Atelier Nord
The lookbook that sells.

Ask five agencies what a website costs and you will get five very different numbers. That is rarely dishonesty. Websites are not sold by the kilo: the price follows the amount of thinking, design and building that goes into them. This article explains how to read the Slovenian market in 2027, what each level gets you, and how to compare quotes calmly.

01The four price tiers

The figures below are typical ranges, not promises.

• Template site, around €500. A bought or free template filled with your text and logo. Fine for testing an idea or a hobby project, but it will look like the template and bend poorly to your needs.
• Landing page, from €1,200. One page, written and designed around a single goal, such as booking a call or collecting enquiries.
• Company website, usually €4,000–8,000. Strategy, custom design, several page types and a content system you can edit yourself. This is the right level for most established businesses.
• Online store, from €1,500 to €15,000. A premium theme set up properly starts around €1,500; a fully custom store with its own features and integrations reaches €7,000–15,000.

Between these levels sit larger projects with many languages, member areas or demanding integrations. Those are priced individually.

02What actually drives the price

Two websites with the same number of pages can differ threefold in cost. The reasons are usually these.

Page templates. A template is a unique layout, such as a service page, a blog article or a product page. Ten pages built on three templates are far cheaper than ten pages designed one by one.

Languages. Every extra language means translation, proofreading and sometimes different layouts, because German words are longer than Slovenian ones. It also matters who translates: a native editor costs more than a machine, and it shows.

Integrations. Booking systems, payment providers, accounting software, a CRM or stock synchronisation each have to be connected, tested and kept working.

Content and photography. If you supply finished text and good images, the price drops. If the studio must interview you, write the copy and organise a photo shoot, that is real work and belongs in the quote.

Migration. Replacing an old website without redirecting its old addresses can wipe out years of search visibility. Careful migration takes time and is worth paying for.

Design and strategy. Starting from a blank page, after a proper conversation about your customers and goals, costs more than filling a ready-made structure. It also tends to produce a site that does something for the business instead of merely existing.

A very low quote usually means something has been left out, not that something has been saved.

03Hidden running costs

The build is only the first bill. Plan for a domain name and hosting, paid yearly or monthly; licences for the theme, plugins or Shopify apps; the Shopify plan itself for stores; and fees from payment providers. Then comes maintenance: updates, backups, security, small content changes and fixes. Some agencies sell this as a monthly care plan, others bill by the hour. Either is acceptable if it is written down. A website that nobody looks after slowly breaks.

Ask exactly what a care plan covers: how many hours, how fast they react to problems, and whether small content edits are included or billed separately.

04How to compare quotes

Always ask for a fixed price with a written scope. The scope should list the number of page templates, the languages, the integrations, who writes the content and how many rounds of revisions are included. Then check four more things. Who owns the domain, the hosting account and the source code after launch; the answer should be you. What the timeline is, with dates, and what you must deliver to keep it. What is explicitly excluded. And what happens after launch: support, training, and the cost of later changes. When two quotes differ widely, lay them side by side against this list. The difference is almost always in the scope.

Check the payment schedule too. A deposit, a payment at an agreed milestone and a final payment on delivery is fair. Paying everything upfront, or leaving the last instalment undefined, is not.

05Red flags

Be careful with a price given in five minutes without a single question. Be careful with hourly estimates that have no ceiling, with agencies that keep the domain or hosting in their own name, with vague phrases such as “all necessary pages”, and with promises of first place on Google. Nobody can guarantee that. Also be wary of a portfolio you cannot verify, or a team that cannot tell you who will do the actual work.

A good website is an investment that should serve you for years, so the aim is not the lowest price but a clear one. At SIGNOLITH, for example, a landing page starts at €1,200, a company website at €4,900 and a Shopify store at €6,900, with care plans from €120 to €1,290 per month. Whichever studio you choose, insist on the same three things: a fixed quote, a written scope and the keys to your own website.

