Build cost
What does an e-commerce site cost in the UK?
Two different costs get mixed together on this question. One is published, checkable and smaller than people expect. The other is the build, and it is driven less by the shop than by the rules the shop has to obey.
The published part
| Shopify plan, UK | Monthly | Online card rate | Fee if you use another gateway |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | £25 | 2% + 25p | 2% |
| Grow | £65 | 1.7% + 25p | 1% |
| Advanced | £344 | 1.5% + 25p | 0.6% |
| Plus | from £1,800 | 1.3% + 25p | 0.2% |
Read the last column again, because it is the one that catches people. Shopify charges you a percentage of every order for the privilege of not using its own payments product. On Basic that is 2 per cent on top of whatever your chosen processor charges. The page carries no publication date, so the only defensible date is the day we read it: 12 October 2026.
The processors themselves publish properly. Stripe UK: 1.5% + 20p on domestic standard cards, 2.8% + 20p on premium cards, 2.5% + 20p on EEA cards, 3.15% + 20p international, plus 2% where a currency conversion is required and £20 each way on a dispute. PayPal, on a page marked last updated 1 October 2026: 2.9% + 30p domestic, with a cross-border surcharge of 1.29% within the EEA and 1.99% elsewhere, and 3% above base rate on conversion. GoCardless for Direct Debit: 1% + 20p capped at £4, stated excluding VAT.
Worldpay is the outlier worth naming. Its public pricing page displays 0.0% for online Mastercard and Visa transactions across debit, credit and business cards, marks the whole table “indicative only”, and carries no publication date. The verifiable charges on it are a 4.5p authorisation fee, £20 a month per terminal, a £5 PCI service fee, a £15 minimum monthly service charge and a £20 chargeback fee. If you are comparing processors, you cannot compare that one without asking for a quote.
The part that is actually the build
Here is where an e-commerce quote differs from a brochure site, and it is not design. The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 turn directly into code. Each of these is a specific regulation, not a best practice:
| Regulation | What it requires | What happens if you get it wrong |
|---|---|---|
| 14(4) | The order button must be labelled “order with obligation to pay” or an unambiguous equivalent | Reg 14(5): the consumer is not bound by the contract |
| 14(2) | Specified pre-contract information shown immediately before the order is placed | Same provision |
| 14(6) | Delivery restrictions and accepted payment methods shown at the latest at the start of checkout | — |
| 30 | 14-day cancellation period, running from the last item on a split delivery | — |
| 31 | Cancellation-rights information must be given | Omit it and the period runs for about 12 months and 14 days |
| 34 | Refund within 14 days, same payment method, no fee, delivery refunded up to your cheapest standard option | — |
| 40 | No pre-ticked boxes for extras; express consent required | Reg 40(4): you must reimburse the payment |
A “Complete order” button is a legal risk, not a copy preference. A cancellation clock that counts from the order date rather than the arrival of the last item is wrong for every multi-item basket you ship in parts. And regulation 31 is the one that should make anybody building a shop careful: the difference between getting the cancellation notice right and leaving it out is the difference between a fortnight of exposure and a year of it.
None of that is exotic work, but it is work, and it is the reason two e-commerce quotes for “the same shop” can differ by a factor of three. One of them has read the regulations.
What we would charge
At our rates a shop built on a platform, with your own design and the checkout rules implemented properly, usually lands between £6,000 and £8,000 excluding VAT; a custom storefront with its own basket, several integrations and regulated data runs from about £20,000 up. Those are our prices rather than a market survey. The calculator prices your own answers against the same model.
Sources: Shopify UK pricing page, read 12 October 2026, no publication date on page · Stripe UK pricing, read 12 October 2026 · PayPal UK business fees, page marked last updated 1 October 2026 · GoCardless pricing, read 12 October 2026, fees stated excluding VAT · Worldpay pricing page, read 12 October 2026, marked indicative · The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, SI 2013/3134, regulations 13, 14, 30, 31, 34 and 40, as published on legislation.gov.uk and current to 9 October 2026.
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