Selecting shopping software is one of the most consequential decisions a retailer can make. Beyond features and user experience, total cost of ownership often determines whether a platform becomes a growth engine or a drain on resources. This article walks through the major pricing patterns you will encounter when shopping for e-commerce platforms in 2025, what drives the highest costs, realistic budget ranges for different business sizes, and a summary of the maximum price points seen in public searches. The goal is practical: give you a usable pricing map so you can plan with confidence.
Pricing models you will see
Shopping platforms generally use one or more of these pricing models:
• Flat monthly subscriptions with tiered feature sets and transaction limits.
• Usage- or revenue-based fees, where the platform charges a percentage of gross merchandise value or applies variable platform fees for large merchants.
• Enterprise quotes, which are custom and may include license fees, implementation costs, hosting, and ongoing managed services.
• Open source core software that is free to download but comes with hosting, development, and extension costs that quickly add up.
Each model implies different budget risks. Flat subscriptions have pricing predictability but can omit enterprise features you eventually need. Usage-based models scale with revenue and can become expensive for rapid growth. Enterprise quotes are the most opaque and where the largest price swings appear.
Representative examples and what they cost
When mapping the market in 2025, several big names illustrate the range of possibilities.
Shopify Plus is the high-end managed solution targeted at established merchant brands. It publishes a clear baseline figure for its enterprise tier, which starts at roughly two to three thousand US dollars per month for standard configurations. That gives merchants a predictable starting point, though large merchants often move to variable fees tied to sales volume and added services that raise the effective cost above the base rate.
BigCommerce uses a tiered monthly structure for small and medium merchants and moves to custom enterprise pricing for large sellers. The essentials tiers are affordable for small operations, but their Enterprise plan is quote-based and tailored to individual needs, meaning implementation and add-on costs must be negotiated and budgeted separately.
Adobe Commerce, often known historically as Magento Commerce, highlights the cost trade-offs of a powerful, customizable platform. The open source edition can be obtained without license fees, but enterprise-grade Adobe Commerce offerings carry substantial license, hosting, and services costs. Published industry estimates and vendor summaries show license and running costs that commonly start in the tens of thousands of dollars annually and can reach six figures once cloud hosting, optimizations, and managed services are included.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud is another enterprise-focused option that typically requires direct negotiation. Pricing is mostly available by engaging sales, and the total cost of ownership often includes implementation fees, success plan charges, and sometimes a GMV-based component that scales with transaction volume. This structure tends to suit large enterprises that expect to invest heavily in integration, analytics, and global operations.
Where the highest costs come from
If you are wondering what pushes an e-commerce project from five figures to six figures, the main drivers are:
• Custom development and integrations. Complex headless architectures, multi-region setups, or deep ERP and PIM integrations require specialized engineering and long implementations.
• Licensing and platform fees for enterprise editions. Some enterprise licenses and cloud service bundles are billed annually and can be significant.
• Hosting and infrastructure for high availability and peak traffic. Global, PCI-compliant hosting with autoscaling and WAFs increases operational expense.
• Managed services and support tiers. Premier support and dedicated account teams come at a premium.
• Ongoing optimization, personalization, and third-party SaaS costs. Analytics, marketing automation, payments, and CDNs add up over time.
Put simply, the initial platform fee is rarely the majority of total cost for enterprise customers. Implementation, integrations, and the operational stack often dominate.
The maximum prices observed during public searches
To give a concrete reference point, while researching current public pricing data, the most extreme total cost estimates surfaced in vendor and industry analyses for enterprise-grade Adobe Commerce and similar bespoke implementations. Those public estimates show total yearly costs that can reach and exceed two hundred thousand US dollars per year in large, highly customized setups when license fees, cloud hosting, integration, and managed-service retainers are all included. This figure represents the high end of what organizations have reported or that vendors present as plausible for very large, complex merchants.
At the other end of the enterprise spectrum, Shopify Plus provides a published, lower-starting base around two to three thousand US dollars per month, making it substantially more accessible for many mid-market sellers who still require enterprise features.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud and BigCommerce Enterprise keep prices intentionally opaque and custom, but published guidance and industry write-ups make it clear that total ownership costs will commonly reach six figures for global, highly customized implementations.
How to estimate your own budget
Rather than relying on headline numbers, estimate using these steps:
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Define scope precisely. Number of SKUs, expected peak concurrent users, international markets and languages, payment and tax complexity, and shipping rules.
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Choose a platform family. Is a managed SaaS option acceptable, or do you need full control with an open source or PaaS approach?
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Add one-time implementation costs. Include design, migration, integration, and testing. For enterprise projects, this is often 1x to 3x the annual license fee.
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Add recurring costs. Platform subscription or license, hosting, third-party SaaS, support plans, and developer retainers.
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Build contingency. Add 15 to 25 percent for scope creep and hidden integration work.
Small businesses with modest needs often find total first-year costs under ten thousand US dollars if they choose a standard SaaS package and handle content and branding themselves. Mid-market merchants who need custom functionality should expect tens of thousands. Large enterprises with global operations, heavy integrations, and customizations should budget for six-figure annual totals. The high end discovered in public searches for complex Adobe Commerce and bespoke projects exceeded two hundred thousand US dollars per year.
Risk management and negotiating tips
• Ask for itemized quotes. Break implementation, license, hosting, and support into separate line items so you can compare apples to apples.
• Negotiate trial or phased implementations. Deliver core commerce first, then phase add-ons based on ROI.
• Consider total cost of ownership, not only license. Factor development velocity and long-term maintainability.
• Insist on service level agreements and clear upgrade policies.
• Evaluate partner ecosystems. A strong ecosystem of apps and integrators can reduce custom build needs and long-term cost.
Final recommendations
No single platform is objectively best for every merchant. If you are a small or new seller, start with an essentials-level SaaS plan and migrate later when justified. If you are a fast-growing brand that needs enterprise features but wants predictable cost, look closely at platforms that publish starter enterprise rates like Shopify Plus and then model variable fees. If your needs include heavy integration, headless architecture, or unique business rules, prepare for a larger implementation budget and expect the total annual cost to possibly reach six figures for the most complex, global builds.
Remember the highest prices surfaced in public industry research and vendor summaries for fully customized, enterprise Adobe Commerce implementations exceeded two hundred thousand US dollars per year. That number represents the extreme high end in public estimates and is where unmanaged scope and extensive custom engineering pushed total cost. Use it as a cautionary ceiling rather than a default expectation, and plan rigorously to avoid surprise overruns.
Quick reference: where to look for pricing details
• Shopify Plus official pricing page for published starting rates and Plus features.
• Adobe Commerce and partner analyses for license and cloud-cost estimates.
• Salesforce Commerce Cloud pricing pages for enterprise offerings and guidance to request custom quotes.
• BigCommerce pricing overview and enterprise contact pages for custom enterprise quotes.
If you want, I can convert this into a buyer checklist tailored to your revenue band and technical constraints, or produce a downloadable spreadsheet that helps you plug in your own SKU counts, traffic forecasts, and integration items to estimate total cost.