I'm planning a jewellery website similar to the reference site provided. For a catalogue-only version built with Astro, where products are displayed but customers don't check out online, what would be a reasonable price? I'd also like estimates for building a complete online store without Shopify. Which technology stack would you choose, and how would the cost change depending on features such as product management, payments, inventory, and integrations?
2 Answers
Even a catalogue site is still commercial work because it presents products and is intended to generate sales. For a polished site with several pages, responsive design, product listings, and basic integrations, I’d expect roughly £2,500–£3,000 depending on the scope. I wouldn’t take on the project for much less than £2,500 unless the design and content were extremely simple.
A custom store can become much more complicated than a standard business website. You have to account for product variants, carts, payments, orders, inventory, customer accounts, shipping, tax, administration, and maintenance. For a store with a tightly integrated CMS, I’d start around €2,000 at the absolute minimum and increase the quote based on the required features. For a catalogue-only site without a CMS, Astro would be a sensible lightweight choice.
For the catalogue version, I’m thinking of leaving out a full CMS and keeping product updates simple unless the client specifically requests one. I’m also considering a headless commerce option such as Medusa for the full store, although I haven’t used it yet. Would you recommend that over paying for a hosted platform subscription?