The cost of an e-commerce platform can range from zero to several thousand Polish zlotys per month. What causes such a wide range and what truly influences the final price? In the article below, we will explain the differences between SaaS, open-source, and dedicated solutions, point out hidden fees, and advise which engines are easiest to integrate with Przelewy24 payments.

What is an e-commerce platform for?

A ready-made e-commerce platform that serves as the engine of an online store is software that allows you to manage all online sales — from configuring the website's appearance and product presentation, through integration with payment gateways (e.g., Przelewy24), handling marketing and analytics tools, to support for logistics and customer service.

Individual platforms offer a diverse range of functionalities: while some are designed for use by novice entrepreneurs, others are tailored for medium and large companies that handle hundreds of orders every day, require extensive integrations with ERP and warehouse systems, omnichannel sales, and a high level of automation. Therefore, choosing the right e-commerce platform is a strategic decision for your business.

What types of e-commerce platforms are there?

Before you start analyzing the capabilities of individual solutions, find outwhat to consider when choosing an e-commerce platformand think about your business needs — whether the priority is quick store launch, full control over code and infrastructure, intuitive operation, scalability, security, flexible combination of different sales channels, integrated payment system, etc. You also need to determine your monthly budget for maintaining the store — both for the platform itself and additional costs of integration, updates, or development of new features.

Depending on the business specifics and its needs, it's worth narrowing down the search for the ideal e-commerce platform to one of three main solutions:

  • SaaS — Software as a Service. You pay a subscription and gain access to a ready-made, cloud-maintained infrastructure: the provider takes care of the server, updates, and security, while you only configure the template, add products, and can start selling almost immediately;
  • open source — you have full control over the code (if you have technical knowledge or hire a specialist to handle its development and maintenance) and the server (which you must pay for yourself). What's more — access to the source code is free, and the popularity of these solutions means they are developed by a community that creates additional plugins and functionalities;
  • dedicated platform — a store created from scratch, "tailored" exactly to your idea. You have almost unlimited possibilities for its personalization, but you must factor in the high cost of preparing the software and then maintaining it.

Let's focus on the first two groups. All e-commerce platforms described below are available with Przelewy24.

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WooCommerce

As WooCommerce states on its website, over 4 million online stores are built on this software. It is an open-source platform that is a plugin for WordPress (and therefore equally intuitive and easy to use). By using it, you don't pay any subscription or license fees, and a significant portion of plugins are free. The costs — theoretically — come down to hosting, domain, and any paid extensions. You can freely modify the code, and the extensive REST API facilitates connecting external services, including the Przelewy24 gateway.

A huge advantage of this platform is its popularity, which translates into a large community, and in turn, a rich and easily accessible knowledge base about this solution. A disadvantage can be the costs, which in practice include constant cooperation with a programmer who will oversee the code, implement new functionalities, update the software, or optimize performance with increasing traffic.

PrestaShop

PrestaShop is also an open-source e-commerce platform. As its creators describe it, it has over 300 functionalities such as: unlimited products with attributes, categories, multistore, multiple currencies, languages, payments, delivery methods, CMS, filtering, statistics. For example, available payment-related functionalities include:

  • payment modules,
  • indicating which payment method should be available for a given currency,
  • restricting payment methods in relation to customer groups,
  • restricting payment methods in relation to countries,
  • indicating which payment method should be available for a given carrier.

Another advantage of PrestaShop is the minimized technical language, which is particularly important for beginners in e-commerce who want to configure their store themselves without deep knowledge of code. However, it's worth remembering that as the store develops, costs for paid modules, integrations, and more powerful hosting arise, and at a larger scale, continuous development support is recommended.

Shoper

Shoper is a Polish e-commerce platform operating on a SaaS model, which provides ready-made infrastructure (hosting, updates, SSL certificate, backups). There are three subscription levels to choose from: Standard, Standard+, and Premium. All plans offer responsive templates, integrations with couriers, and omnichannel sales (Allegro, Amazon, social media). Transactions are processed via Shoper Płatności Przelewy24 (including BLIK, payment cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, online transfers, BLIK Pay Later).