Read nextShopify or WooCommerce: which should you choose?→

Every few weeks a founder asks us the same thing: Shopify or WooCommerce? Both are good, and both power serious online stores. The honest answer depends less on a feature list than on who will run the shop in its second year, and what it costs to keep it healthy.

Our short advice is to decide by total cost over three years, not by the first month's price. The rest of this article shows how to do that sum, and where each platform genuinely wins.

01What you are really comparing

Shopify is a hosted service. You pay a monthly fee and the platform provides the servers, the checkout, the security and the updates. You work in an admin panel and never touch the machinery underneath.

WooCommerce is a free plugin for WordPress, which you install on hosting you arrange yourself. That gives you great freedom, because you can change almost anything. It also means you own every responsibility that comes with it: hosting, backups, security patches, and making sure plugins keep working together after each update. Neither model is wrong. They are simply different answers to the question of who carries the technical work.

02Three-year cost, honestly

A fair comparison lists every cost line for both platforms and adds them up over thirty-six months. Start with these, and ask for a real figure against each one:

• Setup and design: the one-off work to build the store, structure the catalogue and configure shipping and taxes.
• Theme: a paid or custom theme on either platform, plus the time to adapt it to your brand.
• Apps and plugins: reviews, subscriptions, filters, bundles and similar extras. On Shopify these are mostly monthly app fees, on WooCommerce they are often yearly licences.
• Hosting: included in the Shopify plan, but a separate and recurring cost with WooCommerce, and cheap hosting tends to show in speed.
• Payment fees: processing fees from your payment provider on both, and on Shopify extra transaction fees depending on plan and on whether you use Shopify's own payments.
• Developer hours: small fixes, plugin conflicts and customisation. WooCommerce usually needs more of these, Shopify fewer.
• Updates and security: on WooCommerce, someone must do them regularly, whether a person on your team or a maintenance contract.

When you put real numbers next to these lines, a pattern appears. WooCommerce looks cheaper in month one and Shopify looks cheaper once you count the maintenance and the hours spent fixing things. Your own numbers may differ, which is exactly why the exercise is worth doing.

Decide by the total cost over three years, not the price of the first month.

03Running it day to day

On Shopify, updates, hosting and security are the platform's job, and the checkout is one of the most tested in the industry. Buying on a phone works well out of the box, which matters because many of your customers will shop on one. On WooCommerce, speed and safety depend on your hosting, your plugins and how disciplined the maintenance is. A well-run WooCommerce store is excellent. A neglected one is a risk.

Selling abroad adds its own needs: several currencies, translated pages and local payment methods. Both platforms can do all three, Shopify through built-in market settings and WooCommerce usually through additional plugins. Check the details for the countries you actually sell to before you commit.

VAT deserves a mention too. Since the EU changes to distance selling, sellers can use the One-Stop Shop scheme to declare VAT on sales to consumers in other member states through a single return. Both platforms can charge the customer's local rate, but the set-up and the accounting rules are for your accountant to confirm, not for any platform to decide for you.

04When WooCommerce is the better choice

WooCommerce earns its place when your product logic is unusual: complex configurators, very particular pricing rules, B2B quoting, or a catalogue that does not fit the standard product-and-variant model. It also makes sense if you already run a large WordPress site with years of content and want the shop to live inside it. And it suits teams that have a developer, in-house or on retainer, who is happy to own the platform.

05When Shopify is the better choice

Shopify is the better choice when you sell physical products, want to launch quickly, and want your own team to manage the store without calling a developer for every change. Adding products, running a sale, changing shipping rules or editing a page are all things a non-technical person can do. If your priority is selling rather than maintaining software, this is the calmer path.

06Migration and ownership

Whichever you choose, keep control of what matters. Register the domain, the Shopify account or the hosting account in your own company's name, never only in an agency's. Make sure you can export products, customers and orders at any time, and test an export early rather than when you need it. Moving later is possible in both directions, but it takes planning, redirects for your old addresses and care to keep your search rankings, so choose with a three-year view rather than assuming you can switch cheaply.

