What a rented online store costs over 24 months, what to check in the contract and when your own store project pays off.
Renting an online store means you pay a fixed monthly fee and get software, hosting and maintenance from one provider. There are two forms. With a hosted store builder such as Shopify, you rent the system and build the store yourself; Shopify’s prices for Germany start at €27 per month with annual billing. With an agency store subscription, you rent the finished store: a team builds it, sets it up and runs it. At solution25 this starts at €299 per month with a 24-month minimum term.
Renting pays off if you want to launch quickly, do not want to tie up a project budget of €20,000 or more, and your store works with standard features. A custom store project is worth it once you need individual processes, a deep ERP integration, B2B features or several countries. Or when the monthly fees over your planned period of use add up to more than a built store.
The contract matters more than the monthly price. Check the term, who owns the store at the end, how you take your data with you and which fees are added to every order.
This article is for founders, retailers launching their first online store and companies that want to sell online alongside a physical shop. You will learn which rental models exist, what they cost over 24 months, which contract points to check and when a store project of your own becomes the better deal.
People who want to rent an online store usually mean one of three models. The terms are not used consistently in the market. One provider calls its offer a rental store, the next a store subscription, the third a managed store. So always look at what the price includes and who does which work.
You rent store software that the provider runs on its own servers. Well-known examples are Shopify, Wix and Jimdo. You pick a template, add products, set up payment methods and shipping, and go live. Servers, updates and security are handled by the provider. The work on the store itself stays with you. If you do not have time for it, you hire an agency or a freelancer on top.
You do not rent a builder, you rent a finished store. An agency builds it on established store software such as Shopware, WooCommerce or Shopify. It adds products, sets up payments and shipping, hosts the store and keeps it up to date. You pay a fixed monthly fee, almost always with a minimum term. Whether the store belongs to you after the term is decided by the contract alone. This is where offers differ the most.
You have the store developed as a project and pay for the build once. After that, hosting, licenses, extensions and maintenance are ongoing costs. The store is yours from day one. In return, you carry the upfront investment and the responsibility for operations, or you hand operations over through a maintenance contract.
| Feature | Store builder (SaaS) | Agency subscription | Own project |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who builds the store? | You, with templates | The agency | Agency or in-house team |
| Startup costs | Low | Low to no setup fee | High, one-time |
| Ongoing costs | Subscription, apps, fees | Fixed monthly fee | Hosting, maintenance, licenses |
| Customization | Through theme and apps | Within the package | Free, depending on budget |
| Ownership | Tied to the provider’s system | Per contract, often after the term | From day one |
| Typical term | Monthly or annual | Often 12 to 24 months | None, except a maintenance contract |
With every rental model, the monthly price is only part of the bill. Before you compare offers, you should know which items are usually included and which almost always come on top.
So always calculate the total monthly amount: subscription, apps, payment fees and your own working time. Only that total makes offers comparable.
To make the three models comparable, we work through a hypothetical example. The assumptions are deliberately simple and do not come from a client project. Use your own numbers for your planning.
Assumptions: A retailer starts with 150 products and plans €120,000 in annual revenue with an average order value of €60. That is 2,000 orders per year. We look at the first 24 months. Payment fees apply in every model, so they are not in the table but compared below it.
| Item (24 months) | Store builder: Shopify Grow, self-built | Store subscription: solution25 Scale | Own project: Shopware Community Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subscription or license | €1,896 (€79 × 24, annual billing) | €7,176 (€299 × 24, monthly billing) | €0 license |
| Setup and design | approx. €300 for a premium theme (assumption) | Included | approx. €20,000 build (experience value for a small store) |
| Apps and extensions | approx. €1,200 (€50 per month, assumption) | In the package | approx. €1,000 (assumption) |
| Hosting | Included | Included | approx. €1,800 (€75 per month) |
| Maintenance and updates | Software included, store yourself | Included | approx. €3,600 (€150 per month, assumption) |
| Total without your own time | approx. €3,400 | €7,176 | approx. €26,400 |
| Your own time for the build | High, 60 to 120 hours (assumption) | Low: supply logo, product data and copy | Medium: coordination, testing, content |
With the solution25 store subscription, annual billing lowers the amount by 10%, to €6,458.40 for 24 months. The figures for the own project match our article on Shopware costs, where we budget around €25,000 for a small store in the first year.
