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Store costs

What a direct book store costs on WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin. You pay for hosting yourself, and for extensions when you want more than the basics, such as bundles. You also look after the updates.

Three stores, three bills

The bill changes with how many books you have, which formats you sell and how much you sell. For each store we picked the cheapest WooCommerce plan for those sales.

StoreWooCommerce planWooCommerce, a yearLanternbee, a year
Starting outHosting for WordPress and WooCommerce$937$654
A growing backlistHosting for WordPress and WooCommerce$1,855$1,812
A busy storeHosting for WordPress and WooCommerce$5,863$5,820

Lanternbee shows the cheaper of Free and Author for each store. Both include card processing.

Starting out

3 titles, selling ebooks. About $500 in sales a month from 50 orders.

Monthly cost of a WooCommerce book store: starting out
What you pay forPriceEach month
Hosting for WordPress and WooCommerceThe store itselffrom $25 a month$25
An email toolNewsletter and automated emailsabout $17$17
WooCommerce Product BundlesSeries and format bundles$79 a year$6.58
Card processingWooPayments, on 50 orders2.9% + 30¢$29.50
Total each month$78.08
Total for a year$937
The same store on LanternbeeEach monthA year
Lanternbee Free5% fee on $500 + Stripe 2.9% + 30¢$54.50$654
Lanternbee Author$45 a month + Stripe 2.9% + 30¢$74.50$894

A growing backlist

8 titles, selling ebooks and audiobooks. About $2,000 in sales a month from 160 orders.

Monthly cost of a WooCommerce book store: a growing backlist
What you pay forPriceEach month
Hosting for WordPress and WooCommerceThe store itselffrom $25 a month$25
An email toolNewsletter and automated emailsabout $17$17
WooCommerce Product BundlesSeries and format bundles$79 a year$6.58
Card processingWooPayments, on 160 orders2.9% + 30¢$106
Total each month$154.58
Total for a year$1,855
The same store on LanternbeeEach monthA year
Lanternbee FreeFree covers up to 5 titlesNot availableNot available
Lanternbee Author$45 a month + Stripe 2.9% + 30¢$151$1,812

A busy store

20 titles, selling ebooks, audiobooks and print books. About $10,000 in sales a month from 500 orders.

Monthly cost of a WooCommerce book store: a busy store
What you pay forPriceEach month
Hosting for WordPress and WooCommerceThe store itselffrom $25 a month$25
An email toolNewsletter and automated emailsabout $17$17
WooCommerce Product BundlesSeries and format bundles$79 a year$6.58
Card processingWooPayments, on 500 orders2.9% + 30¢$440
Total each month$488.58
Total for a year$5,863
The same store on LanternbeeEach monthA year
Lanternbee FreeFree covers up to 5 titlesNot availableNot available
Lanternbee Author$45 a month + Stripe 2.9% + 30¢$485$5,820

What we counted

  • US prices on monthly billing.
  • An email tool for your newsletter, at about $17 a month, for every store, the same as on our pricing page. If the store's own email tools are enough for you, take that off.
  • Card processing on every sale. Lanternbee uses your own Stripe account, at Stripe's standard US rate.
  • WooCommerce puts most stores' hosting at $25 to $350 a month, rising with traffic. We use the low end. A busy release day may need more.
  • Extensions cost $29 to $299 a year each. Bundles is the only one we counted; ebook downloads are built in.
  • WooPayments adds 1.5% for cards from other countries and 1% when currency is converted.

What we left out

  • Printing and shipping costs, which you pay the printer whichever store you use.
  • Your domain name, a paid theme and any design work.
  • Sales tax and VAT themselves. Tax tools may cost extra, including Stripe Tax on your own Stripe account where you are registered to collect tax.
  • Extra card fees for cards from other countries and currency conversion.

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