What Does a Shopware Store Cost? 2026
An honest cost breakdown for your Shopware store in 2026: licence, hosting, design, migration, hidden costs – with real € ranges and a worked example.
„What does a Shopware store cost?" is the question we get asked most. And the honest first answer is: it depends. But that doesn't help you, so let's do this differently. We'll break the price down into its real building blocks, with concrete € ranges from agency practice – including the costs that most quotes conveniently leave out.
By the end, you'll know where your budget actually goes, where you can save, and where saving gets expensive fast.
The big picture: what drives the price?
A Shopware store isn't a product you grab off a shelf. The price comes from six cost blocks: licence, hosting, design, development/setup, integrations, and – if you're moving – migration. On top of that come the hidden costs we'll get to shortly.
As a rough orientation: a simple but clean Shopware store realistically starts at 7,000–10,000 €. A store with custom design and a couple of integrations lands at 15,000–30,000 €. Anything with ERP integration, migration and complex logic quickly reaches 40,000 € and up.
Cost block 1: The licence
Good news first: Shopware in the Community Edition costs 0 €. No catch. The open-source version is fully functional and powers many successful stores.
The commercial editions (Rise, Evolve, Beyond) are priced by revenue and start roughly around 600 €/month upwards – Evolve and Beyond sit considerably higher and are negotiated individually. You're paying for features like advanced B2B functionality, the full-depth Rule Builder, managed options and support SLAs.
Honest advice: the vast majority of small and mid-sized merchants don't need the commercial licence at launch. Start with the Community Edition. If you eventually need real B2B processes or enterprise features, you can upgrade. Don't pay for features you won't touch for three years.
Cost block 2: Hosting
Shopware needs proper hosting – a 3-€ shared plan won't cut it.
| Store size | Monthly hosting cost |
|---|---|
| Small (up to ~1,000 orders/month) | 20–50 € |
| Medium | 50–150 € |
| Large / peak traffic | 150–300 €+ |
For most starter stores, 20–50 €/month on a good Shopware-optimised host is plenty. Managed hosting costs more but saves you the hassle of updates and server maintenance – usually the right call for merchants without an in-house tech team.
Cost block 3: Design / theme
This is where prices spread the widest.
- Adapted standard theme: the included Shopware theme with your colours, logo, fonts and a few layout tweaks. Cost: often low four figures, sometimes already included in setup.
- Custom design: a shopping experience designed just for you, UX-considered, tailored to your brand. Cost: 5,000–25,000 €, depending on ambition.
Honest advice: at launch you rarely need a 20,000-€ design. A cleanly adapted standard theme looks genuinely good today and converts well. Put the money into good product photography and copy instead – those sell more than a hand-carved mega-menu.
Cost block 4: Development / setup
This is the actual work: setting up the store, configuring it, wiring up payment and shipping methods, taxes, legal-text integration, categories, test orders, go-live. For a solid standard store we're talking 3,000–8,000 €. Add special functionality (custom product configurators, complex pricing logic, special checkout steps) and it rises accordingly.
Cost block 5: Integrations
The moment your store needs to talk to other systems, things get serious. The ERP integration (connecting to inventory/merchandise management) is the classic: 5,000–20,000 €, depending on the system and depth. On top of that: payment providers, shipping carriers, marketplaces (Amazon, eBay), newsletter tools, PIM systems.
Honest advice: for every integration, ask yourself: does it truly save me time or errors? An ERP integration pays off enormously above a certain order volume – below that, typing orders in by hand may be cheaper than the integration costs.
Cost block 6: Migration
If you're moving from an existing store (e.g. from ePages, Magento, WooCommerce or an old Shopware version), migration is added: cleanly transferring products, customers, orders, categories and URLs (for SEO!). Realistically: 15,000–25,000 € for larger, grown stores with lots of data and legacy baggage. Small, clean datasets are considerably cheaper.
The hidden costs – where most people miscalculate
This is the part that nice-looking quotes love to omit:
- Maintenance & updates: Shopware gets regular security and feature updates. Budget 50–300 €/month or a maintenance package. An unmaintained store is a security risk.
- Content creation: product descriptions, photos, category texts, landing pages – that costs time or money. Many massively underestimate it.
- Payment fees: PayPal, credit card & co. take ~1.5–3 % per transaction. Not a project line item, but it eats into your margin permanently.
- Scope creep: the most expensive hidden cost driver of all. „Can we just quickly add…" – every „just quickly" costs real money in the hourly model.
Hourly rate vs. fixed price – the decisive worked example
Most agencies work by the hour, typically 100–150 €/hour. Sounds fair. Let's run the numbers:
Your agency estimates your store at 70 hours × 120 € = 8,400 €. You sign with a good feeling.
Then what almost always happens, happens: the integration acts up, you want two more tweaks, an import causes trouble. 70 hours become 100+ hours. Your invoice: 12,000 €. The estimate was never a commitment – the risk was on you the whole time.
This is exactly where the fixed-price model comes in: you know the final price before it starts. If the agency underestimates, that's their problem, not yours. You can budget instead of worry. That's the core of „fixed price instead of an agency marathon".
Realistic total prices & where 21Days fits in
Let's sum up what a Shopware project costs in total:
- Simple store, done cleanly: 7,000–12,000 €
- Medium store, custom design, first integrations: 15,000–30,000 €
- Large store, ERP, migration, special logic: 40,000 €+
Our packages are cut exactly for this reality – at a fixed price, net:
- Starter – 7,500 €: your solid entry into Shopware, live fast.
- Move – 17,500 €: more custom, with more features and integrations.
- Scale – from 30,000 €: for grown requirements, migration and ERP.
See all packages at Packages, and how we work in our Process.
Where to save – and where not to
You can save on: commercial licences at launch (Community is enough), overpriced designs (adapt the standard theme), integrations you don't need yet.
You shouldn't save on: proper hosting (a slow store loses customers), clean migration including URL redirects (or your SEO crashes), and maintenance (a hacked store costs more than any update package).
Ready for an honest price?
You now know what makes up the price – and that a good store doesn't have to be a leap in the dark. With us, you get the fixed price before it starts. No scope creep, no nasty final invoice.
Submit your project inquiry now – we'll tell you honestly which package fits you.