An e-commerce website in Nigeria typically costs ₦400,000 to ₦1,200,000 for a WooCommerce or Shopify-based store, and ₦2,000,000 to ₦8,000,000+ for a fully custom-built platform. The single biggest cost driver isn’t the number of products — it’s whether the store needs custom checkout logic, inventory that syncs across multiple sales channels, or a payment setup beyond a standard Paystack or Flutterwave integration.
E-Commerce Costs by Build Type
| Store type | Typical cost | What’s usually included |
|---|---|---|
| WooCommerce store (small catalog) | ₦400,000 – ₦700,000 | Up to ~50 products, one payment gateway, standard checkout, basic product filtering |
| WooCommerce or Shopify (growing catalog) | ₦700,000 – ₦1,200,000 | 50–300+ products, variants (size/color), coupon and discount logic, order management dashboard |
| Custom checkout & inventory logic | ₦1,200,000 – ₦2,500,000 | Custom shipping rules, multi-warehouse stock, bespoke checkout flow beyond what a theme supports |
| Multi-channel or marketplace-style store | ₦2,500,000 – ₦8,000,000+ | Vendor dashboards, inventory synced across web/social/in-store, custom-coded platform (often Next.js-based) |
Why Payment Integration Moves the Price More Than People Expect
A standard Paystack or Flutterwave checkout, using their official WooCommerce or Shopify plugins, adds relatively little to a quote — both process Naira transactions with no setup fee and settle the next working day. The cost jumps when a store needs more than that default: accepting USD payouts (which requires a domiciliary account setup), supporting multiple gateways for redundancy, or building a custom checkout that a plugin’s default flow can’t handle. If a quote for “e-commerce” doesn’t specify which payment gateway and which plan tier, ask — it changes both the build cost and what the store can actually do on launch day.
WooCommerce, Shopify, or Custom: How the Choice Affects Cost
- WooCommerce is the lowest upfront cost since it runs on WordPress hosting you likely already have, but ongoing plugin fees and slower performance at scale are real trade-offs as the catalog grows.
- Shopify costs more monthly (plans typically run $29–$299/month, paid in USD) but includes hosting, security, and PCI compliance handled for you — a meaningfully lower setup cost in exchange for a recurring dollar-denominated bill.
- A custom build (often on Next.js, see our guide on connecting a custom app to a database) costs the most upfront but removes both plugin fees and platform lock-in — the right call only once volume or complexity genuinely justifies it.
Recurring Costs an E-Commerce Quote Often Misses
- Payment gateway fees: Paystack charges roughly 1.5% + ₦100 on local cards (waived under ₦2,500), rising to around 3.9% on international cards — a real ongoing cost, not a one-time setup fee.
- Hosting built for e-commerce load, not a basic shared plan — expect ₦150,000–₦400,000/year for hosting that can handle checkout traffic reliably.
- SSL and security monitoring, non-negotiable the moment a site handles card data, even indirectly through a gateway redirect.
- Ongoing catalog and inventory maintenance — someone has to keep product data and stock counts accurate, and that’s a staffing cost, not a build cost, but it’s easy to underestimate before launch.
Questions to Ask Before Accepting an E-Commerce Quote
- Which payment gateway is included, and does it cover both local Naira cards and international cards if you need both?
- Is inventory management included, or is that a separate add-on once the catalog grows past a certain size?
- Who owns the store platform if you switch developers later — is it a standard WooCommerce/Shopify setup, or custom code only the original developer understands?
- What happens after launch — is there a maintenance plan, or is the build price the entire relationship?
For the wider picture of website costs beyond e-commerce specifically, see our guide on how much a website costs in Nigeria, and if the store is just one part of an ongoing relationship, our breakdown of website maintenance costs covers what to budget for after launch.
The Bottom Line
₦400,000 to ₦1,200,000 covers the large majority of small and mid-size Nigerian e-commerce stores built on WooCommerce or Shopify. Anything meaningfully above that should come with a clear explanation of what the extra cost is actually buying — custom checkout logic, multi-channel inventory, or a fully custom platform — not just a bigger number attached to the same feature set.