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How Much Does it Cost to Launch a Dropshipping Store?

How Much Does it Cost to Launch a Dropshipping Store?

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Let’s answer a frequently asked question about dropshipping: How much does it cost to get your store started?

Technically speaking, you can start dropshipping for less than $100. With the right combination of free trials and starter plans, a little investing is all that stands between you and a dropshipping store.

However, just because you can open a dropshipping business for a super low upfront investment doesn’t mean that you should. Putting in more cash upfront will guarantee more returns and make you look far more legitimate as a business. 

This post will break down unavoidable costs that any legitimate dropshipping store will need to absorb to get off the ground, including a list of all your startup costs and insights from top entrepreneurs. 

What is dropshipping?

Dropshipping is an ecommerce business model that allows entrepreneurs to run an online store and sell products without having to purchase inventory upfront. You only have to pay suppliers once items have sold, and then they handle the shipping part of the exchange. 

You can use a tool like DSers to connect your store to thousands of suppliers and find products to include in your dropshipping store.

How much does it cost to start dropshipping?

Dropshipping has lowered the barrier to entry for starting a business. You can coordinate with suppliers from around the world and sell their products without ever holding inventory. The notion that it doesn’t require any upfront investment, though, is not necessarily correct. 

You probably won’t need to take any drastic steps like remortgaging your home, but you will have to put some money into your dropshipping business before you see significant or recurring returns. 

Dropshipper corner

Let's hear about the cost of starting a business from Paul Lee, the man behind Husky Beard:

Paul Lee Dropshipping storeAccording to Lee, new dropshippers should, "Be comfortable with losing at least $500 before you start to become profitable. Opening up an actual retail store involves spending nearly $10,000 before any revenue comes in, so spending only $500 on an ecommerce business is an extremely small investment that can change your life."

The cost of starting a dropshipping business

The most stripped down version of a dropshipping store would include:

Shopify is currently the most popular ecommerce platform out there, and DSers is the most powerful AliExpress dropshipping tool. Also, Shopify has a free trial, and only costs $29 per month when you pay annually. 

So Shopify covers the store part of the equation. Now for the dropshipping part.

The DSers is accessible via a free basic plan. You won't be able to scale with it, as there is a 3,000-product cap. But you can at least get set up before forking over your credit card. Eventually, you'll need to upgrade to the $19.90 Advanced plan to access features like automatic inventory updates and bundle mapping.

If you're serious about dropshipping, then you also want to secure a domain for your store. You can easily buy a new domain through Shopify for $16 per year on top of whichever plan you sign up for. 

Shopify Domain Name Register

If you choose this cost-efficient route, your upfront costs will be:

Free Shopify trial + Free DSers plan = Free

Then, with a bit of sprucing up, we're looking at:

$29/month Basic Shopify + $16 Domain + $19.90/month Advanced DSers = $64.90 ($48.90 per month)

Legal requirements and business setup expenses

Beyond your website, you may need to handle some legal paperwork to run your business properly. These administrative steps create credibility with customers and protect you legally.

Business registration varies widely by location. In the US, registering a business doesn’t tend to top $300, though in some states you may need to pay annual renewal fees. 

Consider forming a limited liability company (LLC) to separate your personal assets from business debts. This legal structure also helps prevent double taxation while making your operation look more professional to potential customers.

Dropshipper corner

Let's hear from Tim Vangsnes, dropshipping guru and creator of this dropshipping YouTube channel:


Tim Vangness Dropshipping StoreAs Tim explains, "For your first store, you shouldn't be paying hundreds for custom photos, logos, and website designs. Your start-up costs should be very minimal. Your only upfront costs will be purchasing your product and registering your domain. You can take advantage of the free trails offered by Google and Shopify to create a custom email address and get your store up and running. You will want to create custom photos and videos of your products that you can use on product pages, in ads, and in product reviews. This can be easily done with any modern smartphone."

Dropshipping product validation costs

One of the reasons why dropshipping is cost-efficient even at scale is that you never have to handle the products that you’re selling. Dropshipping keeps you away from the costlier parts of the ecommerce value chain. 

While this might solve one of the biggest challenges of commerce (having cool products to sell), it introduces a new set of considerations. Namely, you don't control the quality of the products, the timeliness of delivery, or the appearance of the packaging.

That's why we recommend setting aside some time (and money) to order the products that you're going to be selling in your store. Test the experience of being a buyer yourself. 

This gives you a chance to investigate the suppliers. After you place your order, for example, you can follow up and ask, "When can I expect my order to arrive?" And when it does arrive you can consider whether it meets your expectations. Is it defective in any way? Would you want to buy it?

