Magento Design and Development Costs

Magento Design and Development is Expensive

e-commerce-web-designWe do a lot of design for e-commerce driven businesses. One of the things we’ve run into a lot over the past couple years is people with unfinished Magento sites who need our help to get them functioning properly.

This can be a daunting task depending on several factors including which version of Magento they have and what type of hosting solution they are using. We did a lot of research into the costs associated with building and maintaining and found this article by the good folks at Shero Designs that covers the issue with great nuance. We borrowed a few of the key points from it for our blog and we encourage you to click over to their website and read the full version of the original post if you’re seriously considering a Magento site. (We also encourage you to read this thread and as many of the responses as you have time for.)

Magento Hosting

Let’s start with the basics. You need to strongly consider your hosting before anything. We recently took on a client who does pre-sale launches that produce incredibly high traffic spikes. Initially working with this customer there were issues with his server CPU maxing out. We were forced to move him to a more robust host and they are no longer having problems. If you are using Enterprise Edition you will need a dedicated server – however, we recommend it with Community Edition as well if you are planning on serving a large, international market.

If you are a site that’s doing 30 / 50,000 uniques or more per month it’s a good idea to get a dedicated server that is not cloud based. Most people completely negate the cost of hosting when looking to build a site of this nature but it’s an important one. You should be able to find a good dedicated server for $300 – $500 a month. If you are a small store without a budget like that you can work with shared hosting to start and find a hosting company that can grow with you. A lot of companies will have basic starter packages for $10 / $20 a month and as your site begins to grow you can expand to larger packages with ease.

Some questions to ask yourself when choosing a Magento hosting company are:

  • Will you need shared hosting, dedicated or multi-server environment?
  • Where is your target market located Geographically?
  • How many unique visits / day do you expect?
  • How many concurrent Magento customers do you expect?
  • How large will your catalog be (SKU count)?
  • Will you be using the Magento Payment Bridge?
  • Will you be using a service to monitor your website’s performance (e.g Pingdom, New Relics)?
  • Will you need a content delivery network (CDN)?

Basic Magento Website – Approx. $25 – $50,000.00

This is a basic website for a business starting from scratch or moving over from a different platform. This can be done by using a pre-built template which can be purchased or comes with a basic install of Magento. Another method is by converting an Adobe Photoshop design into a Magento store. Both of these options require a good deal of time to set up, configure, customize and test which is why even at a basic level Magento sites are not cheap.

Here are some of the basic features you can expect with a basic set-up of this nature.

  • The Latest Community Magento Edition
  • Limit of about 5,000 SKU’s
  • Simple Design Implementation
  • Transactional Emails with Store Logo
  • Inventory System or POS Integration
  • Integration of Payment Processor such as Authorize.net and alternative payment methods from PayPal, Amazon, Apple Pay, etc.
  • SSL Configuration
  • Product and Category Setup and Configuration
  • Site & Database Testing
  • Basic Shipping & Tax Configuration (usually requires an extension)
  • Internal quality assurance (QA) to ensure cross-browser compatibility and functioning of all features
  • Responsive design for mobile devices

Custom Magento Website Approx. $50 – $100,000.00 (and Up)

This option is for bigger, established retailers who do most of their business online and are either moving from a different eCommerce platform or are upgrading their existing Magento websites. It provides a complete solution to online selling and with a business continuity plan in place for growth.

  • 5,000+ SKU’s
  • On-Site SEO
  • Inventory System or POS Integration
  • Multilingual Store Front
  • Advanced 301 Redirects
  • Custom Home Page Design, Check Out Page, Product Landing Page Etc
  • Custom Banner/Graphics
  • Different Pricing for Wholesale, Partners, and Retail Customers
  • One Page Checkout
  • Address Validation at Checkout
  • Advanced Reviews
  • Auto-Complete Search
  • Gift Registry
  • WordPress Blog Integration
  • Social Media Sharing Options
  • Connection With Back office Accounting Systems, Sales Force, Rewards Program, and Other
  • Affiliate Marketing Systems
  • Testing/ QA
  • Code Documentation
  • Warranty and Support
  • Data Migration
  • Advanced Shipping Configuration

Magento Enterprise Cost $100,000-$250,000 and Up

This option includes all the features from the Custom Magento website. Magento Enterprise Edition comes with the following additional features:

  • Mobile Commerce
  • Multiple Stores
  • Full Page Caching
  • Free Professional Customer Support
  • Built in Modules
  • 25,000+ SKU’s
  • Private Sales, Wholesale, Gift Registries
  • Hosted By Magento
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Customer Segmentation
  • Targeted Promotions & Merchandising
  • Custom Coupons
  • Return Management Authorization

To find out more about how Apex Digital Media can help you with Magento Design and Development click here.

 

 

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