Opening an online shop in Portugal involves three kinds of cost: building the shop, running it every month, and each sale. Between a simple shop set up on a platform and one designed and coded for the business, the difference runs from a few hundred to several thousand euros. Which side a shop lands on depends on the catalogue, payments, shipping and what the back office has to do.
What the market says
Zaask, a Portuguese services marketplace, publishes figures starting at 200 euros, around 400 euros for a very simple shop on a platform such as Shopify, and between 3,000 and 15,000 euros for a bespoke shop1. They’re marketplace averages, not list prices, but they give the order of magnitude.
The gap between those figures isn’t just margin. At one end is a ready-made template with the products loaded; at the other, the catalogue organised, the photographs, payments, shipping, back office and legal rules designed around a real business.
The monthly costs
On a platform such as Shopify there’s a monthly fee that depends on the plan: in Portugal, paying monthly, the Basic plan costs 27 euros a month and Grow 74 euros2. Using an external payment provider adds a per-transaction fee of 2% on Basic and 1% on Grow2.
A shop of its own, with no platform, has no licence fee, but it has hosting, maintenance and security updates. In both cases there’s also the domain, paid apps and the time of whoever handles the orders.
The cost of each sale
Every payment carries the provider’s fee, and every order carries postage, packaging and, at times, returns. In Portugal, beyond cards, many people prefer MB WAY or a Multibanco reference, and not every provider accepts the same methods or charges the same.
Shipping can be flat, by weight, by zone or free above a set amount, and each choice changes the margin. Mainland Portugal, the islands and abroad have different costs and delivery times.
The total price, delivery charges included, must appear before the buyer is bound. If the shop fails to show it, the buyer isn’t required to pay them3.
The obligations that shape the price
I’m not a lawyer, and each shop should confirm the rules that apply to it with its accountant and, where needed, a lawyer. But some obligations change a shop’s design and, with it, its price:
- The right to withdraw within 14 days, without giving a reason, counted from receipt of the goods, and information about that right before the purchase3
- Access to the electronic complaints book, the Livro de Reclamações Eletrónico, in a visible and prominent place4
- Accessibility, mandatory since 28 June 2025 for e-commerce aimed at consumers5, except for microenterprises providing services6
- A privacy policy and consent for non-essential cookies
- VAT on sales to consumers in other EU countries: above 10,000 euros a year in those sales, the destination country’s VAT applies, which can be declared through the One Stop Shop7
Dealing with this at the start costs little. Adding a well-explained returns policy, or making a live shop accessible, costs far more.
Platform or bespoke shop
A platform has almost everything ready and a predictable monthly cost, and suits a shop with a standard catalogue and simple rules. A bespoke shop costs more to begin and does exactly what the business needs, with no licence fee or platform charges.
A bespoke shop pays off when the business has its own pricing, ordering or delivery rules, or when the shop must talk to the in-store stock and to invoicing. I build both, and the choice is written into the proposal, with the reasons.
What decides a shop’s price
- The number of products and variants, and who photographs and describes them
- The payment methods and the provider that accepts them
- The shipping and collection rules
- Whether stock is shared with a physical shop
- What the back office does every day: orders, invoices, shipping notices, low-stock alerts
- The languages and the countries the shop sells to
With these answers, a proposal stops being an estimate and becomes a fixed figure. The online shops I build take around 8 weeks, and sales revenue always goes to the shop’s own account.
When the back office needs more than a platform gives, the shop connects to a bespoke system. A request starts with the type of project, a name and an email.
Sources
- 1
- 2Shopify pricing (Portugal)Shopify
- 3Decreto-Lei n.º 24/2014, de 14 de fevereiro (consolidated version), articles 4 and 10Diário da República
- 4Decreto-Lei n.º 156/2005, de 15 de setembro (consolidated version), article 5-BDiário da República
- 5Decreto-Lei n.º 82/2022, de 6 de dezembroDiário da República
- 6
- 7The One Stop ShopEuropean Commission