How Much Does a Headless WooCommerce Store Cost? A Realistic Breakdown

"How much will this actually cost?" It's the question that kills most headless WooCommerce projects before they start. The technology is compelling — faster pages, better UX, modern developer tooling — but store owners need real numbers before committing budget. The honest answer: the cost of a headless WooCommerce store ranges from nearly free (DIY with open-source tools) to six figures (agency-built enterprise). This guide breaks down exactly where the money goes.

The cost components of headless WooCommerce

Before looking at total costs, you need to understand what you're actually paying for. A headless WooCommerce store has more moving parts than a traditional WordPress theme — but that doesn't automatically mean it costs more.

1. WordPress and WooCommerce hosting

Your WordPress backend still needs hosting. Since it's only serving API requests (not rendering pages for visitors), you can often use a smaller plan than you'd need for a traditional store. But you still need reliable WordPress hosting with good PHP performance, a database, and ideally object caching (Redis).

2. Frontend hosting

Your Next.js frontend needs its own hosting. Vercel (the company behind Next.js) offers a generous free tier that handles most small to medium stores. Netlify is similar. For high-traffic stores, Vercel Pro runs around $20/month. You can also self-host on a VPS if you prefer.

3. Development cost (the big variable)

This is where costs diverge dramatically depending on your approach. Building a headless WooCommerce storefront from scratch means implementing:

• Product catalogue pages with search, filtering, and sorting
• Individual product pages with variations, images, and reviews
• Cart management with persistent sessions
• Complete checkout flow — shipping, tax, coupons, payment
• User accounts — orders, addresses, wishlist
• SEO — meta tags, structured data, sitemaps, canonicals
• Performance optimisation — image handling, caching, code splitting

The cart and checkout alone typically takes a developer 2-4 weeks. That's the part most teams underestimate. WooCommerce's cart session handling, shipping calculations, tax rules, and payment gateway integration were never designed for headless — every piece requires custom work. For more on the architectural challenges, see our guide on what is headless WooCommerce.

Option 1: DIY build (developer or in-house team)

Building from scratch gives you maximum control but requires significant technical skill and time. Here's a realistic cost breakdown.

Developer time estimate

• Project setup and architecture decisions: 2-3 days
• Product catalogue (listing, search, filtering): 5-8 days
• Product detail pages (variations, gallery, reviews): 3-5 days
• Cart and session management: 5-8 days
• Checkout flow (shipping, tax, payments): 8-15 days
• User accounts and order history: 3-5 days
• SEO implementation (meta, schema, sitemaps): 2-3 days
• Testing, bug fixing, and polish: 5-10 days

Total: 33-57 developer days (roughly 7-12 weeks for a single developer). At typical UK freelance rates of £400-600/day, that's £13,200-£34,200 in development cost.

Option 2: Agency build

Hiring a specialised agency removes the technical risk but comes at a premium. Agencies that specialise in headless WordPress/WooCommerce typically quote project-based pricing.

Agency pricing varies widely based on location, reputation, and scope. A London or New York agency will charge 2-3x more than a team in Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia for comparable work. What you're paying for (beyond the code) is project management, design, QA, and the agency's experience solving problems you haven't encountered yet.

Option 3: Starter kit (WPBundle approach)

A starter kit gives you the expensive parts pre-built — cart, checkout, catalogue, SEO — so you only spend development time on customisation and branding. This is the approach WPBundle takes.

What's included vs what you build

The hard parts — cart sessions, checkout flow, payment processing, SEO scaffolding — are already built and tested. A competent developer can customise WPBundle to match your brand and add store-specific features in 1-3 weeks instead of 2-4 months.

Ongoing monthly costs

Beyond the initial build, a headless WooCommerce store has recurring costs. Here's a realistic monthly budget.

Essential costs

• WordPress hosting: £20-115/month (Cloudways to WP Engine)
• Frontend hosting: £0-20/month (Vercel free tier to Pro)
• Domain and SSL: £10-15/year (essentially free)
• Email delivery: £0-20/month (WooCommerce transactional emails)

Optional but recommended

• Error monitoring: £0-26/month (Sentry free tier to team plan)
• Analytics: £0-10/month (GA4 free, Plausible £9/month)
• Uptime monitoring: £0-7/month (UptimeRobot free to paid)
• CDN: £0-20/month (Cloudflare free tier covers most stores)

Cost comparison: traditional vs headless WooCommerce

The total cost of ownership comparison is more nuanced than most articles suggest. Traditional WooCommerce has lower upfront development cost but higher ongoing costs from plugins, performance tuning, and theme maintenance. Headless has higher upfront cost (unless using a starter kit) but lower ongoing overhead.

Traditional WooCommerce (annual costs)

• Premium theme: £50-80/year
• Page builder licence: £50-200/year (Elementor, Divi)
• Caching plugin: £50-100/year (WP Rocket, NitroPack)
• SEO plugin: £0-100/year (Yoast, RankMath)
• Hosting (needs more resources for PHP rendering): £360-1,380/year
• Performance plugins/services: £100-500/year
• Annual total: £600-2,360/year (excluding development)

For a detailed look at why these performance costs add up, see our guides on WooCommerce caching plugins and WooCommerce speed optimisation.

Headless WooCommerce (annual costs)

• WordPress hosting (API only — lower resources): £240-600/year
• Frontend hosting: £0-240/year
• No premium theme, page builder, or caching plugin needed
• Annual total: £240-840/year (excluding development)

The infrastructure savings are real. You don't need WP Rocket because your pages aren't rendered by PHP. You don't need Elementor because your frontend is React components. You don't need a premium theme because your design is custom. The plugin tax disappears.

Is headless WooCommerce worth the investment?

The cost question has a different answer depending on your situation.

The bottom line on headless WooCommerce cost

A headless WooCommerce store costs between £2,000 and £60,000+ to build, depending on whether you go DIY, use a starter kit, or hire an agency. Monthly running costs are £50-200 — often less than a traditional WooCommerce stack after you factor in plugin licences.

The most cost-effective path for most stores is a starter kit like WPBundle combined with a developer for customisation. You get the performance and UX benefits of headless without the months of custom checkout engineering. The expensive parts are already built — you invest your budget in what makes your store unique, not in re-implementing cart sessions and tax calculations.

If you're exploring whether headless is right for your store, start with our guide on what is headless WooCommerce for the full picture, or jump into the headless ecommerce explained guide for broader context on the architecture.