How Much Do Subscription Websites Cost?
Creating a website to sell subscriptions has numerous elements that can cost you a lot of money. When choosing your subscription website provider, prioritise which functions and aspects of your website mean the most to you, maybe you want a beautifully designed website that displays your products and services, or maybe you prefer high levels of functionality over design? Whatever your needs, prioritising the aspects of your e-store allows you to not waste money on areas of your website that provide no real value to your end goal. With this in mind, how much do e-commerce website providers charge for there services? To see a comparison of the benefits and limitations of each provider, click here.
Shopify
Like the majority of website builders, Shopify offers a 14-day free trial. If you want to set up your store with them, you have to purchase one of there 3 available plans. Shopify also charges for external transaction fees, starting at 2% per transaction on their basic packages, 1% on their medium package and .5% on their most advanced package. If you choose to use Shopify's payment gateway, there are no transaction fees on any package. Shopify also allows you to pay in advance, 10% for a 12-month package and 20% for 2 years.
Basic Shopify: £21 per month. For this, you get a choice of a bunch of themes, a very user-friendly platform and easy implementation of a functional store. This package also charges 2.2% +20p per credit card transaction and limits you to 2 staff accounts.
Shopify: £58 per month. Shopify's medium package gives lower credit card transaction fees, at 1.9% +20p, alongside a 1% fee for using external payment gateways. With regards to features, this package gives the same as the basic, but with the addition of professional reports regarding your website, access to 5 staff accounts and digital gift card abilities.
Advanced Shopify: £221 per month. The advanced package charges a 1.6% +20p credit card transaction fee, alongside a .5% charge for using external payment gateways. The main differences for this package include access to 15 staff accounts, advanced report building and calculated third-party shipping rate information.
Wix
Wix offers free trials for website building but with limited functionality regarding e-commerce activities. Wix offers 2 main packages, eCommerce and VIP, all differing in functionality, design options and add-ons. Wix charges extra for a variety add-ons, so be careful when deciding which functions your website needs as Wix may not offer them for free.
E-Commerce: £10.10 per month. Gives access to most of the design and functionality features. This package gives unlimited product listings, unlimited bandwidth, 20GB of storage, a domain and $75 in advertising vouchers.
VIP: £15.57 per month. The VIP plan gives you all of the design and functionality features Wix has to offer. The main benefit of this package is the 10 email campaigns you receive per month. You also receive a one-off 'Professional Site Review', where an expert review and advises you on your website.
SubscriptionWebsiteBuilder
Subscription website builder offer no free trial for consumers, however, the two packages that they offer are the cheapest around. Subscription website builder focuses entirely on creating a functional e-commerce platform in minutes, they prioritise functionality over design, aiming to give you a cheap, easy to use functional store in minutes that allows you to take recurring membership payments. Subscription website builder charge no additional fees for use of external payment gateways.
Getting Started: £10 upfront, no monthly fee. There most basic package has an upfront cost of £10 with no monthly fee, this package lasts 6 months until you need to renew it. For this, you can post unlimited products, you can get started instantly, SEO assistance, but receive no support for your website.
Ready to Go: £5 upfront, £6.99 per month. For this, you get all of the features in the simpler package, but with email support and no minimum term. Subscription website builder charge no additional hidden fees for extra features and designs, it all comes under the originally stated price.
Weebly eCommerce
Weebly eCommerce offers 4 packages: Free, starter, pro and business. All of their packages are one-off payments per year, but for the sake of comparison, I will state them as monthly costs.
Free: Free. With regards to e-commerce, the free package doesn't offer any capabilities. For this, you get a .weebly domain name, 500MB storage and free design assistance.
Starter: £5 per month (paid annually). Within this package, you receive additional features such as $100 google ad credit, SEO assistance, unlimited storage and a 1-year free domain. For e-commerce, this package limits you to up to 10 products with a 3% transaction fee. You are also using a checkout. weebly domain for transactions.
Pro: £8 per month (paid annually). Additional benefits of this package include HD Video functionality, membership options for collection of recurring payments for up to 100 people and ability to sell up to 25 products. There is still a 3% transaction fee and you still have to use a checkout. weebly domain name for transactions.
Business: £17 per month (paid annually). The main additional benefits of this package are no limits for the amount membership payments you can receive, an unlimited number of products, your own domain name for everything, 0% transaction fees and extra functions such as digital good sales and coupon codes.
Take Away
When choosing which provider or package for your business, keep the purpose and budget of your business in mind. Owning a beautifully designed, highly functional and expensive website can be great if you need those things. My advice is, begin your businesses online journey with a clear vision in mind, be that functionality or aesthetic and choose a package that best meets that need. Avoid getting carried away with flashy features that may not provide additional benefit. To find out more useful information on subscription websites or recurring payment models, check out our blog.