Ecommerce website cost in Malaysia and India

Ecommerce website cost at a glance

These build ranges come from 2026 price guides published by developers and agencies in both countries. They cover the store itself, before monthly platform and payment fees.

• Template store (a ready-made theme, up to about 50 products, one payment gateway, basic shipping): RM2,500 to RM6,000, or ₹50,000 to ₹1,50,000. Freelancers in India quote from about ₹20,000.
• Professional store (custom design, local payment methods, courier integration, staff training): RM8,000 to RM20,000, or ₹1,50,000 to ₹5,00,000.
• Custom platform or marketplace (multiple sellers, complex pricing, deep integrations): RM30,000 to RM50,000 and up, or ₹5,00,000 to ₹25,00,000 and up.

The platform logo matters less than the scope. Product count, variants, payment methods and integrations decide where in each band a quote lands.

Platform fees: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Shopify charges a monthly subscription. WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin, but you pay for hosting, premium extensions and the upkeep that comes with any WordPress site.

On Shopify's India pricing page, the Basic plan is ₹1,499 a month on yearly billing (₹1,994 monthly), Grow is ₹5,599 and Advanced is ₹22,680. Malaysian stores are billed in US dollars: Basic is US$19 a month on yearly billing, about RM78, with Grow at US$49 (about RM200) and Advanced at US$299 (about RM1,220).

There's a catch that most price guides miss. Shopify Payments isn't available in Malaysia or India, so stores in both countries use a third-party gateway. That triggers Shopify's extra transaction fee on every sale: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced.

Payment gateway fees, per sale

Every sale pays the gateway too. These are the standard published rates for two common gateways; negotiated rates for larger stores are lower. Our payment gateway fees comparison covers Billplz, Curlec, HitPay and Cashfree as well.

• Malaysia, Stripe: 3% + RM1 per successful transaction for domestic cards and for bank-based methods including FPX, with an extra 1% for international cards.
• India, Razorpay: 2% per transaction on the standard plan for cards. UPI and RuPay debit cards carry zero MDR, but Razorpay's standard plan still charges a 2% platform fee on them, and 18% GST applies to that fee.

Put together, here's what a single order costs to process:

• A RM150 card order in Malaysia through Stripe pays RM5.50 in gateway fees. On Shopify Basic, add RM3 for the third-party fee: RM8.50 in total, about 5.7% of the order.
• A ₹1,000 UPI order in India through Razorpay's standard plan pays ₹20 plus ₹3.60 GST. On Shopify Basic, add ₹20: ₹43.60 in total, about 4.4%.

Run those percentages against your expected monthly sales before choosing a plan. Local Malaysian gateways that price FPX per transaction rather than as a percentage can also beat card-style rates on large orders.

When a bigger Shopify plan pays for itself

Moving from Basic to Grow costs more each month but halves Shopify's third-party fee, from 2% to 1%. The break-even point is simple arithmetic on the published prices.

• Malaysia: Grow costs US$30 a month more than Basic on yearly billing, about RM1,470 a year. That's covered by the 1% saving once sales pass roughly RM12,300 a month.
• India: Grow costs ₹4,100 a month more than Basic on yearly billing, ₹49,200 a year. That's covered once sales pass roughly ₹4,10,000 a month.

Below those numbers, stay on Basic. Above them, upgrade, even if you don't need any of Grow's extra features.

What pushes a store's build cost up

The same "simple shop" brief can be quoted at RM6,000 or RM30,000. These are the usual reasons:

1. Payment methods. Malaysian shoppers expect FPX online banking, DuitNow QR and e-wallets like Touch 'n Go; Indian shoppers expect UPI. Each method is setup and testing time, and each gateway has its own approval paperwork.
2. Shipping rules. Rates by weight, zone and courier, separate pricing for Sabah and Sarawak, or live rates from a shipping aggregator such as EasyParcel in Malaysia or Shiprocket in India.
3. Catalogue complexity. Twenty simple products and two thousand products with sizes, colours and bundles are different builds.
4. Integrations. Accounting software, inventory, marketplaces like Shopee and Lazada or Amazon and Flipkart, and e-invoicing. In Malaysia, check early whether your invoicing needs to connect to LHDN's MyInvois system.
5. A second language. English plus Bahasa Malaysia or Chinese, or English plus Hindi, means translated product content and checkout text for every product.
6. Custom features. Subscriptions, wholesale pricing, product configurators or a loyalty scheme.

Shopify, WooCommerce or custom?

Pick by how you'll run the store, not by the build price alone.

Shopify suits most new and growing stores. Hosting, security and updates are handled for you, and staff can learn the admin in a day. The trade-off is the monthly fee, the extra transaction fee in both markets, and paid apps that add up.

WooCommerce suits businesses that already run WordPress, want full control of their data and hosting, or sell enough that Shopify's per-sale fee hurts. The trade-off is maintenance: WordPress plugins are where most security problems start, so someone has to keep it updated every week.

Custom makes sense for marketplaces, unusual pricing models, or a store that's part of a larger product. Our web development work sits here: custom builds on Next.js, often with a headless CMS. Our Next.js vs WordPress comparison covers the trade-offs in more depth.

Costs after launch

The build is a one-off. These come back every year:

• Platform or hosting fees, as above.
• Paid apps and extensions, for reviews, subscriptions, shipping rules or marketing. These are easy to stack and easy to forget.
• Maintenance. Updates, backups, security and small fixes. Our website maintenance cost guide has RM and ₹ ranges for online stores.
• Tax on services. An SST-registered Malaysian provider may add 8% service tax to the build invoice; an Indian one adds 18% GST. Our website cost guide explains both.

How to get quotes you can compare

Send every developer the same brief: product count and variants, payment methods, shipping rules, integrations, languages, and two or three stores you like. Ask each quote to list the platform, every paid app it assumes, and who owns the store account.

If you'd like a quote for your own store, send us the brief. We'll tell you which platform we'd pick and why.