Magento TCO calculator: 3-year cost across 5 platforms

Honest answer: directionally accurate within ~15-25% for the median case in each GMV bracket, less accurate at the extremes. It’s a first-pass screening tool, not a procurement-grade quote.

What it gets right:

• License tier ordering. Magento Open Source $0 vs Adobe Commerce $30k, $150k+ vs SFCC $200k+, the ranking won’t change.
• Per-tx fee impact at scale. Shopify Plus 0.15% adds up identically every time; the math is exact.
• Dev cost order of magnitude. A $5M GMV store on Magento needs ~$40k upfront + $30k/yr ongoing, the bracket holds across most engagements I’ve seen.

Where it’s less accurate:

• SFCC and Adobe Commerce license, both are negotiated. Tier-1 SI partners often hold ±30% pricing power. The calculator uses public list-equivalent ranges; your actual quote may be lower (negotiated) or higher (uplift for Adobe Commerce Cloud Pro vs Starter).
• Custom dev edge cases, if your scope includes headless commerce, ERP integration, or multi-region inventory orchestration, dev cost can be 2-3x the calculator’s number.
• Region-specific pricing, the model assumes US dev rates. EU SI partners run 0.7-0.9x; India / Eastern Europe freelancers run 0.3-0.5x; Tier-1 US/UK SIs can run 1.2-1.5x.

Use it to rule out platforms and frame the conversation, not to write a budget line.

Three sources, in descending order of weight:

1. ~200 store engagements I’ve done since 2017, mostly Magento, but ~60 of those involved evaluating Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, SFCC, or WooCommerce as alternatives. The license / app / dev / hosting numbers come from invoices clients have shared during discovery, anonymised and median-aggregated by GMV bracket.
2. Public pricing pages + published case studies, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce Enterprise, Adobe Commerce, and SFCC all publish bracket-level pricing or have it leaked across enough vendor blogs to triangulate. The calculator’s license-tier brackets reflect those.
3. SI partner rate sheets, my own and the Tier-1 SI rates I’ve seen quoted to clients (Magento OS: $50, $200/hr; Adobe Commerce: $150, $300/hr; SFCC: $250, $400/hr). These set the dev-cost upper bound.

What’s NOT in the data:

• Internal Adobe / Shopify / Salesforce pricing decks (I don’t have these and wouldn’t use them, vendor-supplied numbers are biased).
• Industry-report averages (Forrester / Gartner), they bury variance and serve their sponsors.
• List prices for SFCC, SFCC pricing is opaque; I use the median of what clients have actually paid (~$200k/yr starter, scaling fast).

If you have invoice data and want to calibrate the model against your actual numbers, send it via the form, I’ll re-run.

The 5 platforms in the calculator (Magento Open Source, Adobe Commerce, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, SFCC) cover ~85% of mid-market and enterprise commerce decisions in 2026. Niche platforms get omitted for one of three reasons:

• Adjacent but smaller market, Centra, Spryker, commercetools, Saleor, Medusa.js, Sylius. These show up in re-platform shortlists at <5% frequency in my data. If you’re seriously evaluating one, send the inputs and I’ll add it to the calibration.
• Plugin-not-platform, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, OpenCart. WooCommerce is on the form (because it’s common as a current-platform “source”), but I don’t calculate WooCommerce as a destination because it’s a WordPress plugin and TCO is dominated by WP hosting + plugin stack rather than the commerce layer.
• Dying stacks, Magento 1, OpenCart, X-Cart, ZenCart. If you’re here you’re leaving them, not migrating to them.

Headless setups (Magento + Vue Storefront, Magento + Hyvä headless, BigCommerce + Next.js, commercetools + custom front-end) aren’t separate platforms in this calculator, they layer on top of one of the 5 and add ~$30k, $80k upfront + ~$15k, $40k/yr ongoing for the front-end. Use the calculator for the platform layer; add headless cost separately.

It doesn’t, it looks expensive. The calculator allocates $18k/yr (under $25M GMV) or $36k/yr (above) for Plus apps, which is $54k, $108k over 3 years. That’s the highest extension/app line of any platform in the model.

