What a website actually costs, with the working shown.
A business website starts at A$2,900 and a Shopify store at A$4,900 — ex GST, from Sydney. Below: where the money goes, what the rest of the market charges with the sources next to it, and a calculator that prices your own build from the same hours and the same rate we quote with. It ends in a quote request, not a sign-up.
Your estimate
hourly rate US$95| What | Amount |
|---|---|
| Business websiteup to 8 pages | US$1,900 |
The bottom of the range is that arithmetic. The top adds 30% for scope that is still moving, which is the allowance we quote with rather than a statistic. It is an estimate, not a quote: a quote follows a conversation, and that conversation usually removes things.
Ask for a real quote
Your estimate is attached to the message, so the reply starts from what you chose rather than asking you again. A person reads it — the one who would do the work — and answers within one business day.
Why a price list at all. Most agencies will not publish one, and the reason given is that every project is different. That is true of the total and not of the rate: the hours differ, the price of an hour does not. So here is the rate, here are the hours we estimate for each thing people actually ask for, and here is the arithmetic that turns them into a number — the same arithmetic we use when we quote. You can check it, and you can argue with any line of it.
What actually drives the cost.
Past the base price there is one unit of cost: an hour. Everything below is our estimate of how many hours a thing takes, drawn to scale against each other, so you can see which decisions are expensive before you make them.
What everyone else charges, and where we sit.
| What | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Average web development project on Clutch | US$66,499 | Clutch’s own pricing guide, from verified client reviews, updated 21 September 2026 |
| Most common project size on Clutch | under US$10,000 | Same guide. The average is pulled up by enterprise work; the typical project is far smaller |
| Average project duration | 9 months | Same guide |
| Agency rate, Australia | US$100–149/hour | Same guide, by country |
| Custom development, any site | US$1,000–150,000+ | Shopify’s own 2026 cost guide |
| Shopify platform fee | US$29/month paid annually | Shopify’s own guide |
Read against those figures
Our hourly rate is A$140 / US$95, which sits below the Australian band in Clutch’s own data, and our base prices sit near the bottom of the typical project size. We are not the cheapest thing you can buy — a template and a weekend is cheaper. We are a fixed price with the hours written down.
Every figure in that table was read on 15 October 2026 from the page linked beside it. Two of them are averages of other people’s projects and one is a platform’s own guide: none of them is a quote, and none of them knows your project. They are here so the number above is not the only number you have seen.
Straight answers.
Why is a WooCommerce store more than a Shopify one?
WooCommerce is self-hosted, so the build includes the things Shopify does for you: hosting, updates, backups, security patching and a staging environment. That is real work and it is why it starts at A$5,500 against Shopify’s A$4,900. The ongoing cost moves the other way: no platform fee, but hosting and maintenance are yours.
What is not in these prices?
Your platform subscription, your domain, paid apps or plugins, stock photography, ad spend and anything with a monthly licence. Shopify is US$29 a month paid annually by its own published pricing. We will tell you the running cost before you commit, because a cheap build on an expensive stack is not cheap.
Does the calculator's number become my quote?
No, and it says so on the page. It is the same arithmetic we quote with — the base price from our list plus hours at our rate — so it should land close. A quote follows a conversation about what you actually need, which regularly removes things the calculator added.
Why show the hours at all?
Because a price with no working behind it cannot be argued with, and a price you cannot argue with is a price you have to take on trust. If you think custom design is not worth 24 hours on your project, that is a conversation we can have, and the number moves.
Do you charge in Australian dollars?
AUD for Australian clients, ex GST, with GST added at invoice. USD everywhere else. The switch at the top of the calculator changes both the base price and the hourly rate, because both differ.
How long does a build take?
A business website is usually 3–5 weeks and a store 5–8, from the day content and access are with us — which is the part that actually sets the date. Clutch’s own data puts the average web project at 9 months, which tells you more about enterprise procurement than about building a site.
The work these prices buy
- Shopify development — stores and custom themes, built by people who run a 10,304-product store of their own
- WooCommerce development — with the running costs named up front, and an honest word about what we can show you
- Store migration — 479 products and 1,767 SKUs moved with zero data loss and 92 tested redirects
- Web development — sites and web apps, with our own Lighthouse scores published
- The EBS build — what a catalogue of 10,304 products actually took