• The Master Guide to Calculate the Total Cost of Ownership of your Ecommerce Platform

The Master Guide to Calculate the Total Cost of Ownership of your Ecommerce Platform

Posted By Max Mobility
On 15-Jan-2021
  • Ecommerce

More than 94% of global internet users made online purchases in the last year alone! Given the delivered-at-your-doorstep preferences rising rapidly during Covid times, we can only expect the numbers to rise considerably in the coming years. Is it any wonder that Ecommerce platforms in India are grappling to fulfill the rising consumer flux and change in expectations? Even small businesses are adapting to a digital model because they understand that’s where the customers are. Going digital is no longer a luxury, it is a NECESSITY.

Are you grappling with the rising number of factors to consider while making your business digital-ready? Do not worry! With this ready list of expenses that together make up your TCO, you can now plan better and even form accurate forecasts. Only after you have a comprehensive understanding of the factors affecting your TCO, you can figure out how to control it, and how to create a forecast based on the present metrics! How can you possibly assess or manage what you can’t measure, right? That’s why you need to have a thorough understanding of the following factors:

All the basics of your TCO amazingly summarized in a nutshell

Starting with the basics is an age-old adage that is indeed foolproof. The basics of the Total Cost of Ownership for your Ecommerce platform includes:

  • Buying expenses like licensing fee

  • Implementation costs that include hosting, third party apps, feature development, design, etc.

  • Management and maintenance costs

  • Resource expenses depending on the skills that you are employing and maintaining on your Ecommerce platform

    While you are chalking out the basic TCO, it is important to note that factors such as licensing fee, implementation costs, and even resource management increase based on the online revenue generated. As your business grows, so does your expenditure and you need to consider that while building an effective strategy!

    Which are the major ongoing costs that directly reflect on your TCO?

    • Monthly hosting fee and Scaling changes: Each platform service provider has a customized pricing policy based on your needs and usage. Still, we can roughly estimate the factors that can affect this cost - monthly baseline fee, scaling changes, increase in website traffic, numbers of orders, users, etc.

    • Annual License Fees: This is pretty straightforward. As already explained, your annual licensing fees go up as per your online revenue. Ecommerce platforms have their own basic pricing range, which you will be made aware of while going in.

    • Customer support costs: Customer service is the new watchword in Digital Marketing. Of course, you would want to optimize your support options, but that will reflect on your TCO. Be it phone, chat, or e-mail, the more you focus on multi-channel support platforms, your TCO goes up accordingly.

    • Training expenses: Even the Best Ecommerce platforms for startups can not help you optimize your consumers’ experience unless you have trained your personnel. This is a considerable expense, especially for startups. You need the help of adept Ecommerce experts for training purposes.

    • Customization costs: These costs include your basic analytics, CRM, optimization options, automation options, and other such backend tools.

    • Transactional Costs: Your Ecommerce solution levies a percentage based cost on top of the annual fees. Although, Best Ecommerce platforms for startups keep this to a minimal fraction, it varies based on solutions. So this is one prospective cost that you need to watch out for.


    As experts in Digital Transformation for over a decade now, MaxMobility’s stellar solution GoCommerce is designed with the vision of digitizing businesses. GoCommerce, one of the Best Ecommerce platforms for startups in India, makes your Ecommerce site ready to go within 14 days!

    Digitization is just as much about speed as accessibility. And that’s why with GoCommerce you can bid goodbye to months of coding and time-exhaustive processes. Your consumers need you to start making things happen ‘here’ and ‘now,’ and that’s the trump card you need to play to outdo your competitors.

    ‘Which’ determines ‘How much’

    Apart from these basic costs that determine your Total Cost of Ownership, which kind of platform you choose is also a considerable factor that affects your CTO. You can choose between on-premise platforms, Cloud platforms, and SaaS platforms. While ideal Ecommerce platforms in India give you the option to choose between these options, you need to consider the additional fees and maintenance costs that accompany each.

    On-premise platforms are by far costlier than the other two. Therein, your platform is built in with the company’s hardware system, so the costs include price of infrastructure, maintenance and all-time support, higher licensing fee, etc. SaaS models on the other hand have third party hosts maintaining the solution.

    While you are hitting the accelerator on the road to digital success, the TCO of your e-commerce platform is a critical metric to stay grounded and assess your strategy and success rate. Knowing right is the first step to doing right! So, it’s time to get cracking on those calculations!

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