If you’re seeing a lower number than your actual app spend, common reasons:

• Subscriptions stack adds fast. Klaviyo ($1k+/mo at scale), Recharge / Bold Subscriptions (~$500, $2k/mo), Loop Returns (~$700/mo), Yotpo / Stamped (~$300, $1k/mo), Gorgias / Re:amaze ($300, $1k/mo), Tapcart or Shop App customisation. A typical D2C Plus stack runs $3k, $5k/mo total, the calculator is conservative at $1.5k, $3k.
• Plus Functions developer time isn’t in the app line. It’s in the “dev ongoing” bucket. If your Functions developer is contracted at $75/hr and you have ~5 hrs/wk of Functions work, that’s another $39k/yr.
• Shopify Markets adds 1.5% on cross-border transactions. Calculator doesn’t separate this from the 0.15% per-tx fee.

If your actual Plus app spend is above $5k/mo, add the delta to the calculator output manually. The relative ranking still holds.

Because it is, in absolute terms. Adobe Commerce license starts around $30k/yr at the entry GMV tier and scales to $150k+/yr above $50M GMV. That’s real money, $90k, $450k+ over 3 years before any other line.

What the license buys you:

• Native B2B Companies module, multi-buyer roles, quotes, requisition lists, Net-30. On Magento Open Source you’d need an extension stack (Aheadworks B2B Suite ~$2k, or build custom ~$15k+).
• Page Builder + content staging, drag-drop CMS + scheduled content rollouts. Significant for marketing teams.
• RMA + gift cards + reward points as native modules.
• Customer segmentation + targeted promotions, without these, you’re buying Salesforce Marketing Cloud or Klaviyo + custom plumbing.
• 24/7 SLA support, Adobe support tickets, not Stack Overflow + a freelance retainer.
• Adobe stack integration, Marketo, Workfront, Real-Time CDP, Target. If you’re already an Adobe shop, this is the lock-in that earns the license.

The break-even math: Adobe Commerce earns the license fee when (a) B2B share is ≥ 50% AND GMV is ≥ $10M, OR (b) you’re already on Adobe Experience Cloud and the integration is the value driver. Below $10M GMV pure D2C, Adobe Commerce is overpriced, the calculator’s verdict engine flags this.

Yes, and often higher. Salesforce Commerce Cloud (formerly Demandware) is multi-tenant SaaS priced as a percent of GMV (typically 1-3%) with a contractual minimum that lands around $200k/yr at the smallest tier and scales fast.

Concrete bands I’ve seen quoted (or paid by clients):

• $10M, $25M GMV: ~$200k/yr minimum + variable component
• $25M, $100M GMV: $300k, $500k/yr
• $100M+ GMV: $500k, $1M+/yr

What you get:

• Multi-tenant SaaS on AWS with 99.99% SLA
• SFRA framework (server-side rendered Express + JS)
• Einstein AI personalisation, recommendations, predictive sort
• Salesforce ecosystem integration (Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud, Order Management)
• Mandatory certified SI partner relationship

What earns it:

• You’re already on Salesforce Service Cloud / Marketing Cloud and the data integration is the strategy
• You’re a tier-1 enterprise needing 99.99% uptime SLA with contractual penalties
• You’re a CPG / luxury / retail brand at $100M+ GMV where the SI partner ecosystem matters more than license cost

What kills the deal:

• You’re below $25M GMV, license-as-percent-of-GMV math destroys margin at this tier
• You’re not on the Salesforce ecosystem, you’re paying for integrations you won’t use
• You need deep customisation outside SFRA, the customisation ceiling is real

If the calculator is showing SFCC as “best fit” for you, you’re probably already on Salesforce. If not, double-check the inputs.

BigCommerce’s plan tiers cap GMV: Plus stops at ~$1M trailing 12-month sales, Pro at ~$5M, Enterprise (negotiated) above that. Cross the cap and BC auto-bumps you to the next tier or forces a contract.

