Online store cost in Israel 2026: year one and after three years

Online store cost: search for it and you get numbers from ₪67 a month up to tens of thousands of shekels, and all of them are true. The reason is that every vendor shows only its own cost, and not what you will actually pay over time. In this article we work out the cost for year one and for three years across four routes: a subscription on an Israeli platform, Shopify, WooCommerce, and an agency build. The prices come from the vendors' own pricing pages, as they appeared on 17 September 2026. After that we go through the costs that appear on no price list, and answer honestly whether you can open a store for free.

Online store cost by route: year one and three years

The table works out a small store with ₪100,000 of annual sales, so that the routes can be compared. Vendor prices are as published on 17 September 2026. The Israeli subscription prices are before VAT, and Shopify publishes in dollars.

An Israeli subscription. According to the iStores pricing page, the basic plan costs ₪67 a month but does not include online card processing — only taking orders and completing the transaction by phone. The Pro plan, which connects to payment processing, costs ₪392, and terminal costs are paid separately. Konimbo advertises a subscription from ₪590 a month covering hosting, security, backups and support, alongside a one-off professional setup. The setup price is not published, but it can be spread through financing from ₪2,000 a month.

Shopify. According to Shopify's pricing page for Israel, the Basic plan costs $29 a month billed annually, or $39 billed monthly. A store that connects an external payment provider — as most stores in Israel do — pays Shopify an additional 2% fee on every sale on this plan. A paid theme and apps are added on top, as you choose.

WooCommerce. WooCommerce itself is free, and according to its pricing page paid extensions cost $29–299 a year each. We estimated hosting using the ranges common in the Israeli market for managed WordPress hosting, ₪60–250 a month. Whoever maintains the store themselves pays in time; whoever does not adds maintenance, which in our estimate costs ₪150–400 a month at a basic level, as we set out in website maintenance and security.

An agency build. Here you pay a one-off build fee, plus the ongoing cost of whichever platform is chosen, Shopify or WooCommerce. The difference is what you get on launch day, and we come back to that below.

How to read the table: percentages versus a fixed subscription

The important difference between the routes is not the figure on the first line, but how the cost grows. A percentage fee grows with sales; a fixed subscription does not. For example, in a store selling ₪250,000 a year, a 2% fee is ₪5,000 a year, on top of the subscription.

Which gives a simple decision rule:

1. Testing demand, with a small catalogue? A cheap subscription, or Shopify on the basic plan. Start selling and learn.
2. Sales growing? Work out what you will pay in fees over a year, and compare it with a higher plan or a fixed subscription.
3. Special requirements (a trade price list, made-to-order products, an ERP connection)? WooCommerce, with someone to maintain it.
4. No time to build and maintain? An agency build, with a subscription or hosting running alongside it.

The in-depth comparison between the two international platforms, from flexibility through to ownership, is in Shopify versus WooCommerce.

The costs that appear on no price list

All four routes carry expenses that no price list shows. So before you compare, add these lines to the calculation:

• Payment processing. Processing fees are paid separately to the payment company on every route, and usually so is setting up the terminal.
• Terms of sale and a cancellation policy. The Consumer Protection Law — חוק הגנת הצרכן — requires, in section 14C, a business marketing at a distance to disclose to the consumer at least its name, its ID number and its address, the main characteristics of the product, the price and payment terms, the time and manner of delivery, warranty details and the right of cancellation. The same section sets out that for a product a consumer may cancel up to 14 days from receiving it or from receiving the document with those details, whichever is later. Drafting terms of sale is legal work, and we are not lawyers.
• Privacy. A sign-up form, pixels and a customer list require a privacy policy and consent, as we explained in our guide to Amendment 13.
• Accessibility. A store is a service to the public, so the obligation applies to it. What is required is explained in our website accessibility guide.
• Photography and content. Product images and a description for every product. On a catalogue of hundreds of products this is sometimes the largest expense of all.
• Shipping and invoicing. A connection to a courier and to an invoicing system, sometimes with a monthly fee to the provider.
• Marketing. A store with no traffic does not sell. The media budget is a separate expense, and usually the biggest one.

In our experience, anyone who plans only for the platform price discovers these lines in the week before launch. What a store needs in order to sell in Israel, from payment processing to accounting, we set out in our guide to building an online store.

A free online store: what it really costs

You can start almost without paying anything. Shopify offers 3 days free and then $1 a month for three months, according to its pricing page. WooCommerce is a free plugin. And iStores offers a 14-day free trial.

That said, "free" runs out quickly:

• Your own address. A business store needs a domain, not a platform address.
• Payment processing. No online processing means no online sale, and on the cheapest plans it is not always included.
• Hosting. WooCommerce is free, but the server it runs on is not.
• Your time. Uploading products, images, terms of sale and testing the checkout.

The genuinely cheap way to test an idea is usually a small store with a few products, measurement in place, and a small advertising budget. An empty free store teaches you nothing, because nobody reaches it.

What Simple Web does about it

Simple Web is an AI-first marketing agency from Bnei Brak, certified Meta partners and Google advertising experts, working with 200+ businesses and holding 28 five-star Google reviews. An online store starts with us at ₪8,000, within a range of ₪8,000–30,000 depending on scope, with a final price agreed up front. We build on Shopify or on WordPress/WooCommerce, according to the size of the catalogue.

The store includes real-time inventory, payment by credit card, Bit, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and instalments, a connection to Israeli courier companies, a connection to bookkeeping, SEO for every product and category, and a sales dashboard. It is usually ready within 14 business days, and a large catalogue or special functionality takes up to 3–5 weeks. On top of that, every store comes with 6 months of SEO content free (a value of ₪4,500) and 3 months of warranty and free fixes. We have built for Mona Liza Fashion (store), YSEE by Yulia (store) and Peer Nursery (online store). After launch, e-commerce marketing with us starts with a recommended media budget of ₪3,000–5,000 a month, on top of the fee.

Summary

The cost of an online store is not the subscription line, but the sum of setup, subscription or hosting, fees, maintenance and marketing over time. Work it out over three years, not over the first month. Check whether the platform takes a percentage of sales, and what happens to the cost as the store grows. And add the terms of sale, the privacy work, the accessibility and the payment processing up front, so they do not surprise you before launch. Want a cost calculation for your own store, based on your catalogue and scope? Get in touch for a free diagnostic call.

Sources

• iStores: online store pricing: the Basic and Pro plan prices, and what they exclude (payment processing, terminal, add-ons), as of 17 September 2026
• Konimbo: what an online store costs in Israel: a subscription from ₪590 a month before VAT, and what it includes
• Shopify Pricing (Israel): Basic plan prices in dollars, the third-party fee and the trial period
• WooCommerce Pricing: the plugin is free, and the annual price range of paid extensions
• Consumer Protection Law (Wikisource): section 14C: the disclosure duty in distance marketing and the right of cancellation