What an eCommerce website really costs in Bangladesh
A WooCommerce store runs ৳25,000 to ৳55,000 from a freelancer and roughly double that from an agency. But the build is the smallest number in this article. The payment gateway will cost you more in year one than the website did, and almost nobody tells you that before you sign.
The build cost
What the Bangladeshi market charges to build the store itself, as of September 2026.
| Scope | Freelancer | Agency |
|---|---|---|
| Starter store, up to ~50 products, one payment method | ৳15,000–25,000 | ৳30,000–50,000 |
| Standard store, ~200 products, several payment methods, courier integration | ৳25,000–40,000 | ৳50,000–90,000 |
| Larger store, unlimited products, custom features, speed work | ৳40,000–60,000 | ৳90,000–1,50,000 |
| Multi-vendor marketplace or custom application | ৳60,000–1,20,000 | ৳1,50,000–2,50,000+ |
You will see stores advertised at ৳11,800 and ৳12,000. Those are real offers, and what they generally give you is a theme with WooCommerce switched on, one payment method, and no testing. For a hobby shop that may be fine. For a business that intends to take money reliably, it is the start of a longer bill.
The number that actually matters
Here is what separates a store from a normal website, and it is the reason most eCommerce budgets are wrong.
A brochure site costs what it costs and then runs for a few thousand taka a year. A store takes a percentage of every single sale, for as long as the store exists.
What the gateways charge
| Payment method | Typical rate |
|---|---|
| bKash | around 1.5–2.0% |
| Nagad, Rocket, Upay | around 1.8% |
| Visa / Mastercard, local | around 2.4–2.5% |
| International cards | 2.5–3.5% |
| American Express | around 3.4% |
| One-time onboarding | ৳10,000–25,000 |
| Chargeback or refund handling | ৳500 and up, per case |
| Monthly fee | Usually none on modern gateways — check |
Work it out on your own numbers
Say you do ৳3,00,000 a month, 60% through bKash and 40% by card. That is roughly ৳3,240 plus ৳2,880, so about ৳6,100 a month in fees. Around ৳73,000 a year.
Your ৳40,000 website is now the second largest cost of running your store, behind the fees. Nobody mentions this at quote stage because the developer does not collect it.
Two practical consequences. First, build the fee into your margins before you set prices, not after your first month. Second, rates are negotiable at volume — if you are doing serious numbers, ask, and ask more than one provider.
The rest of the running costs
| Item | Cost | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | ৳1,000–2,500/year | Same as any site |
| Hosting | ৳8,000–15,000/year | Not the ৳2,000 shared plan — see below |
| SSL | Free | Let's Encrypt. Do not pay for this on a normal store |
| Theme and plugins | ৳5,000–15,000 | Often annual renewals, not one-off |
| Maintenance | ৳5,000–12,000/month | Genuinely not optional for a store |
| Courier integration | Usually free to connect | Pathao, Steadfast, RedX — you pay per delivery |
Why store hosting costs more
Cart and checkout pages cannot be cached. Every time a customer loads them, the server rebuilds the page from scratch, running every plugin and every database query while they wait. That is precisely what cheap shared hosting is worst at.
A brochure site on a ৳2,000 plan is usually fine because caching hides the weak server. A store on the same plan has a slow checkout, and a slow checkout is abandoned carts. This is the one place where spending more on hosting pays for itself directly.
What drives the build price up
Product count, and more importantly variations
Two hundred simple products is a straightforward import. Forty products each with three sizes and five colours is six hundred variations, and every one needs its own price, stock number and often its own photo. Variations, not product count, is what makes a catalogue expensive.
Who prepares the product data
If you hand over a clean spreadsheet with names, prices, descriptions, stock levels and photo filenames, the import takes a day. If the data lives in a notebook and a WhatsApp album, someone has to build that spreadsheet, and it should be a separate line on the quote rather than a surprise later.
How many payment methods
Each gateway is its own integration, its own test cycle and often its own paperwork. Start with the two your customers actually use. You can add the third later for far less than it costs to build all four at once.
Courier and delivery logic
Flat-rate shipping is simple. Different rates inside Dhaka versus outside, free delivery over a threshold, and live tracking pulled from a courier API are three separate jobs. Decide which you need before the quote.
Cash on delivery
Still how a large share of Bangladeshi orders are paid, and it needs its own handling: order confirmation by phone, a way to mark COD orders as collected, and some protection against fake orders. Ask whether the quote covers it.
Bangla product content
A bilingual store means two versions of every product description. That is a content cost more than a development cost, and it is the thing most likely to stall the launch.
What you need before you can start
Stores stall more often than any other kind of project, almost always for the same reasons. Have these ready:
- Trade licence and business documents. Payment gateways require them and approval takes days to weeks. Start this before the build, not after.
- A bank account in the business name for settlements.
- Your product list as a spreadsheet — name, price, description, stock, category, photo filename.
- Product photos, consistently shot and cropped. Mixed backgrounds and sizes make a store look amateur no matter how good the build is.
- Your delivery rules, written down. Inside Dhaka, outside Dhaka, free over what amount.
- Return and refund policy. Required by the gateways and by the customer.
The gateway paperwork is the real timeline risk
Development takes three to six weeks. Gateway approval can take just as long and it runs on someone else's schedule. Apply the week the project starts and the two run in parallel; leave it to the end and you have a finished store that cannot take money.
Questions worth asking
- Which gateway are you integrating, and what rate am I on? The developer should know, even though they do not set it.
- Will the merchant account be in my business name? It must be. This is not negotiable.
- Is cash on delivery included?
- Who uploads the products, and how many are covered?
- Have you tested checkout on a phone, on mobile data? Not desk wifi.
- What happens if an order fails after payment? Every store hits this eventually and there should be a plan.
What I charge
I quote stores per project rather than from a package list, because product count, variations and payment methods change the work far too much for a fixed price to be honest. A standard WooCommerce store with two payment methods and courier integration typically lands in the ৳45,000 to ৳80,000 range.
What is included: the domain, hosting and merchant account registered in your name, checkout tested on mobile data before launch, a store your team can add products to without calling me, and thirty days of free fixes afterwards.
What is not: the gateway's own onboarding fee, and product photography. I will tell you what both cost before you commit rather than after.
Questions people ask
WooCommerce or Shopify?
WooCommerce for most Bangladeshi stores. Local gateway support is better, there is no monthly platform fee, and you own the whole thing. Shopify is easier to run and worth considering if you are selling internationally and would rather pay monthly than maintain anything.
Can I start small and grow?
Yes, and you should. Launch with your best fifty products, one or two payment methods and flat-rate delivery. Add the rest once you know what actually sells. Building every feature before your first order is the most common way to waste money on a store.
Do I need a trade licence?
For a payment gateway, yes. You can build and launch a store taking cash on delivery without one, but you cannot accept bKash or card payments as a business without the paperwork.
How long until it makes money?
The store is the easy part. Getting people to it is the expensive part, and nobody who quotes you for a build is quoting for that. Budget for marketing separately, and be sceptical of anyone who implies traffic comes with the site.
Build prices and gateway rates checked September 2026 against published Bangladeshi rates. Gateway percentages vary by provider, by volume and by negotiation — confirm yours directly before setting your margins.
Thinking about a store?
Tell me what you sell, roughly how many products, and which payment methods you need. You'll get a real number and an honest view on whether the timeline works.