What this hides:

• Silent upgrades. A growing store crosses $1M and the Plus plan ($300/mo) jumps to Pro ($400, $700/mo) without much warning. Annualised that’s an extra $1k, $5k/yr you didn’t budget.
• Enterprise pricing is opaque. Above $5M GMV BC quotes Enterprise individually (typical: $20k, $50k/yr depending on traffic and feature set). The calculator uses ~$24k/yr at this tier, check your actual quote.
• Per-tx fees. BC charges 0% per-tx, matching Magento. This is one of the few platforms where per-tx isn’t a hidden cost.
• App / extension stack at the Enterprise tier. BigCommerce’s app marketplace is smaller than Shopify’s but apps for B2B (BundleB2B), reviews (Yotpo), and personalisation (Searchanise) run $400, $1k/mo each. A typical Enterprise B2B store ends up at $12k, $18k/yr in apps, the calculator allocates $12k/yr if B2B share > 25%.
• Stencil customisation ceiling. BC’s theme framework (Stencil) is more flexible than Liquid but less so than Magento PHP. If you need deep PDP or checkout customisation, dev hours run higher than the calculator’s estimate.

BigCommerce wins on TCO at the $1M, $10M D2C-light-B2B tier. Above that, the GMV-cap dynamic and Enterprise pricing make the math harder to predict, get a quote in writing.

Not in the on-page calculator (yet), the brackets keep the model simple and avoid the “fake precision” trap where a 4-digit input creates an illusion of accuracy from a model with ±20% inherent variance.

If you want a calibrated 5-platform comparison against your actual invoices, use the form below:

• Send your last 12 months actual GMV (not projection)
• Send your actual current-platform invoices (license, hosting, app spend, dev retainer), redacted is fine
• Send your 3-year growth target
• Flag anything custom (multi-region, B2B layer, headless front-end, ERP integration)

I’ll re-run the model against your actual numbers and send a written 5-platform comparison within 24 business hours. No upsell, if Magento isn’t the right answer for your situation, the deliverable will say so.

An exact-numbers v2 is on the roadmap (probably Q3 2026) but I want to calibrate the bracket model first against more data points.

The yearly dev/maintenance retainer needed to keep the store operating after launch. Covers:

• Bug fixes + uptime. Production issues during business hours (and after-hours if you have an SLA in the retainer). Typically 5-20% of monthly hours.
• Feature iteration. A/B tests, copy + UX changes, new payment method onboarding, new region launch, seasonal landing pages. 30-50% of hours.
• Security patches + version upgrades. Magento ships 2-3 minor versions a year. Adobe Commerce releases monthly security patches. Shopify Plus and SFCC handle this themselves (you save here). Plan for 5-15% of hours.
• Extension / app updates. Each extension you ship needs maintenance when its dependencies (Magento core, payment gateway API, third-party SaaS API) change. 5-10% of hours.
• Performance tuning. Cache warming, indexer optimisation, query analysis. 5-10% of hours.
• Monitoring + alerting. New Relic / Sentry / Datadog setup + on-call rotation if you have one. 5% of hours.

Rough sizing in the calculator:

• Magento Open Source under $5M GMV: $15k/yr (~150 hrs/yr at $100/hr)
• Magento Open Source $5M, $25M: $30k/yr (~300 hrs/yr)
• Magento Open Source $25M+: $60k/yr (~600 hrs/yr)
• Adobe Commerce: ~80% of Magento OS, less ext maintenance because B2B/RMA are native
• Shopify Plus: ~50% of Magento OS, no version upgrades, smaller surface area
• BigCommerce: ~60% of Magento OS
• SFCC: 100-200% of Magento OS, SI partner premium dominates

If you’re running on a retainer and your store does $10M+ in GMV, you’re probably accruing tech debt. The calculator’s “dev ongoing” line is what it actually costs to keep things healthy.

