How much does a basic online store cost in Malaysia?

In 2026, a DIY store on a platform like Shopify or EasyStore runs roughly RM 90–500 per month plus your own time. An agency-built starter store costs about RM 2,500–6,000 one-time, a professional SME store RM 8,000–20,000, and a fully custom platform RM 30,000–50,000 or more. Add RM 3,000–6,000 a year in running costs either way.

Do I need my own website if I already sell on Shopee or Lazada?

Not on day one — marketplaces are the right place to test demand. You need your own store when repeat customers matter, because marketplaces keep the customer relationship and charge commission on every sale. Your own store gives you the customer data, the margin, and a brand that does not live on rented land.

Can Malaysian customers pay by FPX bank transfer on my online store?

Yes — connect a Malaysian payment gateway such as iPay88 to accept FPX bank transfers and cards, with money settling to your own account. Gateway fees typically run around 1.5–3% per transaction depending on payment method and volume.

What are the ongoing costs of running an online store?

Budget RM 3,000–6,000 a year for a typical SME store: platform or hosting fees, domain and SSL, payment gateway fees, apps or plugins, and maintenance. The bigger hidden cost is time — someone has to update products, fulfil orders and fix whatever breaks.

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How Much Does an Online Store Cost in Malaysia? (2026)

Alton·2026-07-06·7 min read

"How much does an online store cost?" is really three questions, because there are three ways to get one in Malaysia: build it yourself on a platform, pay an agency once, or pay someone to run the whole thing for you. The honest 2026 answer: RM 90–500 a month DIY, RM 2,500–50,000+ for an agency build, or a monthly done-for-you fee. Which one is right depends on whose weekends you're planning to spend.

TL;DR

Testing demand? Start on Shopee/Lazada — free to list. Building a brand? DIY platforms cost RM 90–500/month plus your evenings. Want it done properly without hiring anyone? NexStore is our done-for-you store — we design, build, host and run it, like we do for Mum Mum Snacks. WhatsApp us for a same-day quote.

The Three Routes, Priced Honestly

Prices below are published mid-2026 rates and typical Malaysian agency quotes — orientation, not gospel.

Route	Typical cost	The catch
DIY platform	RM 90–500 / month	Your time. Setup, design, products, apps — all you
Agency build — starter	RM 2,500–6,000 one-time	Template design; maintenance is extra and someone still has to run it
Agency build — professional	RM 8,000–20,000 one-time	Custom design, proper SEO setup; still your store to operate
Custom platform	RM 30,000–50,000+	Only worth it when your model doesn't fit standard carts
Done-for-you (NexStore)	Monthly fee, quoted by scope	You give up tinkering rights — we handle design, hosting and upkeep

For reference: Shopify's Basic plan is about RM 90/month (USD 19, annual billing) and EasyStore runs RM 249–1,199/month depending on plan. Local platforms win on FPX and Malaysian shipping integrations out of the box.

What Actually Drives the Price

Design: a template costs nothing but looks like one. Custom design is most of the gap between a RM 3,000 store and a RM 15,000 store.
Payments: Malaysian buyers expect FPX bank transfer, not just cards. A gateway like iPay88 handles both — fees typically around 1.5–3% per transaction, which quietly matters more than the build cost once you have volume.
Catalogue size: 10 products is an afternoon; 500 products with variants is a data project.
Shipping: local courier integrations, shipping rules by weight and East/West Malaysia zones — cheap on local platforms, custom work elsewhere.
Who runs it after launch: the invisible line item. A store isn't a project, it's an operation — product updates, promos, broken checkout at 9pm on payday weekend.

Marketplace First — The Honest Take

If you're just testing whether anyone wants your product, don't build a store at all. List on Shopee and Lazada, pay the commission, and learn. Your own store earns its keep when three things are true: customers come back, margin matters, and you want to own the relationship — marketplaces keep the customer data and charge you for every repeat sale. Most brands we work with run both: marketplaces for discovery, their own store for repeat customers and full-margin sales.

Before you commit to any of the three routes, it is worth putting a figure on what the manual work is costing you today — our ROI calculator does that in about two minutes.

Hidden Costs People Miss

Gateway fees: 1.5–3% of every transaction, forever. On RM 20,000/month of sales that's real money.
Apps and plugins: reviews, bundles, loyalty — RM 50–300/month creeps in one app at a time.
Product photography and copy: the store is a frame; the product content is the picture. Budget for it or it will show.
Maintenance: RM 3,000–6,000/year for a typical SME store — hosting, domain, SSL, fixes.
The abandoned DIY store: the most common cost in Malaysian SME e-commerce is the half-finished platform subscription nobody cancels. If nobody in the company will own the store, buy the service, not the software.

What We'd Actually Charge

NexStore is our done-for-you route: we design, build, host and run your store — FPX and card payments via iPay88, money straight to your account. It's the same setup we run in production for Mum Mum Snacks, so you can click around a live example instead of trusting a mockup. Pricing depends on what your store needs, so we quote over WhatsApp — same day.

And the honest disclaimer we put in every one of these posts: if you're pre-revenue and just testing, we'll tell you to start on a marketplace and come back later. Losing a deal we shouldn't win is cheaper than building one we shouldn't have. If you're weighing a store as part of a bigger digital move, here's our framework for where digitalization actually pays off — and if your needs outgrow standard carts entirely, here's what a fully custom build costs.

What You Should Do Next

Decide whose problem the store is. If it's yours and you have the evenings, a DIY platform is genuinely fine. If you'd rather sell snacks than debug checkout pages, talk to us — 30 minutes, no quote attached, and we'll tell you honestly which of the three routes fits.

Get a Same-Day Store Quote →

Tell us what you sell over WhatsApp. We'll tell you build, buy, or marketplace.

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