What does e-commerce really cost per month? Item by item

The answer to “How much is a site?” is a one-off figure, and it is usually the only thing discussed. Yet what wears a business down are the items that repeat every month. I list the items I pay in my own business — not the figures, but which items they are, because the figures differ for everyone.

1. Platform subscription

The monthly fee for the e-commerce platform. There is no escaping it, and it is usually the most predictable item. The point to watch: when upgrading the plan is actually needed. Most businesses move to a bigger plan too early.

2. Apps — the sneakiest item

Gift in cart, countdown, popup, reviews, stock alerts, discount rules... Each costs a few dollars a month. Five of them are harmless; fifteen cost more than the platform subscription.

Rule: if an app's monthly fee is more than the sales it brings, shut it down. For most apps nobody takes this measurement.

In my case I wrote some things myself instead of using apps. For example, no ready-made app could correctly apply the rule “10% off when you buy 10 of the same size”; I wrote it with the platform's own function system — no monthly fee.

3. Domain and email

The annual domain fee is small. Business email (mail sent from your brand's name) is a separate item and shouldn't be skipped — order correspondence sent from gmail directly lowers how the brand is perceived.

4. Payments and commissions

Virtual POS commission, the bank's share on instalment sales, marketplace commission. These aren't fixed costs, they depend on revenue — but they are the items most often forgotten in profit calculations.

5. Shipping and returns

Contracted shipping rates change with revenue. The real issue is returns: you usually pay the round-trip shipping on a returned product, and it sometimes comes back unsellable.

That is why investments that reduce returns (proper product description, real images, clear size/colour information) are really a cost item — they just show up on the revenue side, not only on the expense side.

6. Accounting and e-invoicing

E-Archive invoicing integrators charge monthly or per credit. As orders grow, issuing invoices by hand becomes impossible; paying for the integration is cheaper than staff costs.

7. Advertising

Variable, and a candidate for the largest item. The only truth here: advertising you don't measure isn't an expense, it's a loss. The clearest thing I saw when reviewing ad accounts was campaigns set up with the wrong objective spending money with no visible return.

8. Content production

Photos, video, text. Either you buy it in (money) or make it yourself (time). Neither is free. You need to find a way to produce at scale — rather than having videos of 234 colours shot one by one, I built a production line.

How to bring it under control

1. Write all the items into a single table. Most businesses don't have this table.
2. Add a “what did this bring this month” column next to each item.
3. Shut down any item with no return three months in a row.
4. Before adding a new app, ask whether the same job can be done with the platform you already have.

Drawing up this table once wipes out a third of monthly expenses in most businesses. It's boring work, but one of the fastest to pay back.