Costs
ERP integration: how much does it cost to connect your online shop and ERP?
By Dominik Natter · Last updated on 3 November 2026 · 9 min read
In short
All amounts are guide prices excluding VAT. An integration between an online shop and an ERP costs CHF 15,000 to 60,000 and takes 6 to 14 weeks. A simple integration for a single data type, such as sending only orders to the ERP, costs CHF 8,000 to 25,000. Maintenance and operation add 15 to 20 percent of the project cost per year.
How much does an ERP integration for an online shop cost?
A complete integration between shop and ERP costs CHF 15,000 to 60,000. It turns orders into sales orders in the ERP, pulls stock levels and prices into the shop, and sends delivery status and invoices back. Implementation takes 6 to 14 weeks. If invoices need to leave the ERP as structured e-invoices, clarify the format early. Read more in our guide "E-invoicing in Switzerland: what applies from 2027 when you invoice Germany and the EU".
A simple integration for a single data type costs CHF 8,000 to 25,000. A typical example: orders from Shopify or WooCommerce arrive in the ERP as sales orders automatically, and everything else stays as it is. Each additional system you connect, such as a shipping provider or a point-of-sale system, costs CHF 3,000 to 15,000 depending on its interface.
The price reflects effort. Swiss providers charge hourly rates of CHF 150 to 250. At CHF 200 per hour, CHF 30,000 buys around 150 hours for design, development, testing against the ERP and rollout. These ranges apply equally to companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
- Entry point for a complete shop-to-ERP integration, up to CHF 60,000
- CHF 15,000
- Weeks until the integration goes live
- 6 to 14
- of the project cost per year for maintenance and operation
- 15 to 20%
- Entry point for the fixed-price preliminary study, up to CHF 9,000
- CHF 4,000
Price ranges by approach
| Approach | Price range | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Integration platform such as Zapier, Make or n8n | Subscription from around USD 20 per month | Zapier from USD 19.99, n8n Cloud from EUR 20 billed annually, plus setup |
| Off-the-shelf connector | Depends on the vendor | Licence or subscription plus setup, for standard items at list prices |
| Simple integration for one data type | CHF 8,000 to 25,000 | For example orders only into the ERP, 4 to 10 weeks |
| Shop-to-ERP integration | CHF 15,000 to 60,000 | Orders, stock, prices and status, 6 to 14 weeks |
| Each additional system connection | CHF 3,000 to 15,000 | For example shipping or point of sale |
| B2B shop with pricing logic and ERP | CHF 30,000 to 180,000 | Shop and integration together, 3 to 8 months |
| Preliminary study with cost ceiling | CHF 4,000 to 9,000 | Fixed price, 2 to 3 weeks |
| Maintenance and operation per year | 15 to 20% | of the project cost |
What drives the cost of a shop-to-ERP integration
What an API integration costs depends less on the shop than on the ERP and your business logic. These factors move a project from the lower to the upper end of the range:
- Quality of the ERP's API: a documented REST API with a test environment saves days. Older systems that rely on file exports, SOAP or direct database access need more analysis and more testing.
- Pricing logic: list prices are simple. Customer-specific prices, volume tiers, framework agreements and promotions must calculate exactly the same in the shop as in the ERP. Otherwise the cart and the invoice will not match.
- Variants and bills of materials: sizes, colours or configured products must map cleanly to item numbers in the ERP.
- Number of data types: orders, stock, prices, items, customers, delivery status and invoices. Each data type needs its own rules and its own tests.
- Direction of synchronisation: pushing data one way is much simpler than syncing in both directions. For two-way sync, you must decide for each data type which system is the master.
- Multiple warehouses, companies or currencies: each extra dimension multiplies the cases that need testing.
- Error handling and monitoring: queues, automatic retries, protection against duplicate orders and an alert when something fails. Without these, nobody notices when the integration stops.
Off-the-shelf connectors, Zapier, Make and n8n: when they are enough
An off-the-shelf connector or an integration platform is often the cheaper choice. If your case is simple, that is no compromise.
Connectors are offered by ERP vendors, shop platforms or third parties. Microsoft, for example, provides a Shopify Connector for Business Central that comes preinstalled for new sign-ups. Integration platforms such as Zapier, Make or n8n, often called middleware, link systems with prebuilt building blocks. Zapier, for instance, offers a ready-made connection between WooCommerce and bexio.
