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E-commerce Store Cost After Launch: Calculate the First Year, Not Just One Estimate

Two development proposals may differ in launch price yet end up nearly equal in the first-year budget. We analyze data migration, integrations, support, changes, and team time using a single educational calculation.

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Vera compares two e-commerce store development estimates and the first-year budget
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In the first estimate, the e-commerce store launch costs 420,000 rubles; in the second, 610,000 rubles. A difference of 190,000 rubles seems sufficient to decide. However, the cheaper proposal separately charges for catalog migration and two integrations, while the expensive one includes them. After a year, the totals reverse.

Comparing only the 'development' line item is valid only if it hides the same result and the same post-launch responsibility. In practice, this must be proven. Let us calculate the full first-year budget and simultaneously note the conditions under which the cheaper option becomes advantageous again.

First, compare the same result

The phrase 'turnkey e-commerce store' does not define a precise project boundary. In one proposal, this means a configured catalog and order placement on a ready-made solution. In another, it also includes product migration, connection to an accounting system, payment and delivery setup, a test environment, training, and documentation. Both estimates may be prepared in good faith but address different tasks.

Before comparing prices, you need a short, unified scope of deliverables. Not a list of all future wishes, but the essentials without which a store cannot be accepted and put into operation. For each item, specify the initial data, the expected result, and the party that provides access or makes the decision.

  • Catalog: how many products and variants are transferred, who cleans up attributes, images, and stock levels.

  • Orders: which payment, delivery, and pickup methods must pass acceptance testing.

  • Integrations: which data and in what direction are transferred between the website, 1C, CRM, and external services.

  • Environments: where the team develops and tests changes, who prepares the launch and rollback to the previous version.

  • Handover: which instructions, access rights, source materials, and test results the customer receives.

If a contractor answers "included" for a single line item, ask them to detail the result. For example, "integration with 1C" might mean only installing a supported data exchange, or it might include mapping non-standard fields, verifying re-transmission, and correcting source data errors. The term is the same, but the scope of work differs.

The first-year budget consists of more than just development.

Eight lines are sufficient for the initial comparison. They do not replace a detailed estimate, but they prevent major costs from hiding behind different phrasings. The period must also be consistent: here we calculate twelve months from the project start, not the calendar year after the site goes live.

Below is a training example in thousands of rubles. These are not market prices and not a commercial proposal. Estimate A starts cheaper, but data migration and integrations are billed separately. In Estimate B, these works are included in the launch. Both options assume the same accepted result.

Expenses for the first year, thousand ₽

Estimate A

Estimate B

Launch

420

610

Catalog and materials transfer

85

included

Two mandatory integrations

140

included

Licenses and external services

55

55

Deployment and backups

48

60

Support

180

240

Planned changes

120

45

Customer team time

90

54

Total

1 138

1 064

Estimate A totals 1,138 thousand rubles: 420 + 85 + 140 + 55 + 48 + 180 + 120 + 90. Estimate B totals 1,064 thousand: 610 + 55 + 60 + 240 + 45 + 54. A costly launch in this scenario reduces the annual budget by 74 thousand rubles. This is not a conclusion about contractor quality. It applies only to the specified boundaries and assumptions.

Comparison of the first-year training budget for two online store estimates: 1,138 and 1,064 thousand rubles, as well as 998 thousand for Estimate A without one integration.
The training calculation demonstrates the final result's sensitivity to the project composition. These figures do not represent a market assessment.

Team time is also an expense.

If employees are not billed for their participation in the project, their time does not become free. The manager prepares pricing rules, the accountant verifies the exchange, the content specialist cleans the catalog, and the manager makes disputed decisions. While they are occupied with the project, other work waits.

For the training calculation in Estimate A, 75 hours of team time are allocated at an internal rate of 1,200 rubles, totaling 90 thousand rubles. In Estimate B, this is 45 hours, or 54 thousand. The internal hourly rate does not have to match the salary divided by working hours. The organization independently determines which associated costs and lost capacity to account for. The main requirement is to apply a single approach to both options.

