Pricing
- $1,500 baseline for a Shopify Basic or BigCommerce Standard store with up to 50 products you provide
- +$500–1,000 for catalogs of 50–200 products
- +$500 for advanced shipping logic (multi-zone, freight, local pickup)
- +$500–1,000 for a premium theme customization vs. free theme
Platform subscription fees (Shopify, BigCommerce, etc.) are paid directly by you to the platform. Domain and email forwarding are not included but cost roughly $20–$50/year combined and I'll set them up as part of the project.
Everything Included
- Platform configuration — Shopify, BigCommerce, or WooCommerce setup with tax, currency, and store-info settings dialed in correctly
- Theme installation and customization — free or premium theme adapted to your brand colors, logo, and content
- Product catalog import — up to 200 products entered with descriptions, photos, variants, and inventory you provide
- Payment processing — Shopify Payments, Stripe, PayPal, or BigCommerce equivalents wired up and tested
- Shipping rules — flat rate, weight-based, or carrier-calculated (USPS, UPS, FedEx) per your needs
- Sales tax setup — nexus configuration for the states you sell in (or automatic via Shopify Tax / BigCommerce Avalara if you prefer)
- Basic on-page SEO — meta titles, descriptions, image alt text, and proper heading structure on every product and category
- Pre-launch testing — full checkout walkthrough, test order, mobile and desktop QA, abandoned cart configured
- 30 days of post-launch support — bug fixes and "how do I do X" questions answered without additional charge
- Training — 60-minute walkthrough so you can add products, fulfill orders, and update content yourself
Not included — quoted separately if needed
- Product photography (referrals to local photographers available)
- Copywriting beyond product descriptions you supply
- Custom development beyond theme configuration
- Migration of an existing store (see Platform Migration)
- Ongoing management (see Monthly Management)
- Paid ads or SEO content production (see Google Ads or SEO Management)
The Process
Most setups follow the same four-stage path. Total wall time is 2–4 weeks; about 80–120 hours of my work depending on scope.
- Week 1 — Discovery and Platform Selection. One-hour call to understand your products, customers, and operational reality. We pick the right platform together (not whichever I'm most comfortable selling).
- Week 1–2 — Build and Configuration. Theme installation, brand customization, payment and shipping setup, tax configuration, plus the dozens of small settings that prevent post-launch headaches.
- Week 2–3 — Product Catalog. I import your products. You provide descriptions and photos; I handle SKUs, categories, variants, pricing, inventory, and SEO basics.
- Week 3–4 — Testing and Launch. Test order through the full checkout, mobile and desktop QA, you do a final walkthrough, then we go live.
FAQ
For most small businesses, Shopify Basic ($29/mo) is the right answer. BigCommerce Standard ($39/mo) for stores with complex catalogs or B2B needs. WooCommerce only if you already have a WordPress site you want to extend, or you want full code-level control. I won't push you onto a platform that pays me a referral — I'll explain why one fits your situation and let you decide.
No — you provide products, descriptions, and photos. If you need help with photography, I can refer local Wabash Valley photographers I've worked with. If you need help writing product descriptions, that's typically $25–$50 per product through a copywriter, or you can write them yourself with my templates.
Thirty days of post-launch support is included — bug fixes, configuration tweaks, and questions answered. After that, you can either run the store yourself (training is included) or move into a monthly management arrangement if you'd rather hand off ongoing operations.
Yes, but it costs more than picking the right platform now. Migration projects start at $8,000. The setup work I do is platform-specific, but your products, customers, and content are yours and portable. I'll always document setup choices so a future migration is straightforward.
50% to start, 50% on launch. No hidden costs — the quote you get is the price you pay. Platform fees, domain registration, and any premium themes you choose are paid directly by you and disclosed upfront so you know the all-in cost before we start.
Yes. About half my client base is local, the rest is remote. The work translates either way. Local clients sometimes get an in-person discovery meeting if scheduling works out; remote clients get a video call. Same level of attention regardless.
Examples
Most recent setup: a custom site for Titan Machine Service, a Tulsa-based CNC repair company. Static-fast site, urgency-segmented lead-capture form, schema.org structured data for local search. Live and serving real dispatch traffic.
I've spent the last decade running the e-commerce side of a $10M flooring operation in Indianapolis — including a solo Magento to BigCommerce migration that took 12 months of part-time work. Setup work is substantially less involved than migration, but the same operational rigor applies. Read more on what real e-commerce actually costs if you want a longer-form view of the work.