Running costs are moderate but grow with volume. Zapier counts every successfully completed action as a task. With 400 orders a month and three actions per order, that is 1,200 tasks. On the Professional plan this costs USD 39 per month, billed annually. n8n Cloud starts at EUR 20 per month for 2,500 executions, and the self-hosted Community Edition is free. If the platform polls stock levels every 15 minutes, that alone adds around 2,900 executions a month. Make bills in credits, and most actions use one credit. On top of the subscription comes the time for setup and upkeep.
Once customer-specific prices, variants or several warehouses are involved, these tools reach their limits. The workflow inside the platform then becomes software in its own right that someone has to maintain.
Connector or custom integration?
Where a connector reaches its limits
- Customer-specific prices, volume tiers or framework agreements must apply in the shop.
- Customers order variants, bills of materials or configured products.
- Several warehouses, companies or currencies are involved.
- An outage of a few hours costs revenue or customer trust.
A connector is enough if
- There is a proven connector for your combination of shop and ERP.
- You sell standard items at list prices.
- Your volume is a few orders a day.
- An outage of a few hours is annoying but not costly.
- Someone on your team maintains the workflows and checks the error log regularly.
Abacus, bexio, Business Central, SAP Business One and Sage: how easy are they to connect?
Abacus offers a REST API with so-called entity endpoints. Access runs through a service user with tightly defined permissions, usually set up by your Abacus partner.
An integration between Shopify or WooCommerce and Abacus can be built on this API. Whether licence fees apply depends on your contract, so ask before you request a quote.
bexio has a publicly documented REST API with OAuth 2.0 login. According to its own documentation, bexio provides no guided implementation and no code support.
For simple cases there are ready-made connections via integration platforms.
API v2.0 is enabled by default in the cloud version of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, and Microsoft provides its own Shopify Connector. Each user may send 6,000 requests per five minutes, which is usually plenty for an SME shop.
Custom fields cannot be added to the standard API. That requires a custom API, which your partner usually builds.
The Service Layer is a REST interface based on the OData standard. The older DI API is also available.
For a shop integration, the Service Layer is usually the right choice.
How easily Sage connects depends heavily on the product and version.
Ask your Sage partner which interface your installation offers and whether it requires a licence.
Hidden costs: what quotes often leave out
Building the integration is only part of the bill. Ask about these items in every quote:
- Work by the ERP partner: setting up access and permissions, adding fields or building a custom API. The partner bills this separately at their own hourly rate.
- Test environment: an integration is never tested in the live ERP. Find out early whether a test environment or test company exists and what it costs.
- Licences: depending on the ERP, there may be fees for API access, add-on modules or additional users.
- Subscriptions: off-the-shelf connectors and integration platforms are billed monthly, often tiered by volume.
- Data cleansing: duplicate customers, missing item numbers or inconsistent units must be cleaned up before go-live.
- Internal time: your staff define rules, test orders and sign off the integration.
- Maintenance and operation: 15 to 20 percent of the project cost per year. Shop and ERP receive updates, and the integration has to keep up. Read more in our guide "Software maintenance costs: what do maintenance and operations cost per year?".
Worked example: when does a shop-to-ERP integration pay for itself?
The calculation is simple: orders per month times minutes of manual entry. The examples assume internal full costs of CHF 70 per hour and maintenance at 15 percent of the project cost per year. These are assumptions, so plug in your own figures.
Project cost and annual savings compared
+Show values as a table
| Value | Project cost | Annual savings after maintenance |
|---|---|---|
| 400 orders, list prices | CHF 30'000 | CHF 25'700 |
| 400 orders, customer prices | CHF 60'000 | CHF 21'200 |
| 60 orders per month | CHF 15'000 | CHF 2'300 |
Medium volume: 400 orders a month at six minutes each add up to 40 hours. If 90 percent are transferred automatically, you save 36 hours a month. That is 432 hours or around CHF 30,000 a year. With a project cost of CHF 30,000 and CHF 4,500 for maintenance, you keep around CHF 25,700 in savings per year. The integration pays for itself in just over a year.
Complex integration: the same volume, but with customer-specific prices and variants. The project costs CHF 60,000. After CHF 9,000 for maintenance, around CHF 21,200 remain per year. The investment pays for itself in just under three years.