Once you have your products on hand, you can use them to generate interest in your store. Show them off. Take pictures of people holding them. Ask your friends what they think (and how much they'd pay).

Sample costs depend on your chosen products and suppliers. Remember to factor in shipping when you’re ordering sample items to test before you start selling them. Delivery services can add up, even if you’re not using express options, but many suppliers allow single-item purchases for testing purposes rather than requiring bulk orders.

This is mostly an upfront cost, so if we add it to the store infrastructure costs discussed above, our dropshipping business balance sheet looks like this:

$64.90 (Shopify+domain+DSers) + $75 (product validation costs) = approximately $140 

Dropshipper corner

Tim Kock has much experience in dropshipping and has this to say about test orders:

Tim Kock Dropshipper

"When you're running a dropshipping business, you won't be handling your inventory. Your suppliers will ship your products directly to your customer's doorstep. With this in mind, it's always a great idea to place a test order for products that you're thinking about selling. This will enable you to go through the entire purchasing process, just like your customers will when they place an order. You'll be able to review the quality of the products, the shipping times and standards, and take personalized product images yourself."

Shipping and fulfillment considerations

One crucial decision you'll face is whether customers pay shipping fees directly or if you absorb these costs into your pricing. Each approach has trade-offs that affect your budget.

When customers see shipping charges at checkout, they might abandon their carts if the cost is too high. However, this approach keeps your expenses predictable, especially if suppliers adjust their shipping rates without warning.

Covering shipping yourself lets you offer free shipping, which attracts buyers, but reduces your profit margin. Lightweight products like phone accessories may cost a few dollars to ship, with heavier items incurring higher shipping costs. 

Many suppliers offer free shipping, but delivery often takes two to four weeks, which may frustrate customers expecting faster service. You can offer faster shipping rates and absorb the costs to delight customers, but that may reduce your profits. 

Tax obligations and compliance expenses

Running a legitimate business means handling various tax responsibilities that can impact your budget. These obligations vary based on the location of your business and which markets you address. 

You might need to collect and remit sales tax depending on where your customers are. Automation toolkits like Shopify Tax can handle this complexity, though they typically charge monthly fees for their services.

Keep tabs on tariff changes that could affect your supplier costs. When these fees increase, you'll need to adjust your pricing to maintain profitability. Set aside a portion of each sale to pay your yearly income taxes, and remember that as your business grows, so will your tax obligations. 

Consider hiring an accountant if you establish an LLC or corporation, as the tax implications become more complex with formal business structures.

Dropshipping store enhancement costs

As you scale your store, you’ll likely want to invest in enhancements, like apps that help you offer discounts on bulk purchase. 

There are manual workarounds if you want to avoid the cost of upgrades. You can bundle five items as a single product and sell that for a lower price, but this can become a significant time investment and make it harder to grow. 

You want your store to be easy to navigate for your shoppers and easy to operate for you, and installing more Shopify apps is one way to automate that process. 

The Shopify App Store has many apps to address just about every tweak, improvement, or upgrade that you can imagine. Let's look at a few common features that store owners want, as well as a small sample of the apps that can make it happen.

Cross-selling and upselling

Cross-selling involves offering a product or service related to what the customer has already purchased, whereas upselling is a technique used to encourage customers to buy an upgraded, more expensive version of a purchased item. These techniques aim to increase a merchant's average order value (AOV).

Shopify has some great apps for cross-selling and upselling:

Bulk pricing

Bulk pricing involves offering discounts to customers purchasing large quantities of products. You can offer bulk pricing on your dropshipping store to encourage people to buy more and return for more shopping in the future.

Certain Shopify apps make it easy to implement bulk pricing, including:

Exit intent

Exit intent is smart behavioral technology that automatically delivers an enticing offer to a visitor about to leave your website. It tracks the mouse movements of website visitors and identifies when a visitor's cursor moves to the top of the screen to close the browser window.

The idea is to serve users a pop-up before they exit the page, giving them one last chance to consider your product before closing the tab or window. 

Shopify has several apps that provide exit-intent technology:

Email marketing and customer retention tools

Building meaningful relationships with customers requires ongoing communication. Email marketing platforms help you stay connected with potential buyers who showed interest in your products, as well as recurring customers who you want to retain.

Many platforms offer free plans for small subscriber lists, but expect monthly costs as your audience grows and you need more functionality and customization options. These tools help you send targeted messages to people who abandoned their carts or browsed specific product categories.

Shopify Email is a good place to start creating campaigns, grow your audience, and learn the ropes of email marketing and retention. 

Consistent email communication keeps your brand visible to customers who might purchase later, making these tools valuable investments for long-term growth.

How much does dropshipping marketing cost?

