How Much Does E-commerce Website Development Cost in Latvia? Real Data from 16 Proposals

E-commerce website development in Latvia costs from €2,400 to more than €20,000 excluding VAT — for a practically identical brief. The median price is around €7,600, and serious agency proposals cluster in a narrow band between €7,500 and €8,500. These are not theoretical figures: we collected 16 real, written proposals received in 2025 by three Latvian companies looking for a developer for their online store.

As far as we know, this is the first public study of website development prices in Latvia based on actual proposals rather than agency price lists.

How we got this data

Three companies — an automotive services workshop, a contact lens e-shop and a household appliance retailer — sent price requests to Latvian web development agencies as part of the LIAA digitalization support process. Each company sent every agency an identical technical specification: a WordPress + WooCommerce store with custom design, product filters, payment and shipping integrations (bank payments, Omniva, DPD), multiple languages and performance optimization.

Because the specification was the same for every bidder in each case, the prices are directly comparable. We anonymized the agencies (Agency A, B, C…), but disclose our own numbers openly — Coma was one of the bidders in all three tenders, and honesty towards the reader requires showing our own figures too.

Methodology in brief:

• Period: February – September 2025
• 3 real clients with 3 different specifications (each sent to multiple agencies simultaneously)
• Written proposals only (email, PDF estimate or presentation)
• 16 documented price points from 13 different vendors
• All prices in EUR excluding VAT

The key finding: four price tiers

1. Template tier: €2,400 – 5,900

The cheapest proposals (€2,400, €3,500, €5,900) promise a finished store in 4 weeks. Estimated work: 50–100 hours. For this price you get a store built on a ready-made template with minimal customization.

The most striking episode in our data: one agency sent a word-for-word identical proposal to two different companies with different requirements — same price (€3,500), same timeline (4 weeks), same text. That is not an estimate for your project; it is a fixed product sold to everyone alike. Not necessarily bad — but it is fair to understand what you are buying.

2. Mid tier, or the market consensus: €6,400 – 9,000

Here something remarkable happened. Four completely independent agencies, not knowing each other’s prices, submitted proposals within a €125 range in a single tender: €7,500, €7,505, €7,560 and €7,625. Two more — €8,015 and €8,500 — in other tenders with slightly larger scope.

This is the real market equilibrium: a custom WooCommerce store with individual design in Latvia objectively takes 150–230 working hours, and at 35–50 €/h that yields €7,000–9,000. If a proposal is substantially below this level, what has been cut is not the rate — it is the scope of work.

3. Premium tier: €15,000 – 24,000

Three proposals (€15,000, €19,828, “from €20,000”) for the same specification. The most detailed one had striking line items — for example, €4,500 for UX/UI prototypes alone. Premium agencies sell process, team and brand; the result can be excellent, but functionally the task is the same as in the mid tier.

4. Platform-switch proposals: €20,000 – 100,000

One international agency declined to build on WooCommerce and proposed Shopify or Magento with a budget of €20,000–100,000. A legitimate position for a large business — but for a mid-size Latvian e-shop it means paying 3–10 times more for the same core functionality.

Hours, not prices: where the difference really hides

Hourly rates in Latvia are surprisingly uniform: 35–50 €/h. The price difference comes not from the rate but from the planned scope — you physically cannot do in 50 hours what someone else budgets 230 hours for. The question to ask an agency is not “why so expensive?” but “how many hours, and for what exactly?”

The uncomfortable truth: most agencies never reply

In the first of the three cases, the company approached about 35 agencies over three weeks — with a ready specification and a serious budget. Three sent written proposals. That is under 10% — and it happened to a buyer whose money was already allocated.

In the other two cases (smaller recipient lists, winter season) roughly half replied — including two polite declines and one “budget qualification” reply with no estimate.

The practical takeaway for buyers: write to at least 8–10 agencies and set a clear deadline (4–5 working days is plenty to prepare a proposal). An agency that cannot reply within two weeks of reminders will not reply when something breaks in your store on a Friday evening either.

What proposals often “forget” to include

• Plugin licences — filters, search, multilingual (WPML): €250–350 per year combined. Only some agencies included them.
• Content entry — adding products and texts is often excluded or billed at 25–50 €/h extra.
• Design as an “option” — in one estimate the custom design (€2,400) was marked optional; without it you get a template.
• “Free” line items — SEO, project management and testing marked FREE usually mean the minimum, not the service.
• Post-launch maintenance — €8–90/month depending on content; make sure you know what happens after the warranty ends.

How long does it take?

Promised timelines in our data: from 4 weeks (template tier) to 74 working days (~3.5 months) for a full project with custom design. A realistic average for a custom WooCommerce store: 2–3 months, including design approval and content preparation on your side. “A full store in 4 weeks” and “a full store in 15 weeks” describe two different products.

If you plan to use LIAA support

1. Start with a written specification — without it the prices will not be comparable, and the LIAA application requires documented proposals anyway.
2. Request answers in writing — a price named over the phone is useless for the application.
3. Plan for at least 3 proposals — and given the response rate, write to at least 8–10 agencies.
4. Watch the deadlines — support rounds close on fixed dates, and the process from requests to application easily takes 1.5–2 months.
5. Check your tax situation early — tax debt at the moment of application disqualifies you, even if everything else is in order.

Frequently asked questions

How much does e-commerce website development cost in Latvia?

From €2,400 for a template solution to €20,000+ for premium development. The median in our sample of 16 proposals is around €7,600 excluding VAT. A serious custom WooCommerce store most often costs €7,500–8,500.

Why do prices for the same brief differ 4–8 times?

Mostly because of planned scope: budget proposals contain 50–100 hours, full ones 150–230 hours. Hourly rates across the market are similar (35–50 €/h).

Is a €3,500 store a bad purchase?

Not necessarily — if you knowingly buy a template solution with minimal customization and your processes fit it. It becomes a bad purchase when you expect custom development at a template price.

How long does the development process take?

A template store — about 4 weeks. A custom store with individual design — 2–3.5 months. Add time for content preparation on your side.

How many agencies should I contact to get 3 proposals?

Based on our data — at least 8–10. In the first case, only 3 out of ~35 contacted agencies replied.

What additional costs should I plan after development?

Plugin licences (~€250–350/year), hosting and maintenance (from ~€10 to €90/month), content entry if it is not included in the estimate.

About this study: the data was collected by Coma Web Development — an international WordPress agency based in Riga, building websites and online stores since 2010 for clients in Latvia, Europe, the USA and Asia. Coma was one of the bidders in all three tenders described; our proposals (€8,015, €7,505 and €8,500) are included in the dataset on the same terms as everyone else’s. If you are preparing your own e-commerce project or a LIAA application — get in touch, we will help with the specification and an honest estimate.