Low volume: 60 orders a month yield, by the same calculation, around 65 hours or CHF 4,500 saved per year. An integration costing CHF 15,000 needs CHF 2,250 a year in maintenance. Around CHF 2,300 remain. It only pays off after about six and a half years. Here, an off-the-shelf connector or an integration platform is the better choice.
Not included are effects that are hard to quantify: no more overselling, correct prices after every price change, and customers who can see their delivery status themselves. Read more in our guide "How much does a customer portal cost in Switzerland and Liechtenstein?".
What if your ERP has no interface?
There is usually still a way. Options include file exports and import folders, direct database access or an add-on module from the vendor.
These routes work but are more fragile. A file import runs at intervals rather than instantly. Direct database access can break after an ERP update. So expect more effort for testing and monitoring, closer to the upper end of the range.
When a custom integration is not worth it
A custom integration is not always the right answer. Skip it if any of the following applies:
- You only have a few orders a day, as in the third worked example.
- There is a proven connector for your shop and ERP, and you sell at list prices.
- An ERP change is due in the next few months. In that case, build the integration for the new system straight away.
- Your master data has not been cleaned up. An integration only spreads errors faster.
- Nobody in the business is responsible for the integration and responds to error alerts.
Where this information comes from
Price ranges and hourly rates
The price ranges are guide prices excluding VAT and match the figures on our service and solution pages. The hourly rates of CHF 150 to 250 reflect what Swiss providers publish.
ERP information
The ERP information comes from the vendors' documentation: Abacus, authorisation documentation for the REST API. bexio, API documentation for developers. Microsoft Learn, API v2.0 for Business Central, operational limits for Business Central online and getting started with the Shopify Connector. SAP Learning, course on the SAP Business One Service Layer.
Integration platform prices
Integration platform prices are taken from the pricing pages of Zapier, n8n and Make, and the information on the Community Edition from the n8n hosting documentation. Vendors may change their prices at any time.
Worked examples
The worked examples are based on the stated assumptions and do not replace a preliminary study. A price only becomes binding with the cost ceiling from the preliminary study.
As of: November 2026.
| Integration platform such as Zapier, Make or n8n | Subscription from around USD 20 per month | Zapier from USD 19.99, n8n Cloud from EUR 20 billed annually, plus setup |
|---|---|---|
| Off-the-shelf connector | Depends on the vendor | Licence or subscription plus setup, for standard items at list prices |
| Simple integration for one data type | CHF 8,000 to 25,000 | For example orders only into the ERP, 4 to 10 weeks |
| Shop-to-ERP integration | CHF 15,000 to 60,000 | Orders, stock, prices and status, 6 to 14 weeks |
| Each additional system connection | CHF 3,000 to 15,000 | For example shipping or point of sale |
| B2B shop with pricing logic and ERP | CHF 30,000 to 180,000 | Shop and integration together, 3 to 8 months |
| Preliminary study with cost ceiling | CHF 4,000 to 9,000 | Fixed price, 2 to 3 weeks |
| Maintenance and operation per year | 15 to 20% | of the project cost |
Frequently asked questions
How much does an integration between an online shop and an ERP cost?
A shop-to-ERP integration costs CHF 15,000 to 60,000 and takes 6 to 14 weeks. A simple integration for a single data type, such as sending orders to the ERP, costs CHF 8,000 to 25,000. The main factors are the ERP's interface, your pricing logic and the number of data types. Maintenance and operation add 15 to 20 percent of the project cost per year.
Is Zapier or an off-the-shelf connector enough to link our shop and ERP?
Yes, if there is a proven connector for your shop and ERP, you sell at list prices and you handle only a few orders a day. Subscriptions for integration platforms start at around USD 20 per month, plus setup. As soon as customer-specific prices, variants or multiple warehouses come into play, a custom integration is the more robust choice.
What does our ERP partner need to contribute to the integration?
Usually they set up API access and permissions and provide a test environment. With some ERP systems they also add fields or build a custom API. They bill this work separately, so it belongs in the budget from the start.
What if our system has no interface?
Then there is usually another route: file exports, database access, an import folder or an add-on module from the vendor. We clarify this with your ERP partner before a single franc goes into implementation. If there is no reliable route, we say so.
What happens if the ERP is unavailable?
The shop keeps selling. Orders are held in a queue and delivered as soon as the ERP responds again. Failed transfers show up in monitoring and trigger an alert.
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