With Shopify Payments on the Grow plan, the example costs 1.8% of €120,000 plus €0.30 for each of the 2,000 orders. That is €2,160 plus €600, or €2,760 per year. If you choose a third-party payment provider with Shopify, the Grow plan adds 1%, in the example €1,200 per year on top of that provider’s own fees. With Shopware and WooCommerce, you pay fees directly to the payment provider of your choice, such as PayPal, Mollie or Stripe. Rates depend on the payment method and your contract.
The self-built hosted store is the cheapest in cash. But it costs your time. If you assume 80 hours of setup at €50 per hour (assumption), that is €4,000. Then the store builder at around €7,400 lands roughly level with the store subscription, and the work still sits with you. The own project is clearly more expensive in the first two years. It pays off if you use the store for a long time, need to customize it heavily, or if it generates enough revenue that custom features and a clean integration bring in more than they cost.
A rental model fits well if several of the following points apply to you. The more boxes you tick, the more clearly the math favors renting over a project.
Within the rental models, your time is the deciding factor. If you enjoy designing, maintaining products and trying out apps, a store builder is the cheapest solution. If you would rather sell than set things up, or if the store should match your brand without you rebuilding templates, an agency subscription makes more sense.
Hypothetical example: A ceramics studio with 80 products has so far sold at markets. The owner enjoys photography and has time in the evenings. A store builder suits her. A dealer of workwear and safety equipment with 400 items and two field sales reps does not have that time. He needs a clean design, shipping rules for bulky goods and someone to handle updates. A store subscription suits him better.
Renting is not an end in itself. At some point a rental model costs more than it saves, because you are working around its limits. These signals point to a project of your own:
A project of your own does not mean you have to run everything yourself. With your own store, too, you can hand off hosting, updates and support through a maintenance contract and e-commerce hosting. The difference lies in who owns the store, who carries the upfront investment and how free you are to develop it further.
With rented stores, the contract decides whether renting stays a good solution or becomes expensive later. Clarify these five points before you sign.
Store builders can usually be canceled monthly or annually. Agency subscriptions almost always have a minimum term, because the agency pre-finances the build. That is fair as long as it is clear what happens after the term. Ask: Does the contract renew automatically? For how many months? With what notice period can you cancel?
With a store builder, your content and data belong to you, but the store itself only runs in the provider’s system. You cannot move a Shopify theme to Shopware. With an agency subscription, it depends on the contract. Some providers keep the rights to the store permanently. At solution25, the usage rights to the store pass to you after the 24-month minimum term: design, setup and all data. Then you decide whether to continue hosting and support, run the store yourself or work with another provider.
Test the export before you need it. In Shopify, you export products as a CSV file. According to Shopify’s help center, product images are not included in it, only references. You export customer data and orders separately. With Shopware and WooCommerce, access to the database and server gives you all data; with an agency subscription, the contract should guarantee this access or a complete export at the end.
Register the domain in your name, not the provider’s. The same goes for accounts with payment providers, Google Search Console, Google Merchant Center and your newsletter tool. Whoever owns these accounts owns a large part of the store in the end.
Check whether and how the provider may adjust prices, and which limits the package sets: visitors per month, number of products, storage, support hours. Find out what an upgrade costs and whether moving to a smaller package is possible.
Behind every rented store there is store software. It determines how far the store can grow later. All three systems are established. They fit different requirements.
Shopify is a pure rental system. The vendor runs the software and the servers; you choose a plan. In Germany, Shopify costs €27 (Basic), €79 (Grow) or €289 (Advanced) per month with annual billing, and €36, €105 or €384 with monthly billing. Shopify Plus starts at €2,100 per month. Prices in other countries differ. Its strengths are the quick start, a mature checkout and a large app ecosystem. Limits show with individual processes, the fixed URL structure and transaction fees for third-party payment providers. Your store data lives on Shopify’s infrastructure.