A large number of hours does not always indicate a weak contractor. One option may honestly require the client to prepare the catalog structure and verify data, while another includes this work in its price. Therefore, alongside the hours, the actions are recorded: who makes decisions, who corrects the source data, and who repeats the verification after comments.

Support cannot be summarized in a single line

In the estimate table, support for option B is more expensive. However, until the scope is detailed, this difference tells us nothing. One package may include only consultations and fixing confirmed defects. Another may cover monitoring the exchange process, analyzing incidents, an update schedule, and a specific volume of minor changes.

A warranty after launch is also not equivalent to support. It usually applies to deviations from the agreed result. A new delivery service, changes to discount rules, or an additional field in the exchange may be project development rather than a defect. The estimate must distinguish three things: fixing an accepted function, operational support, and new changes.

It is more useful to check the path of a typical task than the number of hours in a package. Who handles the request? Who determines the side of the failure? Does the fix fall within the scope? What happens to data skipped during an error? When does a separate estimate begin? Answers help determine how much work will remain for the store team.

Uncertainty is better shown as a range

At the start of a project, it is not necessary to know the exact cost of every future change. It is more dangerous to pretend that unknown expenses do not exist. For significant uncertainty, specify three values: what is already included, under what event a new estimate will be needed, and what budget range is reasonable to reserve until clarification.

For example, migrating 18,000 products is estimated after analyzing the export. Before that, you can separately confirm the base volume, image requirements, and data attributes that will require manual cleaning. In this case, the reserve is tied to an observable cause rather than added as an arbitrary percentage of the entire estimate.

The same logic applies to integration boundaries. Connecting a standard exchange and parsing non-standard reservation rules are different tasks. If the second cannot yet be estimated, it should not be silently treated as free or included "by implication." However, purchasing maximum development upfront is not necessary either: you can fix the scope of the investigation, the decision criteria, and a separate spending limit.

When a cheap launch truly becomes cheaper

Let us change one assumption. Suppose both additional integrations, with a total cost of 140 thousand rubles, are not needed by the store in the first year: the corresponding processes can remain outside the website without losing the necessary result. In that case, the total of estimate A drops from 1,138 to 998 thousand rubles. If contractor B maintains a fixed package price despite the reduced scope, option A becomes 66 thousand rubles cheaper. If B's price also decreases, the comparison must be recalculated based on the updated terms of both proposals.

This is more important than a neat conclusion stating that the expensive option is more cost-effective. The correct conclusion is different: the decision changes not the launch price itself, but the composition of the mandatory task. If a function is not needed, it should be excluded from both options. If it is needed, it cannot be removed only from the cheaper estimate to create a convenient comparison.

I would also include a review date. The store can start with a smaller scope and return to the integration later when a manual operation becomes routine, a second warehouse is added, or the risk of data discrepancies increases. A scheduled review event is more useful than a promise to automate everything at some point.

What to request before selecting a contractor

  1. A unified list of acceptance results and scenarios for all product variants.

  2. Separation of included work, the customer's source data, and separately billed tasks.

  3. A list of licenses, external services, hosting, and renewal terms without locking in prices forever.

  4. The scope of warranty, support, and development after launch, as well as the process for evaluating new changes.

  5. Estimation of the customer team's time: data preparation, implementation, acceptance testing, training, and approvals.

  6. Materials for transferring the project to another team: documentation, release procedures, backup, and recovery.

After that, the choice can be recorded on a single page: which contour is needed in the first year, how much it costs under the same model, which assumptions change the final result, and under what events the decision is revisited. Such a record does not guarantee that the project will not change. It helps distinguish a conscious change from an expense that simply did not appear in the first line of the estimate.

The launch price answers the question of how much it costs to start. The first-year budget is how much it costs to get a working store, maintain it, and accommodate the planned changes. A second answer is needed to choose a contractor, while the first remains just one of its line items.

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