tools and services might include:
- SSL certificates
- Firewalls
- Web application firewall (WAF)
- Distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection
- Malware scanning
- Penetration testing
- Compliance tools (for regulations like PCI, GDPR, CCPA, and ISO27001)
Performance management
Site performance can make or break your ecommerce business, and customer expectations are high. Speed, personalization, and visual asset quality are givens. Performance management costs might also include:
- Load testing
- Uptime monitoring
- Advanced caching (redis, object caching)
- Real user monitoring or measurement (RUM)
Maintenance and support
Alongside performance management is site maintenance and support. Consider your costs for:
- Routine updates
- Proactive monitoring
- Bug resolution
- Compatibility testing
- Staging-to-live workflows
Continuous development
Continuous development is usually used in the context of software development, but can apply to ecommerce, too. This often incurs costs for:
- Conversion rate optimization (CRO) experiments
- UX and UI improvements
- New feature rollouts
- Integrations with marketing and logistics platforms
Third-party services
Third-party services will vary the most with your operational requirements and sales volume. This includes costs associated with:
- Email marketing, marketing automation, and CRM
- Analytics and tag management
- Translation management
- Accounting and bookkeeping
- Advanced search
Human resources
As you might expect, it also takes people to run a business 😉. When assessing the total cost of ownership for your ecommerce platform, make sure you’re covering costs for in-house or outsourced development, QA testers, product owners, performance consultants, and SEO specialists.
Commonly overlooked costs
↑ Back to topThe above core components are required just to get your business up and running. When determining your pricing strategy and predicting your margins (and growth rate) make sure you also build the following components into your calculations.
Keep in mind that not every business will face costs for everything listed. Depending on the growth requirements, some functions may stay with existing plugins, while others are moved to custom development.
Website costs
When helping clients budget for site maintenance and improvements, StuntCoders has found that these costs are sometimes overlooked:
- Post-launch maintenance: Clients often budget for launch but underestimate ongoing updates, regression testing, and security patches.
- Emergency engineering: This refers to hotfixes for conflicts between plugins, hosting environments, or sudden feature failures.
- Versioning compatibility: Maintaining compatibility across WooCommerce core, custom themes, and third-party plugins during PHP upgrades or major releases.
- Performance engineering: Beyond caching, performance costs can include profiling database queries, implementing lazy loading, and reducing layout shifts.
- Conversion optimization: In addition to the costs listed in the above section, this can also include investment in A/B testing tools, heatmap analytics, and UI tweaks.
- Staging and CI/CD: Includes version-controlled staging environments, git workflows, automated test suites, and deployment pipelines.
- Data warehousing and business intelligence: For actionable customer insights, it’s helpful to pull data from WooCommerce into business intelligence (BI) tools.
- For internal reporting, it will be best to pull data into an analytics tool like Looker or Tableau, which might involve custom exports or API integrations, middleware or custom cron jobs, and maintenance for schema or API updates.
- Content maintenance: As the business grows, so does the content on the website. Product uploads, bulk editing, translation workflows, image processing, and SEO metadata all scale non-linearly.
- Localization: Expanding to new geographies incurs its own costs, like supporting multiple languages and currencies. This might involve language-specific QA, SEO, regional compliance standards, and different legal disclaimers.
- Search complexity: The more SKUs, attributes, languages, and filterable content types, the more robust and costly the search solution becomes.
- Simple stores may rely on native search; larger stores must invest in fast, scalable search systems to avoid conversion losses due to poor UX.
- Advanced filtering (by attribute, brand, rating, availability) requires data normalization and often external indexing.
- Cloud-hosted search (e.g. Algolia) can cost $250 to $1,000 or more per month for large indexes.
- B2B vs. B2C vs. hybrid business models:
- B2B introduces tiered pricing, purchase orders, approval flows, and custom checkout logic.
- Hybrid businesses must support two completely different user journeys (e.g. wholesale and retail pricing, tax logic, login-gated access).
- Market expansion challenges: International growth also means accounting for different shipping carriers, tax zones, and payment gateways for each market, as well as legal complexities around invoicing, product labeling, and tax requirements.
- Product customization or configurators: Visual product builders and complex form logic that allow customers to make products their own also come with additional costs.
How costs evolve with growth: Examples
↑ Back to topWith all of the potential costs we’ve covered thus far, it makes sense that growth and cost management go hand in hand. For this reason, it’s critically important to be able to control growth costs — paying for things only as they become required, and being able to precisely predict which costs you’ll see next.
