With so many Magento packages available now, understanding the differences between them can be a struggle. To help you get to grips with the main features of each edition, and to advise you on which version is right for you, we’ve created this handy Magneto pricing guide.
Magento Pricing: a Brief Overview of Everything
The first thing to understand is that Magento’s packages vary according to use, which will in turn depend on the size of your business. Magento 2 Community Edition (CE) is open source and free. This is the ideal package for small businesses with SKUs under 6000, or those looking to try out Magento to see what it can offer. Secondly, there is Magento 2 Enterprise Edition (EE). This version is based on revenue, starting out at $22,000 per year and going all the way up to $125,000. The most recent version of Magento 2, and perhaps the most flexible, is Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition (ECE). This package brings together licensing and AWS-based managed hosting and ranges from $40,000.00 – $190,000.00 per year (pre-discount). Again, this is based on projected annual gross sales revenue.
One thing to understand about the licensing structure is that a Magento 2 EE ecommerce store costs $22,000 whether it generates revenue or not. Above $100 million per year, for example, the license fee might work out as $250,000. In a nutshell: the higher the revenue band you fall into, the lower the percentage you will pay to cover the fixed license costs.
Below you can see the revenue and license cost relationship for Magento EE and Magento ECE. This should give you an idea of the cost to scale ratio*.
| Gross Sales Revenue | Magento 2 Enterprise Edition (EE) Cost | Magento 2 Enterprise Cloud Edition (ECE) Cost |
|---|---|---|
| $0 – $1 million | $22,000.00 | $40,000.00 |
| $1 – $5 million | $32,000.00 | $55,000.00 |
| $5 – $10 million | $49,000.00 | $80,000.00 |
| $10 – $25 million | $75,000.00 | $120,000.00 |
| $25 – $50 million | $125,000.00 | $190,000.00 |
* Numbers here are based on quoted Magento book pricing.
Next we’ll delve into each package, and its price range, in more detail…
Magento 2 Community Edition (CE)
If you are a soletrader or small business with SKUs under 6000, this is the perfect option to get you up and running at no cost. You can choose a prebuilt theme, or convert a PSD design to a Magento online store. Either way, it’s the best option for those looking to get their teeth into Magento without making any set-in-stone commitments.
With Magento CE you can:
- Set up analytics and reporting
- Integrate/install a chosen theme into the latest version of Magento
- Compose transactional emails with logo
- Integrate payment processors such as Authorize.net and PayPal, Amazon, Google etc
- Access Magento’s basic shipping & tax configuration set up
One thing to bear in mind though is that, unless you purchase Magento extensions, you are locked into the customer defaults. Unlike EE there’s no built-in functionality to manage customers attributes from the admin panel. It’s also worth mentioning that, unlike EE again, Magento Community Edition comes without support. Therefore you will need to know exactly what you are doing with this edition, or otherwise need the help of an agency or developer that does.
Cost: Free.
Magento 2 Enterprise Edition (EE)
This package costs $22,000 a year minimum, with pricing upwards from this figure based on revenue — as shown in the table earlier. This version is the package to go with if you have more than 6000 SKUs, are an established retailer, or are new to ecommerce but expecting to see your business grow over the next few years.
With Magento EE you can access:
- 3 master databases at once for areas such as checkout, orders and products.
- More than 6000 SKUs
- The SEO advantage package
- Multilingual support to reach into international markets
- Inventory system/POS integration
- Advanced 301 redirects
- Advanced reviews
- One page checkout
- WordPress integration
- Social Media Sharing Option
- Magento marketplace (extensions, plugins)
- Data migration
- Warranty and support
To put these features in perspective, to achieve the same level of functionality with CE, you’d have need to add approximately 65 extensions (e.g. drag and drop page builder), at considerable cost. Aside from the expanded feature set ‘straight out of the box’, one of the main benefits with this package is the ability to migrate your existing online shop into Magento. Unlike the Community Edition, which comes without this feature, this allows data to be ported over from existing ecommerce platforms, eliminating the hassle of setting up everything from scratch.
Cost: $22,000 and upwards. However, expect to pay $40,000 minimum in setup costs when hosting and development is factored in.
Magento Commerce Cloud (CC)
Identical in features to Magento Enterprise, Magento Cloud Edition comes with AWS hosting as standard. This means your Magento site sits on dedicated servers, networked together to eliminate 404 errors, while ensuring smooth operation during traffic spikes. If you are a mid-sized merchant, this package is likely to prove better value due to the number of adjacent services and protections built into the code.
On top of the core build, with Magento CC you get:
- Local development template to ease cloud deployments
- Page speed improvements (20%+) through fast image optimisation
- Simplified build/deploy process management
- Staging/production git repos through the Cloud UI
- M4 servers with a 100% increase in available memory
- Web Application Firewall (WAF), powered by Fastly with rulesets based on test traffic to cloud sites
Cost: $40,000 and upwards. However, this does not have to be paid upfront. Magento has monthly payment plans available.
Design and Development Cost
Having looked at each Magento package in turn, you should now have a fair idea of the costs involved. The final expense to factor in after this is the development cost, which will include all the separate developers necessary to build your site, as well as a dedicated account manager. Although by no means exhaustive, the following list should give you a guideline of the price ranges for each platform.
Magento Open Source
$3000 to $20000 for a prebuilt theme or transferring a PSD design over to Magento.
Custom Magento Open Source
$10000 to $50000 including integration with existing data, as well as extensions.
Magento Enterprise/Cloud
$40000 to $75000+ complete integration with shipping providers, ability to run multiple stores, full page caching and built in modules.
Also don’t forget themes: you will almost certainly want to make use of them. There are currently over 5,000 extensions available, with prices for paid modules starting at around $50.
Last but not least, server costs should be taken into account too. For a dedicated server, expect to pay between $85 and $265 per month, while for a shared server, prices tend to range between $4 and $13 per month. Bear in mind, it is highly unlikely a shared server will be sufficient for a powerful platform like Magento, And, if you opt to go for Magento Commerce Cloud, hosting will be included as standard.
Want to find out more about how Magento can streamline online shopping experiences? Please see our Complete Magento Ecommerce Guide for more details.
