If you are thinking of building an e-commerce website, it is important to know the costs involved. This will enable you to adequately budget for the project. In contrary to what most business owners believe, building a website is not a one-time payment project, there are fixed and recurrent costs involved. Recurrent costs include website maintenance and website promotion charges.
So, before you embark on the journey of becoming an e-commerce website owner, here are a few things you should plan for. Web design cost varies a great deal from one designer to the next. There is no universally accepted price for projects such as web design, however, there is a rough estimate of the costs involved in building a functional e-commerce website.
The cost of creating an e-commerce website can be divided into 3 major categories. They are;
- Domain name
- Hosting fee
- Programmer’s fee
Since there are no fixed prices for each aspect of the project, the estimation will be in ranges.
DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION
A domain name is an exclusive business address of your business on the internet like through which potential clients can reach you. To pay for a name that is free and available, you will spend between ($10) N4700 for .com.ng and ($50) N23000 for .ng domain names. However, if you want a name that is already taken by someone else, you will have to place a backorder for it. This costs a lot more (about $69), it is advised that if you don’t have a specific need for a particular name, just choose an alternative.
HOSTING FEE
A website needs to be hosted on a server connected to the internet. You need to pay a web hosting service to house your website on the web. For most people, securing the services of a web hosting company is the most cost-effective method.
There are various categories for web hosting services and the type you choose should depend on the number of visitors that visit your website monthly. An e-commerce website is designed to serve a large audience so it is better to go for a VPS or cloud hosting. The different categories include;
Shared hosting- cost $10 to $20 (monthly) and $60 to $168 (yearly), it is the most cost-effective hosting plan, easy to set up, and perfect for small businesses and startups. It however has limited server resources, limited access to server configuration, restricted to pre-implemented tech, also it lacks flexibility.
Virtual Private Server- cost $30 to $300 (monthly), it is reliable, scalable, and highly customizable. Cons include; restrictions, and not exactly designed for newbies.
Cloud hosting- cost $10 to $1000 or even more (monthly), it is modern, combines the cost-effectiveness of shared hosting and the flexibility of VPS hosting.
Dedicated server hosting- cost $79 to $1000 (monthly), you get an actual server to yourself. It is reliable and highly customizable.
Managed WordPress Hosting- cost $10 to $400 (monthly), it is not unique but it is optimized to run WordPress very effectively.
WEB DEVELOPER FEES
The programmer’s fee is largely determined by the type of website you want: static, dynamic, or e-commerce. While there is no fixed price for this service, you can get a website between the range of N50,000 TO N100,000 or much more depending on the level of experience and the features of the website. The prices may vary even more if you require special features such as plug-ins that are demanding, hiring an SEO consultant that will deliver search engine friendly content and draw sales to your business is very important.
Other features you need to put into consideration include logo design and content creation. You might need to hire a professional copywriter to help craft a compelling message for your brand. In most cases, the web designer will incorporate these costs into the total quote.
In Conclusion
It is recommended that if you are planning to build an E-commerce website, you should allocate at least ₦90,000 for initial design work and ₦50,000 annual maintenance cost. Note that these are the rock bottom prices for the most basic websites. The actual cost will depend on the type of hosting your website requires and the skill level of the professionals you wish to engage in the project. These cost components are not meant to scare you. You do not have to spend on all of them. If your business is still small, you can handle some of the tasks yourself. Just don’t ignore them entirely. But with Cowebplus System Solutions, with as low as N75,000, you can get a website up and running in no time. Simply visit our contact page or message us directly from the chat section to find out how.
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