With an open source platform like WooCommerce, each cost is its own piece — costs aren’t lumped together in a massive plan increase, giving you more control over expenses and investments.
For instance, you might not need a massive increase in hosting resources during the initial phases of international expansion, but you might need other features — like multilingual support and currency conversion.
Here are a few ways different types of growth impact cost:
| Business profile | Key TCO influencers | Example factors |
| Simple product, high revenue | Minimal SKUs, direct fulfillment, local markets only | Basic hosting, fewer tools, lower content costs |
| Massive catalog, consistent revenue | 50,000+ SKUs, multi-warehouse, high return rates | Image optimization, scalable database infrastructure, advanced ERP sync, higher QA and testing overhead |
| Multinational B2C brand | Selling in 20+ countries, supports eight languages | Localized legal disclaimers, multilingual support, multi-currency, custom payment and shipping methods |
| High-touch B2B distributor | Custom pricing, gated content, contract-based orders | Role-based access, advanced order approval, ERP and invoicing integrations |
Identifying and managing hidden costs
↑ Back to topGrowth can come with some surprise costs — but an open source ecommerce platform allows you to predict business needs and their corresponding expenses.
StuntCoders’ recommended best practices:
- Maintain a detailed plugin dependency list with upgrade and test responsibilities.
- Schedule quarterly technical debt reviews.
- Establish rollback and disaster recovery plans.
In addition to those best practices, here are a few costs to budget for as you scale:
- Solving custom plugin conflicts: Even the best plugins can introduce bloat, conflicts, or inconsistent UX patterns.
- Data migration: More revenue also means more data — porting users, subscriptions, product taxonomies, and order archives into and out of WooCommerce will be necessary.
- Cross-team communication: No one is perfect; agency-client misalignment, delayed approvals, or undocumented changes can all incur expenses and opportunity costs.
- Compliance shifts: Laws and regulations will change no matter where you’re doing business. Being agile in response to policy shifts will come with its own costs.
Case study: Open source benefits
↑ Back to topAs an agency, we’re frequently asked to evaluate ecommerce platform migration options. We assess platforms based on business requirements, customization options, and total cost of ownership.
Migrating to Shopify vs. WooCommerce
In one recent request for proposal (RFP), StuntCoders had an existing client request a migration assessment. Coming from Magento, they were considering Shopify and WooCommerce.
This client is a high-ticket merchant based in Europe, averaging around $2M in annual revenue. They were looking for a modern platform that would facilitate their growth. They ultimately chose WooCommerce for its unmatched flexibility, customization, and control.
Here are the most important differences between WooCommerce and Shopify that made their decision:
Shopify vs. WooCommerce: The most important differences
- Ease of use and out-of-the-box appeal: The client was drawn to Shopify’s hosted model, quick setup, and one-stop app marketplace, which promised lower-effort maintenance and overhead.
- Platform fees and extension costs: However, once we compared Shopify’s monthly plan fees, transaction surcharges on external gateways, and recurring app subscriptions against WooCommerce’s one-time or annual extensions, the numbers tipped in WooCommerce’s favor.
- We should also note that the client needed many of the features available only to Shopify Plus, but didn’t want to pay for the unnecessary resources included in that plan.
- Customization and checkout control: The client also discovered that true checkout customization (for VAT rules and upsells) required Shopify Plus, at a price point well above their budget; whereas WooCommerce’s open-source core allowed unlimited theming and custom flows out of the box.
- Total cost advantage: The detailed cost-benefit analysis showed that on WooCommerce, annual extension and hosting fees came in at roughly 50% of comparable Shopify app and plan charges over three years, without sacrificing functionality.
- Existing partnership: The client worked with StuntCoders for over five years on their current site, trusting the agency’s WordPress and WooCommerce expertise, and valued the continuity of support and code quality.
- Payment flexibility: At the time of evaluation, WooCommerce offered a broader range of local payment gateways (Vipps, Klarna, Nets EASY) with no excess surcharge for using third-party solutions. Shopify’s Payments availability and fee structure in their region lagged behind.
- Full content control: Having already used Magento 1 alongside WordPress for blogging, they appreciated WooCommerce’s seamless integration with their existing WordPress blog and marketing workflows, something Shopify’s native blog couldn’t match in terms of flexibility.
