What an Online Store Really Costs in Tunisia: The Full First-Year Budget

The question comes up in every conversation: what does it actually cost. Public answers are rarely complete, because the advertised price is almost never the price paid. Here is the entire budget for a Tunisian online store over twelve months, including the amounts nobody puts on their pricing page.

In short: a serious store on a local platform costs about 820 DT in the first year, advertising excluded. The same store on an international platform approaches 1,500 DT, and on a custom build 2,800 DT. The difference does not come from the quality of the site, it comes from currency, add-ons and maintenance.

The cost lines, one by one

The domain name

About 15 DT a year for a .tn: 9.746 DT incl. VAT the first year, then 14.280 DT on renewal at OVHcloud Tunisie (checked on 22 October 2026), more at some registrars. The .tn has two concrete advantages in this market: it reassures Tunisian buyers at the moment they hand over cash, and it helps your visibility on local searches. Every step is in our .tn domain guide.

The platform or the site

This is the main line, and the only one that swings from single to fivefold depending on the route you take. We cost the three scenarios below.

Photos

The most underestimated line. You can shoot them yourself with a recent phone, a white sheet and daylight: that is free and often good enough. Budget 100 to 300 DT if you use a photographer for a first set of ten products. Your supplier’s catalogue photos cost nothing and convert like nothing too.

Packaging

Boxes, bubble wrap, tape, labels. Over the first few hundred parcels, budget roughly 2 DT per shipment, so 60 to 120 DT to get going. Decent packaging cuts breakage and returns, and pays for itself quickly.

Advertising

It is not part of the cost of the store, but it is part of the cost of launching. Plan 300 to 900 DT over the first three months, spent in slices of 100 to 150 DT on one product at a time. The purpose is not to sell, it is to find out which of your products deserves stock, as covered in our guide to what to sell online in Tunisia.

Your time

It appears on no invoice and it is the heaviest line of all. Retyping twenty orders a day into a spreadsheet, copying addresses, chasing customers one by one: work out what your hour is worth and multiply. Over a year, this line often exceeds the cost of the platform.

The three costed scenarios

Scenario 1: local platform, about 820 DT

Line	Amount over 12 months
Order credits (about 300 orders a month at 0.165 TND)	~595 DT
.tn domain name	15 DT
Starter photos and packaging	120 DT
Incidentals (logo, printing, tests)	90 DT
Total excluding advertising	~820 DT

The store itself is free: hosting, the security certificate, updates and support are included, and you pay only for the orders you receive. At 100 orders a month, the credits line drops to about 270 DT for the year. There is no commission on sales, so a 300 DT basket uses the same credit as a 30 DT basket. This is the most predictable scenario.

Scenario 2: international platform, about 1,500 DT

Line	Amount over 12 months
Entry plan (around 29 USD a month)	~1,080 DT
Domain name	40 DT
Two essential apps	~360 DT
Total excluding advertising	~1,480 DT

Two important caveats. First, these amounts are in foreign currency: they move with the exchange rate and assume an international card, which is not a detail in Tunisia. Second, two apps is a floor, not a ceiling. We set out what is missing and why in our article on the limits of Shopify and WooCommerce in Tunisia.

Scenario 3: custom build, about 2,800 DT

Line	Amount over 12 months
Initial development	1,800 DT
Hosting and domain	400 DT
Maintenance and changes	600 DT
Total excluding advertising	2,800 DT

The 1,800 DT figure corresponds to an entry-level build. Quotes on the Tunisian market run from 800 DT for a simple showcase to 5,000 DT and beyond for a full site. Watch year two: development does not repeat, but hosting and maintenance do. And every new feature means calling the developer back.

Subscription, commission or pay per order: what does each cost at your volume?

Tunisian platforms charge under three models. None is the cheapest everywhere: it depends on your number of orders and your average basket. Example with a 60 TND average basket, once the free allowances are used up (public prices checked on 22 October 2026):

Orders a month	0.3% commission (Converty)	Pay per order (Yalla Souk)	Subscription (Mallatech)
100	18 TND	22.5 TND (150 pack, 0.225 TND)	79 TND (or 29 TND for a catalogue of 5 products at most)
300	54 TND	49.5 TND (500 pack, 0.165 TND)	79 TND
1,000	180 TND	135 TND (1,000 tier, 0.135 TND)	129 TND

Three readings:

• Commission costs least when the average basket is low, and rises with every dinar sold.
• Subscription costs least at high volume, but is also paid in quiet months.
• Pay per order sits between the two, does not depend on the basket amount and costs nothing in a month without sales.

The platform-by-platform detail is in our comparisons Yalla Souk vs Converty, Yalla Souk vs Mallatech and Yalla Souk vs TikTak PRO.

The five costs nobody quotes you

Per-sale commission. This is the core mechanism of plans presented as free. The arithmetic is easy and rarely done: 1% commission on 40,000 DT of annual sales costs 400 DT. At 100,000 DT of sales it is 1,000 DT. A small fixed price per order, whatever the basket, becomes cheaper as soon as you do well, which is precisely when you do not want to be penalised.

Thresholds. “Free up to X dinars of sales” means the pricing changes above that. Look at what it becomes, not what it is today, and run the numbers against your one-year revenue target.

Apps. Every gap in the platform gets filled with a paid extension on a monthly subscription. Four apps at 8 USD a month is over 1,000 DT a year.

Renewals. Many freelance quotes cover the first year of hosting. The second arrives without warning, often alongside the certificate renewal.

Leaving. What happens if you go? Can you export your products, customers and orders? A platform that makes leaving hard has an exit cost, even if it is written nowhere.

The minimum budget to start seriously

If cash is tight, here is the most effective split for a first month at 325 DT:

1. Platform, 0 DT. The store is free and your first 200 orders are included when you sign up, no card needed. After that, 50 credits cost 15 TND.
2. Domain name, 15 DT. Do not skip it: a store without its own domain inspires less confidence.
3. Basic packaging, 60 DT. Enough to ship thirty parcels properly.
4. Test stock, 100 DT. Two or three units of each candidate product, bought from a local wholesaler.
5. Advertising, 150 DT. On one product, over five days.

Total: 325 DT, of which 250 DT goes directly into learning what sells. That is a testing budget, not a launch budget, and it is exactly what month one needs.

What not to economise on

Three lines where cutting costs more than it saves:

• Photos. A bad photo drags down conversion across every visit you pay for. It is the best return on 200 DT you will find.
• Packaging. A parcel that arrives damaged means a return, a refund and a lost customer, all to save 1 DT of cardboard.
• The domain name. A free subdomain address, in a market where trust is the first obstacle, costs you sales every day.

And after year one?

The budget on a platform that charges per order follows your activity: 0.165 TND per order with the 500-credit pack, less again with volume (down to 0.090 TND), 40 DT of domain, plus packaging in proportion to volume. Credits never expire, so a slow month costs you nothing. It is your variable costs that take over, and they are what decide your profitability: delivery, advertising and returned parcels. We work through that calculation in our article on pricing and margin.

For the whole picture, from product choice to first customers, the complete guide to ecommerce in Tunisia covers the full journey.