07Our recommendation

For most brands selling physical products in Slovenia and abroad, we recommend Shopify, because the team can run it without a developer and the costs are easier to predict. Choose WooCommerce when you have unusual product logic or a large existing WordPress site, and when someone is clearly responsible for keeping it updated.

If you are leaning towards Shopify, SIGNOLITH offers Shopify Start from €1,500, ready in two to three weeks. Whatever you decide, do the three-year sum first.

Read next7 things every product page needs→

A shopper who reaches a product page has already done the hard part: they like the look of the thing. What happens next is a quiet decision, made in a few seconds and often on a phone. They are looking for reasons to say yes and reasons to leave. Everything on this page either helps or gets in the way. The seven points below are small, practical and mostly free: they ask for attention, not budget.

011. A clear photo on a neutral background, and one in use

People cannot touch what they buy online, so the photo does the touching for them. Start with a clean image on a plain background that shows the true shape and colour. Then add one photo of the product being used. For a face cream, that might be the jar beside a hand holding a small amount. For a sofa, it is the sofa in a real living room, so the scale is obvious. Skip heavy filters and keep colours honest, because a surprise at the door means a return.

022. A headline that says what the product does

A product name is a label for you, not an explanation for the visitor. Add a line that says what the product does and who it is for. “Nightfall Serum” tells a newcomer nothing; “Overnight serum for dry, tired skin” answers the question at once. Keep it to one sentence, use the words a customer would type into a search, and leave out claims you cannot back up. Clear beats clever on a page that is read in seconds.

033. Price, delivery date and returns, visible without scrolling

These are the answers people hunt for first, and hiding them costs trust. Show the final price, a real delivery date rather than “a few working days”, and the returns rule in plain words. If shipping is free above a certain amount, say so beside the price, not in the footer. A visitor on a phone should see, without scrolling:

• The product name and a one-line description
• The main photo
• The price, with any free-shipping threshold
• An expected delivery date
• A short returns line, such as free returns within 30 days, if that is your policy
• The add-to-cart button

Everything on this page either helps or gets in the way.

044. Ingredients, materials or measurements in plain language

Technical detail reassures people, but only if they can read it. List ingredients with a short note on what each one does, such as “niacinamide, helps even out skin tone”. For clothing, name the fabric and its weight or feel. For furniture, give width, depth, height and seat height, and say what the frame is made of. Put measurements in a small table or list. If a figure matters to the buying decision, it belongs on the page, not in a PDF.

055. Honest reviews, including the less glowing ones

A wall of five-star praise looks suspicious. A few three-star comments make the good ones believable. Ask buyers for a review a few days after delivery, once they have used the product. The best reviews say something useful, such as “runs small” or “the scent is strong”, because that is exactly what the next buyer wants to know. Never delete criticism and never write reviews yourself.

066. An answer to the main doubt

Every product has one question that stops people from buying. For clothes it is “Will it fit?”, so add a size guide, the model’s height and the size she is wearing. For skincare it may be “Is it right for sensitive skin?”, and for a sofa “Will it fit through my door?”. Find the question in your support emails and chat messages, then answer it near the buy button. A short, direct answer saves the visitor from leaving the page to ask.

077. Fast mobile checkout with Apple Pay or Google Pay

Many people shop on a phone, and typing a card number and address on a small screen is where plenty of them give up. Apple Pay and Google Pay replace all of that with a touch. Offer them on the product page itself, not only at the last step, so a buyer can go from interest to paid in seconds. Also allow guest checkout, keep forms short and let the phone fill in the address.

A quick self-check: open one of your product pages on your phone and ask someone who has never seen it, without scrolling, what the product is, what it costs, when it arrives and what happens if it does not suit them. If they hesitate on any answer, you know where to start. And if you would like a second pair of eyes, SIGNOLITH offers a free video review of your site within 48 hours.

Read nextHow much does a website cost in Slovenia in 2027?→