For 15 real e-commerce brands we have researched, the estimated cost of testing a first product today runs from $395 to $26,404, with a median of $3,565. A brand-new business pays an estimated $790 to $2,420 of fixed setup costs on top. So the cheapest honest answer to "how much does it cost to start an online business that sells physical products" is about $1,200, and the median business in our data comes to about $4,400 to $6,000. This page breaks that down by niche. Where we have no data for a niche, we say so.
What these numbers are, and are not
Each figure is our estimate of what it would cost to launch a copy of a real business's lead product today, priced from supplier quotes, minimum order quantities and the advertising needed to get a first batch selling. It is not what the founders spent years ago. It covers a validation test: one first order and its launch ads, enough to learn whether the product sells. It does not cover a second order, a salary, a warehouse or months of running costs.
All 15 businesses sell on Amazon, and some also sell on their own Shopify store or on Etsy. That is because Amazon is where we can measure sales. The product costs, though, are the same wherever you sell. For the Amazon-specific version of this question, see how much Amazon FBA costs to start.
The fixed costs of starting any product brand
These are the same in every niche, so we price them once. Our estimate for each line:
| Item | Estimated cost |
|---|---|
| Selling plan for the first months | $40 to $120 |
| Trademark filing | $350 to $700 |
| Product samples | $100 to $300 |
| Photos and listing content | $200 to $800 |
| Packaging design | $100 to $500 |
| Total | $790 to $2,420 |
The selling-plan line is based on Amazon's Professional plan, which is $39.99 a month. If you sell from your own website instead, Shopify's Basic plan is $39 a month, or $29 a month billed yearly. Etsy has no monthly plan but charges $0.20 per listing and 6.5% of each sale. The trademark line starts from the USPTO's $350 base fee per class for an electronic application, and rises with each extra class or a free-text description of your goods.
What is not in that table: forming a company, a business bank account, insurance and any legal advice. Those depend on your state and situation, and we have no data on them, so we do not guess.
How much it costs to start, by niche
"To test" is the first order plus any tooling plus launch ads. The last column adds the fixed costs above. All figures are estimates.
Board games, card games and puzzles
| Business | The test | To test | With setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spite House Games | 100 card decks | $395 | $1,185 to $2,815 |
| Mount Cleverest | 100 trivia decks | $607 | $1,397 to $3,027 |
| White Mountain Puzzles | 200 jigsaw puzzles | $948 | $1,738 to $3,368 |
| Gamblin' Golf | 500 scratch-off golf games | $1,084 | $1,874 to $3,504 |
| Virora Mahjong | Mahjong sets and mats | $3,565 | $4,355 to $5,985 |
| Restoration Games | 500 copies of a full board game | $26,404 | $27,194 to $28,824 |
This niche has both the cheapest and the most expensive start in our data. A deck of cards prints cheaply in a run of 100. A full board game needs custom components: the estimate for Restoration Games' Thunder Road includes $8,800 of tooling and $17,280 for 500 copies. So how much it costs to make a board game depends on what is in the box. Cards and paper sit under $1,100 to test, while plastic pieces and a big box put you above $25,000.
Toys
| Business | The test | To test | With setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| KALOTOYS | Personalised name puzzles | $897 | $1,687 to $3,317 |
| Bizzikins | 100 activity dolls | $1,945 | $2,735 to $4,365 |
| Doctor Jupiter | Four science kits | $7,310 | $8,100 to $9,730 |
Doctor Jupiter's figure is high because the test covers four products, and one of them, a paper airplane launcher, has a 1,000-unit minimum order that costs $4,580 on its own. The cheapest of its kits would cost about $1,377 to $3,007 with setup, which puts it with the others.
Kitchen and barware
| Business | The test | To test | With setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| WOODLANDS USA | Bamboo and teak utensil sets | $1,227 | $2,017 to $3,647 |
| Songbird Specialties | 500 wine pourers | $3,737 | $4,527 to $6,157 |
| LIGHTEN LIFE | Three engraved glass products | $5,464 | $6,254 to $7,884 |
| Draft Top | A can opener | $9,776 | $10,566 to $12,196 |
| OTOTO | Two character-shaped gadgets | $18,608 | $19,398 to $21,028 |
The pattern in this niche is the mould. A plain utensil set needs no tooling in our estimate and costs $1,227 to test. An original design needs its own. Songbird's pourer needs a $1,200 mould. Draft Top's moulds are about $9,000 of its $9,776; its first inventory is only $92. OTOTO's two gadgets carry $5,952 of tooling and a 3,000-unit minimum on the scissors. If your product is a new shape, budget for the mould before the inventory.
Gifts
Highmark Collective, which sells baptism and Christian gift sets, costs an estimated $13,815 to test, or $14,605 to $16,235 with setup. Almost all of that is one 1,000-unit minimum order on its gift set, at $12,443. A smaller jar product in the same test would cost $1,571 to $3,201 on its own.
Supplements
We research one supplement brand, MaryRuth's, which sold an estimated $15.0 million on Amazon in September 2026. We have no startup-cost figure for it. It has been selling since 2014, and pricing a launch for a business that size would be invention. What we can say is where the extra costs come from. The FDA does not approve supplements before they go on sale. Instead, the firms that sell them are responsible for evaluating their safety and labelling before marketing, and manufacturing has to follow FDA good manufacturing practice. Those are costs a deck of cards does not carry, and we have no figure for them.
Coffee, tea and drink mixes
The nearest business we research is Kajun Loaded Tea, which sells loaded-tea drink packets. It has no startup-cost figure yet, and we have no coffee brand. We do not have a number for how much it costs to start a coffee brand, and we will not make one up. We can show that drink mixes can grow quickly: Kajun's first Amazon listing is dated October 2025, and it sold an estimated $470,206 in September 2026.
Pet treats
Wet Noses makes its own dog treats, reportedly in its own facility, so it has no startup-cost figure: a bakery is a different kind of start from a factory order.
Skincare
We have no skincare business in our data yet, so we have no number for how much it costs to start a skincare line. What we can tell you is a regulatory fact. Under the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act, the FDA requires cosmetics manufacturers to register their facilities, and the brand to list each product with its ingredients. The brand must also keep records showing each product is safe and report serious adverse events. Some small businesses are exempt from parts of this.
Jewelry, clothing and candles
We have no businesses in these niches yet, so we have no figures for how much it costs to start a jewelry business, a clothing brand or a candle business. Other sites quote numbers for these. We cannot check where those numbers come from, so we do not repeat them. When we research a business in one of these niches, its figure will appear here.
What decides the cost in every niche
Across the 15 businesses we can price, three things explain nearly all of the spread from $395 to $26,404:
- The minimum order. A printer will run 100 decks. A gift-set factory wants 1,000. The minimum order quantity, multiplied by the unit cost, is the biggest single line for most of these businesses.
- Tooling. Four of the 15 need it, from $1,200 for Songbird's pourer to $9,000 for Draft Top's moulds. A product a factory already makes needs none.
- Launch ads. These are fairly flat across niches, from $268 to $1,714 in our estimates. They are a small share of the total for everything except the cheapest products.
The fixed setup costs barely move. So the cheapest way to start an e-commerce business is a light product that a factory already knows how to make, sold in a small first run.
Is it worth it?
A low start does not mean low returns. The two cheapest tests in our data, Spite House Games and Mount Cleverest, run estimated margins of 41.3% and 50.2%, and Spite House made about $89,989 of revenue in September 2026. Before you commit, check what Amazon's fees would leave on your product with our Amazon FBA calculator. To see how margins look across all the businesses we track, read is Amazon FBA still profitable.