Three cost of ownership examples of businesses using WooCommerce
↑ Back to topThe following client examples illustrate the ecommerce costs that different businesses — in both vertical and size — might incur. Payment fees are approximated based on point-in-time revenue, and can be expected to fluctuate or differ in correlation with revenue and payment platform.
Example 1: Boutique luxury goods brand, Europe, $2M annual revenue
A luxury regional ecommerce store with a highly customized front end, configurable product logic (e.g., engraving), and premium UX focused on detail and mobile experience.
| Cost category | First year cost | Ongoing annual cost |
| Initial development | $70,000 | $0 |
| Yearly functional additions/Maintenance | $15,000 | $35,000 |
| Third-party services (Algolia, Mailchimp, GDPR, Tripletex) | $3,000 | $3,000 |
| Server hosting | $1,200 | $1,200 |
| Premium plugins | $300 | $300 |
| Payment fees (~2.5% avg via Klarna + Nexi) | ~$50,000 | ~$50,000 |
| Total: | ~$139,000 | ~$89,500 |
Example 2: Regulated medical retailer, Europe, $10M annual revenue
A regulated medical and pharmacy business operating nationally, with complex user flows involving prescription validation, identity verification, and multi-platform communication with associated data protections.
| Cost category | First year cost | Ongoing annual cost |
| Initial development | $60,000 | $0 |
| Yearly functional additions/Maintenance | $0 | $20,000 |
| Third-party services (Algolia, Klaviyo, OmniSend, Zendesk) | ~$5,000 | $15,000 |
| Server hosting | $1,500 | $1,500 |
| Premium plugins | $500 | $500 |
| Payment fees (~2% avg, blended) | ~$200,000 | ~$200,000 |
| Total: | ~$267,000 | ~$237,000 |
Example 3: Global subscription coffee brand, United States, $300M annual revenue
A globally recognized subscription-based coffee and café chain with extensive user base, subscription flows, custom perks (loyalty program), and complex payment logic.
| Cost category | First year cost | Ongoing annual cost |
| Initial development | $200,000 | $0 |
| Functional enhancements/Maintenance | $20,000 | $100,000 |
| Third-party services (ElasticPress, Mailchimp, others) | $12,000 | $12,000 |
| Hosting (Pantheon) | $22,000 | $22,000 |
| Payment fees (~1.7% estimated, WordPay) | ~$5,100,000 | ~$5,100,000 |
| Total: | ~$5,354,000 | ~$5,234,000 |
Total cost vs. revenue comparison on WooCommerce
↑ Back to top| Business | Annual revenue | Average annual TCO | TCO as a percent of revenue |
| Boutique luxury goods | $2M | $89,500 | 4.48% |
| Regulated medical retailer | $10M | $237,000 | 2.37% |
| Global subscription coffee brand | $300M | $5,214,000 | 1.74% |
How to use total cost of ownership as an investment map
↑ Back to topTo map your costs, plan them under these three umbrellas:
- Initial discovery: Achieve stakeholder alignment on growth targets, tech stack preferences, and integrations.
- Feature roadmaps: Tie feature adoption to business value. Prioritize revenue-generating enhancements.
- Maintain cost transparency: Define cost breakdowns each quarter, including developer hours, plugin renewals, and infrastructure upgrades.
Questions to ask your migration agency or team
- What is our long-term plugin management strategy?
- Do we own all of our custom code and do we have a transfer plan in case of team changes?
- What is our plan for scaling during peak sales periods?
- How often do we test backups or failover environments?
- What is the long-term catalog growth plan (e.g. how will we grow from 500 to 50,000 SKUs?)
- How many languages and currencies must the site support?
- Do we need ERP or CRM integration now or within the next 12 months?
- Will this store achieve our goals for B2C, B2B, or both? What complexities will each introduce?
- What is the staffing model? Who maintains content, who is responsible for testing, who will update plugins?
- What third-party tools are already in use, and how will they scale in cost?
Total cost of ownership: Totally custom with WooCommerce
↑ Back to topTotal cost of ownership is deeply dependent on business complexity, not just revenue. Agencies and internal teams must guide their clients and business counterparts toward sustainable infrastructure, tools, and workflows that align with their strategic footprint, whether it’s a three-product boutique or a multinational product catalog.
WooCommerce offers the flexibility to scale efficiently — but as with any software, it must be paired with disciplined cost tracking, modular design, and forward-thinking operations strategies.