Shopware 6 is free to use as the Community Edition under the MIT license. The paid plans start at €600 per month (Rise) and €2,400 per month (Evolve); the Beyond plan is priced individually. Shopware also offers SaaS and PaaS variants itself, with prices available on request only. As a rental model for smaller stores, Shopware is usually offered through an agency that runs the store on its own servers. Its strengths are ERP and PIM integration, B2B features and free choice of hosting, including in Germany.
WooCommerce is a free extension for WordPress. It fits well when content and a blog come first and the range is manageable. It does need regular maintenance, because WordPress, WooCommerce and many plugins have to be updated individually. With an agency subscription, the agency handles exactly this maintenance.
You will find a detailed comparison of the two big systems in our article Shopify or Shopware. We compare more systems in Shopware alternatives.
When you rent a store, you hand off the technology but not your responsibility as a retailer. These tasks stay with you, whichever model you choose:
What to consider if you sell from the US: Most Shopware partners, including solution25, are based in Europe. Plan for the time difference: between Bremen and the US East Coast there are six hours, which leaves a shared window in your morning. Sales tax in the US depends on the state and is usually handled through an integration with a tax service rather than fixed rates in the store. Ask your provider which tax service the store connects to. The prices in this article are in euros and come from German price pages; Shopify’s US prices differ, so check the plan prices for your country.
We see the following mistakes again and again in initial consultations. They can be avoided if you invest an hour in comparing before you start.
€27 per month sounds cheap. With apps, a premium theme and payment fees, the real amount is often three to five times higher. Compare total costs over at least 24 months.
A subscription without a rule on ownership ties you to the provider permanently. Get in writing what happens to the store, design and data after the minimum term.
If you only notice during a move that images, variants or customer accounts do not export cleanly, you lose time and sometimes rankings. Run a test export in the first few weeks.
The domain is your address for customers and search engines. It belongs in your name and in your account.
Every app costs money and often loading time. Check quarterly which apps you really use, and remove the rest cleanly, including leftover code in the theme.
A package that fits today may be too small in two years. Ask beforehand what an upgrade costs and whether the store is technically built to grow. Switching systems after three years usually costs more than you saved at the start.
With these questions you can compare store builders and store subscriptions on one page. Ask for the answers in writing.
If a provider cannot answer one of these questions clearly, that is an answer in itself.
A store builder such as Shopify costs from €27 per month in Germany with annual billing, plus apps, themes and payment fees. A fully built store on an agency subscription costs from €299 per month at solution25, with a 24-month minimum term and no setup fee.
Your content and data always belong to you. Whether the store itself belongs to you is set by the contract. With a store builder, the store stays tied to the system. At solution25, the usage rights pass to you after 24 months.
Yes. Products, customers and orders can be migrated; design and apps have to be rebuilt. Plan redirects for all old URLs so you keep your rankings.
Not in principle. The technology of the big systems is solid. Content, loading speed and a clean structure are what matter. Some store builders have limits, such as fixed URL parts like /products/ in Shopify.
Rental fees are usually an ongoing expense. Project costs for your own store may be treated differently depending on the case. Clarify this with your tax advisor before you factor it into your decision.
We are a Shopware Platinum Partner from Bremen, Germany, and have been working on online stores since 2017. We offer both routes: stores as projects and finished stores on a store subscription, built on Shopware, WooCommerce or Shopify. The subscription starts at €299 per month (Scale), the Pro package costs €499 per month, and for larger stores we prepare an individual quote.
If a store builder is enough for your plans, we will tell you so. If you already have a store and want to know whether renting or a project is the better basis for the coming years, start with our store analysis. Or write to us directly via the contact page, and we will get back to you with an honest assessment.
Besnik Bilalli is the founder and CEO of solution25, the Shopware agency from Bremen. Before founding the agency in 2017, he built his own online store and grew it to more than 500 orders a day. Since then he has been helping merchants with Shopware projects, from the first budget to ongoing operations. He’s happy to answer questions about this article personally: get in touch.
Responsible for content and updates: Besnik Bilalli. Last updated: November 2026. Next content review: February 2027.