While it’s not too hard to calculate the upfront costs of opening a dropshipping store on Shopify, the price tag for building a brand and a loyal customer base is harder to nail down and probably more than you’d expect. 

However, we can estimate the initial costs. 

The average global conversion rate for medium to big brands in the ecommerce space lies somewhere between 2% and 3% or so. This means that if you get 200 visitors to your store, you can expect around five or fewer of them to purchase something. Marketing is what gets those 200 people through your digital door. 

Most successful dropshippers start small with their advertising budgets. Testing different creative approaches and audience targeting with a daily spend of $5 to $10 helps you learn what generates interest before committing more time and money to certain strategies.

Creating ads for social media platforms is one route to finding your first buyers. You can start on Facebook and scale up from there. 

You can also target countries with lower CPM rates. One potential error is to limit your scope in terms of the geographies you want to address. 

Finally, there are steps you can take to increase your store’s conversion rate and its average order value. Designing easy-to-navigate product pages, for example, is one way to get people to convert once they land on your store. 

You can also use cross-selling and upselling apps to increase average order value. Those will cost you a bit of money upfront, but earn you an increase in sales over time. 

Alternative Marketing Strategies for Tight Budgets

Not everyone has the capital to spend on paid advertising right away. Organic marketing strategies can drive traffic without having to tap into an already limited budget.

Creating content for TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest, such as unboxing videos and product demonstrations, is a creative time investment and only requires time and your phone’s camera. Focus on demonstrating your products in action, sharing helpful tips, or entertaining your target audience. 

Building relationships with smaller influencers in your niche can also be cost-effective. Many micro-influencers charge reasonable rates for product mentions, especially if you offer free samples alongside modest payment. 

Finding a partner to expand your reach and engage more effectively is an excellent strategy when you’re growing your business and finding your marketing footing. 

Dropshipper corner

Here is some marketing wisdom from dropshipper Artsy Wall founder Matīss Ozerskis.
Matīss Ozerskis - Dropship Business Owner"The budget [for the first three to six months], from my experience, should be around $1,000. Most of it should definitely go to marketing—for testing Instagram influencers and Facebook ads, I'd say about 50% to 80%. The rest should go into plug-ins, domain, and store costs, and also preferably some courses, if you're new to this business model, and to Shopify."

Realistic Startup Budget Expectations

A practical starting budget ranges from $200 to $600 monthly, depending on your chosen tools and marketing approach. This covers your essential platform costs, domain registration, basic apps, and initial advertising experiments.

As your business grows, expect to invest more in premium features, additional apps, and scaled marketing campaigns. Success often requires reinvesting profits back into growth rather than taking everything out immediately.

Launching a dropshipping store: Our verdict

Dropshipping may be cost-efficient to some degree, but it’s far from a free way to earn extra income and you need to invest at least some cash to get your first customers. In general, if you stick with ecommerce, you'll never stop investing toward your store’s success and growth. 

After your price-breaks app does the trick, you'll want to get a cross-selling app. As your marketing campaigns get bigger and scale across channels, you'll want to invest in some marketing automation technology. And we haven't even touched on email marketing yet, or premium Shopify themes, or logo design tools like Hatchful. There are so many options for optimizing your store.

Once you start to generate sales, you need to use your profits wisely. Set aside a chunk of your revenue to cover any unforeseen costs that may arise, and account for how much financial investment it takes to grow. 

These costs will include improving your business’s infrastructure, from your website design to your email marketing software. Some of these services cost money, but once you are making a profit, they can significantly improve your conversion rates and customer retention. And you can upgrade your subscriptions for better, more scalable functionality. 

Dropshipping startup costs FAQ

Can you start a dropshipping store for free?

If you’re already registered with an ecommerce platform then you can start dropshipping for free. Depending on your provider, you should be able to find apps that connect you with suppliers and let you add a certain number of products to your dropshipping store for free or low costs.

How much money should you have to start dropshipping?

A sensible starting point involves having $200 to $300 available for your first month. This budget should provide enough room to handle online store setup, product sourcing, a few marketing experiments, and essential tools without stretching your finances too thin.

Is dropshipping still profitable in 2025?

Based on the healthy market outlook for dropshipping, it remains a viable business model in 2025. The market is projected to reach nearly $1.3B by 2030 with steady CAGR growth, especially with digital payments and ecommerce tools making it easier for retailers to reach audiences and transact internationally. 

This trend strongly suggests that dropshipping is an excellent choice for those looking to earn sustainable income.

How do dropshippers get paid?

When customers purchase from your store, payment gets deposited into your account. You then pay your supplier for the product and keep the difference after deducting expenses like shipping, advertising costs, and transaction fees.

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