How much does an online store cost? — answered by Engineer Saeed Baatiah
On a ready platform such as Salla or Zid: an annual subscription of SAR 1,000 to 5,000 plus setup and branding of SAR 2,000 to 8,000. A fully custom store starts at SAR 15,000 and reaches SAR 50,000 and beyond depending on inventory, shipping, and e-invoicing integrations. The practical rule: if you have fewer than a thousand products and no unusual pricing logic, a ready platform is clearly cheaper.
Before price, settle the foundation — it changes the cost several times over. An off-the-shelf platform like Salla or Zid means a monthly subscription, fast launch and limits on customisation. A custom store means higher upfront development and complete freedom in logic and integrations. The practical rule: if your selling is standard, the ready platform is cheaper and faster, and there is no reason to pay the customisation premium.
Saeed Baatiah prices per project rather than from a fixed rate card, because a fixed price means either paying for what you do not need or quietly losing scope that never made it into the quote. What actually moves the number: the count of screens and states rather than pages, whether you need an admin dashboard with roles and permissions, how many external systems must be integrated (payments, e-invoicing, shipping, inventory), whether the content is fully bilingual, who supplies content and design, and how much data has to migrate off an old system.
What genuinely pushes a store toward custom: selling digital products or subscriptions with instant delivery, compound pricing that depends on quantity or customer, integration with inventory living in another system, or an order flow the platform cannot express. Lazy Wait is a live example of the first — non-physical products with no shipping.
- A ready platform if selling is standard — cheaper and faster, and he will say so plainly
- Custom earns its cost with digital products, subscriptions and compound pricing
- Count payment gateway, e-invoicing and shipping inside the scope