It doesn’t, deliberately. The 3-year horizon uses 2026 nominal pricing without inflation adjustment, for three reasons:

1. License + hosting tend to step rather than smooth. Adobe doesn’t raise prices 3% a year, they hold flat for 18 months and then add a tier or rebrand. Modelling smooth inflation creates false precision.
2. Per-tx fees and apps scale with GMV, not inflation. The calculator has a growth multiplier (flat / 1.5x / 3x / 5x+) that adjusts these. If you also want 3% annual inflation on top, multiply the total by ~1.09 over 3 years.
3. Dev rates are sticky. The freelance rate I quote a $5M client today is not 3% higher than 2 years ago, it’s either the same, or 20% higher because skills compounded. Smooth inflation doesn’t model how labour markets work.

If your finance team wants a CFO-grade NPV, the procedure is:

• Take the calculator’s 3-year total
• Discount Year-2 by ~5%, Year-3 by ~10% (use your weighted-average cost of capital)
• Add a 5-10% contingency for vendor price increases
• Add 10-20% contingency for scope creep

For a Year-1 vs Year-2 vs Year-3 split (rather than a flat total), the rough breakdown for each platform is in the calculator code, let me know via the form and I’ll send the year-by-year.

The catch is that “$0 license” isn’t the same as “$0 to operate.” Magento Open Source has the highest variable cost of the 5 platforms in the calculator. The numbers shift from license to dev + hosting:

• You self-host. $6k, $30k/yr depending on traffic. Cloudways, Sonassi, Hipex, JetRails are common. Cloudflare in front, redis cache, varnish, OpenSearch.
• You’re responsible for security patches. Magento ships ~3 critical security patches a year. If you’re late to apply them, you’re on the hit list of every Magento exploit kit. Auto-patching tooling exists (Magecheck, Sansec, MageReport) but a human still QAs each release.
• Extensions for B2B / RMA / segmentation are paid. Aheadworks, Amasty, Magenest each charge $200, $2,000 per extension, sometimes annual. Calculator allocates $5k, $8k for a typical extension stack, that’s already counted.
• No SLA support. You’re on Stack Overflow + your dev retainer. Most stores at $5M+ have an on-call freelancer or a 5-10 hour/month minimum retainer.
• Version upgrades require effort. Magento 2.4.4 → 2.4.6 → 2.4.7 → 2.4.9 each break some extensions. Plan for 1-2 weeks dev time per major version, ~once a year.

The break-even math: Magento Open Source is cheapest TCO when (a) GMV ≥ $1M (below this the dev cost doesn’t pay off vs a hosted SaaS), (b) you have B2B share < 50% (above this Adobe Commerce native B2B earns its license), and (c) you have access to a competent Magento dev (in-house, retainer, or freelance). Without the third, Magento Open Source becomes the most expensive platform on the calculator because dev cost spirals.

No, and I built it. The calculator is a screening tool: it tells you which platforms to take seriously and which to drop from the shortlist. It doesn’t replace the discovery work needed for a $500k decision.

What to do for an actual $500k re-platform:

1. Use this calculator to drop 1-2 platforms from the longlist. If the cheapest is 4x your most-likely pick, the cheapest probably has a feature gap; if the most-likely pick is 2x the alternative, the alternative deserves a real evaluation.
2. Get written quotes from each finalist. For SaaS platforms (Adobe Commerce, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, SFCC) the negotiated price is often 15-30% lower than the calculator’s number; you only see this in writing.
3. Talk to 3-5 reference customers per platform at your GMV tier. Ask specifically about Year-2 and Year-3 surprises. Vendors will introduce you to the happy ones; ask the references for unhappy ones too.
4. Run a 4-6 week proof-of-concept on the top finalist. POC scope: one product flow, one B2B flow if applicable, one region launch. ~$25k, cheap insurance against a $500k mistake.
5. Have a senior engineering perspective at the table. Not just procurement / commercial. The customisation ceiling is technical; CFOs often miss it.

If you’re at the “build a discovery deck” stage and want a sanity check on the calculator’s output, send the inputs, I’ll review for free and tell you if the verdict aligns with what I’d advise. No upsell. The point is the right decision; sometimes Magento isn’t.