Magento Pricing Explained: Count Your Magento Cost the Right Way

Imagine you’re in the car dealer’s looking for a car, and a mechanic offers you three options: 1) a free car with basic capabilities; 2) a luxury car at a decent price offering a smooth ride and an amazingly sharp roadholding, or 3) a costly new race car with tons of horsepower that Formula One drivers can only dream of.

Which one do you go for?

Apparently, your choice will depend on the purpose of your purchase — after all, no one is buying a race car to commute to work in the city. The same works for Magento: each edition comes at a different price depending on the functionality and features a merchant needs.

So let’s talk money in this article and see what Magento pricing is for various editions and which costs are associated with implementation and maintenance of a Magento store.

Disclaimer: this article omits the additional cost of hiring a Magento development agency which varies from one company to another. Elogic has a team of certified developers offering such Magento development and support services — contact us for more info.

How Much Does Magento 2 Cost?

Magento pricing will depend on the Magento edition you choose, the theme on which your store is running, extensions installed in your e-store. Here’s an approximate Magento cost breakdown.

License 

As you may already know, Magento comes in three editions, all at different license costs.

Magento Open Source pricing — free. 

They say the best things in life are free. Magento Open Source is one of such things. You can download it for free, modify and edit any files, code all store’s data, and host it absolutely anywhere. Magento Open Source also has a basic feature set allowing merchants to start a small online business and test Magento functionality before upgrading.

Magento Commerce pricing — starting at $22,000 per year ($1,833 per month). 

They also say you get your money’s worth. With the set pricing, Magento Commerce offers much more advanced features than its younger brother Magento Open Source: a drag-and-drop page builder, a built-in B2B module, advanced content staging, extensive business intelligence reports, and 24/7 support, among others. Magento Commerce pricing is also based on a tiered model and will increase along with your Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) and Average Order Value (AOV).

Magento 2 Cloud pricing — starting at $40,000 per year ($3,333 per month). 

It is that race car with immense horsepower that we’ve been talking about at the beginning of the article. In addition to the above mentioned features of Magento Commerce, Magento 2 Cloud pricing includes the obvious benefit of cloud hosting, enhanced page speed and security, among others. Just like it’s on-premise alternative, Magento Commerce Cloud pricing is tiered:

Magento Themes

The theme refers to both the front-end visual appearance and the UX design of your online store. You can surely build your own theme if you have a clear picture of what you want, which is what we did for our client Watches of Mayfair (check it out — maybe you’ll want a similar design for yourself!).

There are also plenty of pre-built Magento themes online. Magento Marketplace itself lists 11 paid themes at a price range from $30 to $499 as well as 6 free themes applicable across all of its editions. Some websites like TemplateMonster or ThemeForest also have community-created themes often shared for free.

Hosting

If you decide to host your Magento store on-premise — no matter whether it is Commerce or Open Source — you’ll need to find a third-party hosting provider. Ecommerce hosting cost is defined by the type of hosting you choose, which can refer to a shared, virtual private, or dedicated server. Their pricing can vary from $4 to $1000+ per month depending on a server’s features, support, and security. Nexcess, Cloudways, and Bluehost are some examples of the trusted hosting providers among Magento merchants.

If you’re a lucky owner of Magento Commerce Cloud store, you don’t have to worry about additional Magento hosting costs — they are already included in your licence fees. Magento Commerce Cloud is an automated ecommerce solution hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) by a dedicated team of developers. Magento Cloud service eliminates cloud vendor selection and server management costs edition.

Extensions and Third-Party Apps

Just like in case with themes, you can install custom modules developed by yourself or a Magento development agency or expand your store functionality with already developed ones. The price varies from $0 to $500 depending on the uniqueness and complexity of the feature you wish to integrate.As far as third-party integrations are concerned to expand your Magento ecommerce architecture, you might have to pay for the license of the system you wish to integrate, like SAP ERP or Akeneo PIM. Besides, the price for custom modules to integrate third-party software is calculated based on the Magento developer’s rate.

Store Maintenance and Support

Running an online store requires routine checkups and bug fixes that can be provided by a certified Magento developer. Unless you’ve purchased a Magento Commerce or Commerce Cloud edition, you’ll need to include scheduled support and maintenance expenses in your budget. Magento cost of ongoing support varies from one agency to another and is usually calculated based on a developer’s rate per hour. At Elogic, we offer support packages of 50, 100, and 150 support hours each at affordable prices.

Magento Total Cost of Ownership Cheatsheet

All the aforementioned costs on web design, extensions, and support fluctuate depending on the Magento edition you choose. Purchasing any Magento edition, you get that coveted flexibility and freedom to customize your store functionalities; the issue is only how much you need to build. 

For a more specific total cost of ownership, we give you the following cheatsheet to gauge which costs will be higher or lower with each platform:

Magento Pricing Takeaways

When calculating Magento pricing, you should factor in expenses on Magento license, themes & visuals, hosting, extensions & modules, and store maintenance fees. Making choices in each of these aspects and adding up the expenses will make up the Magento pricing for your business in particular. 

But as a final recap, we’d like to suggest a few things that may affect your Magento cost. Having vast experience working with Magento clients of different scales and sizes, we’ve noticed the following trends: 

• Although initially appealing for its low (or better said, free) pricing, Magento Open Source will bear higher customization and maintenance costs. It’s a great edition to start with if you’re only getting acquainted with Magento, but don’t fall into the trap of free cheese in the mousetrap. When labor and maintenance fees are factored in, the overall costs of Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce may not be so far apart. 
• Not everyone needs the horsepower and high security ratings of Magento Commerce Cloud (just like with a race car in the city, remember?). Consider your business scale and goals and compare the features of Magento edition before you break the bank to buy the most expensive one.
• Magento pricing is only a part of a total ecommerce development cost. Consider the costs of marketing, website maintenance, and security protocols to plan your ecommerce budget.

All we’re trying to say is: choose a Magento edition based on its functionality rather than the pricing. And whenever you need help, we’re right here for you.