Online store cost in Malaysia 2026: fees and what you keep

An online store in Malaysia has two numbers, not one. The build is one-off: a Malaysian studio's 2026 guide quotes RM2,500 to RM6,000 for a starter store, RM8,000 to RM20,000 for a professional one. The monthly bill is forever: RM249 a month at EasyStore, about RM930 a year on Shopify Basic, plus a gateway that keeps RM1.25 to RM6.50 per RM100, depending on plan and payment method.

How much does it cost to build an online store in Malaysia?

Between RM2,500 and RM50,000 or more, and the tier decides almost everything else. ZenWeb, a Malaysian web studio, puts 2026 build costs at "RM2,500–RM6,000 for a starter store, RM8,000–RM20,000 for a professional SME store, and RM30,000–RM50,000+ for a custom platform" (ZenWeb).

The number owners get wrong is the second one. The same guide tells you to "Budget another RM3,000–RM6,000 a year for running costs", and that figure is separate from the build, arrives every year, and is rarely itemised in a quote. If you are still comparing routes rather than stores, our breakdown of what a Malaysian SME website should cost in 2026 covers the non-store version of the same decision.

What do you pay every month before a single sale?

A platform fee, and it is the one cost you can size exactly before you commit. EasyStore, a Malaysian platform, lists its Standard plan at RM249 a month. WebShaper lists three store plans at RM1,188, RM2,388 and RM3,588 a year. Shopify's Malaysian pricing page lists Basic at US$19 a month billed yearly, which is about RM930 a year at Bank Negara Malaysia's US dollar middle rate of 4.0775 on 25 September 2026.

The Malaysian platforms sell that fee as the price of keeping your revenue whole:

"Keep 100% of every sale — we never take a cut of your revenue, at any volume."

EasyStore pricing page

That is true of the platform and only the platform: the gateway still takes its cut, so a zero-commission plan is not a zero-fee sale. A subscription priced in US dollars also moves with the ringgit, the same exposure we costed in the real yearly website maintenance bill.

What does the payment gateway take out of each sale?

Between a flat RM1.25 on a free plan and 6.5%, depending entirely on how your customer chooses to pay. This is the number the Malaysian cost guide the engines cite blends into a single band, and blending it hides the only fee decision you actually control: which payment buttons you switch on, and which one you make the default at checkout.

Two further rates matter if you sell outside Malaysia. Stripe charges "3% + RM1.00 per successful transaction for domestic cards + 1% for international cards + 2% if currency conversion is required", and HitPay's international card rate is 3% + RM1 against 1.2% + RM1 domestically. Some gateways also charge you to exist: senangPay lists an annual subscription, Starter at RM199 a year and Advance at RM349.

What do you keep on a RM100 sale in Malaysia?

Between RM93.50 and RM98.75, depending on how the customer chose to pay and which gateway plan you are on. It is the figure to hold in your head when you set prices or approve a checkout change. Each row below applies one published rate above to a single RM100 sale.

RM5.25 separates the cheapest of these routes from the dearest, on every RM100 that goes through your checkout. Nothing about the product, the marketing or the traffic changes that figure. A checkout setting does. In our view the move is not to switch off buy now pay later, which genuinely wins orders, but to know what it costs and make online banking the easy default for customers who were going to buy anyway.

Which costs do owners forget?

Four, and none of them appear in a build quote: Shopify's 2% surcharge when you take payment through a third-party gateway instead of its own, Stripe's RM90 fee for every dispute a customer raises, HitPay's 1% currency markup at settlement on a foreign sale, and the 8% Malaysian service tax on software billed by a foreign provider.

• A surcharge for using your own gateway. Shopify's Basic plan adds 2% on sales taken through a third-party payment provider instead of Shopify Payments, so a cheaper gateway rate can be cancelled out by the platform fee for using it.
• Dispute fees. Stripe charges "RM90.00 for each dispute you receive". Two disputes cost RM180, more than a month on Shopify Basic or WebShaper sohoStore.
• A currency markup at settlement. HitPay states that "A 1% FX markup is applied at settlement when converting the payment back to MYR", so a foreign sale loses on the rate as well as the rate card.
• Service tax on foreign software. Malaysia's service tax rate on digital services from a foreign registered provider is 8% (Royal Malaysian Customs). We walked through how the same 8% lands on Meta ad spend in the Meta Ads Manager guide for Malaysia; check your platform invoice for the same line.

This is also why one blended gateway band is not good enough. ZenWeb's running-cost table gives "Payment gateway fees 1.8%–3.5% of sales", worth RM3,600 to RM7,000 on RM200,000 of sales. It is a reasonable average and it is unusable as a decision: the real range at the same moment ran from RM1.25 flat on a free plan to 6.5%.

Is an online store still worth it in Malaysia?

Yes, on the demand numbers, but only once people can find the store. Business-to-consumer e-commerce income in Malaysia reached RM374.7 billion in 2024, up 11.3% from RM336.6 billion the year before, and 74.4% of Malaysian establishments now have a web presence, against 72.7% in 2023 (Department of Statistics Malaysia).

Read those two together and the risk is obvious. The demand is growing, and so is the number of businesses chasing it. An unfound store is a monthly fee with no sales against it, which is a findability problem before it is a design problem. That is why the first spend after launch usually belongs in local SEO and in getting recommended when customers ask ChatGPT or Gemini, not in a redesign.

Acclaira is a Malaysian studio working mostly across the Klang Valley and Selangor. We build and host the website free as part of an ongoing AI SEO programme from RM3,000 a month, billed from day one, month to month. Dan also runs a free one-hour class on Zoom every Thursday at 9.30pm Malaysian time, and pricing questions like this one get answered live. Registration is by WhatsApp.

Sources

• Billplz, pricing, read 28 September 2026.
• senangPay, pricing, read 28 September 2026.
• HitPay Malaysia, pricing, read 28 September 2026.
• Stripe Malaysia, pricing, read 28 September 2026.
• EasyStore, pricing, read 28 September 2026.
• WebShaper, pricing, read 28 September 2026.
• Shopify Malaysia, pricing, read 28 September 2026.
• Bank Negara Malaysia, exchange rates, US dollar middle rate 4.0775 on 25 September 2026.
• Royal Malaysian Customs Department, MySToDS, service tax on digital services.
• Department of Statistics Malaysia, Usage of ICT and E-Commerce by Establishment, reference year 2024.
• ZenWeb, E-Commerce Website Cost Malaysia 2026, read 28 September 2026.