Turnkey Marketplace Development on CS-Cart: Vendors, Commissions and Payouts Out of the Box
We launch product and service marketplaces on CS-Cart Multi-Vendor: vendor panels, moderation, order splitting and payouts work from day one. A fixed price and timeline; the server and maintenance are on us.
from $4,870 turnkey · launch in 6–8 weeks · 50+ marketplaces launched
Cart-Power in numbers
projects in Russia and abroad
We have launched 50+ marketplaces
experienced specialists on the team
Best marketplace, Tagline Awards 2021–2022
Types of marketplaces
The easiest place to start is what you sell: the subject of the deal shapes the product page, the order and the settlements with vendors. Find your group, then we will look at how deeply the platform takes part in the deal.
Products
You sell physical goods
- Niche marketplace: one category, precise filters and features
- Multi-category marketplace: dozens of verticals and a shared catalog
- D2C brand platform: a manufacturer and its official dealers
- Wholesale B2B marketplace: companies, specifications, deferred payment, documents
Our marketplaces: Ingremart for wholesale ingredients, Desert for confectionery, Elit for medical supplies
Services and makers
You sell people’s work
- Service marketplace: repairs, education, beauty, healthcare
- A platform for makers and freelancers: handmade and independent specialists
- A request, booking and confirmation by the provider instead of a cart
- Provider verification, ratings and a safe deal are a must
Our marketplaces: Event.top for event services, Mokulima for handmade jewelry
Rentals and time-based access
You sell time, not a thing
- Booking of services, tours and events
- Rental of equipment, machinery and vehicles
- Venues, spaces and accommodation
- You need an availability calendar, deposits and cancellation rules: a regular cart does not work here
Our marketplaces: Touristo.ai for booking services in Montenegro, Comfortcar for car rental
Digital goods and subscriptions
You sell things that need no shipping
- Courses, education, access to content
- Software, templates, licenses and keys
- Subscriptions, renewals and recurring charges
- No logistics at all: commission is higher than for goods and the launch is the fastest
Our marketplaces: store.cart-power.com, our own store of licenses and add-ons
How deeply the platform takes part in the deal
The second dimension, and it is the one that defines the scope, timeline and plan. A makers’ niche can be a listing board built in six weeks or a platform with payouts and disputes: the work differs several times over.
Showcase and listings
The platform connects people, the deal happens outside it
- Catalog, search, vendor pages and their contacts
- A request or a jump to the vendor instead of an order
- Listing moderation and paid promotion
- No cart, commissions or payouts
Revenue: listing fees, boosts in search, banners
MVP plan · launch in 6–8 weeks
Marketplace with the deal
The customer’s money goes through the platform
- One cart and one payment for several vendors
- Commission and vendor plans
- Payouts, the platform’s balance with each vendor, statements
- Returns, reviews and ratings
Revenue: commission on each order plus vendor plans
Turnkey plan · launch in 10–14 weeks
Managed marketplace
You are responsible for the whole deal
- Split payments and an agent model for payments
- Holding funds until confirmation and dispute resolution
- Fulfillment, your own warehouses and logistics
- Paperwork with vendors and product compliance
Revenue: commission plus paid platform services
Multi-niche or Custom · from 4 months
Choose a model and explore its specifics
We will walk you through the marketplace models that fit your idea: eight types of platforms, seven revenue models and nine internal systems, from vendor panels, moderation and the catalog to payouts, payments and disputes.
We reply by email within one business day.
Marketplaces we have launched
Want the same result?
Get a specialist consultation on your project
An overview of the systems that work out of the box
CS-Cart Multi-Vendor is not a storefront builder but nine ready-made systems that together run the platform, from onboarding a vendor to paying them out. More than 500 tools come with the license and work right after setup, before a single custom add-on.
Vendors and their panels
Who sells on the platform and how
- Onboarding application and document check
- Their own login: products, orders, stock, reports
- Plans and terms for different vendors
- Statuses: active, pending, disabled
- Messaging between the platform and the vendor inside the system
Catalog and products
How the shared catalog works
- Categories, features, filters
- Product variations and options, bundles
- One product from several vendors, from the Plus edition
- CSV import and export, import templates
- Stock per vendor, and warehouses from the Ultimate edition
Moderation and rules
What gets onto the storefront
- Pre-moderation of products and new vendors
- Rules: what is published at once and what goes to review
- Blocking categories and products for specific vendors
- Bulk actions on product pages
- Product change log
Orders and shipping
How the deal goes
- One cart and one payment for several vendors
- The order is split: each vendor has its own items and status
- Each vendor has its own shipping terms
- Real-time carrier rates and pickup points
- Returns, exchanges and cancellations
Money: commissions and payouts
How the platform earns
- Commission by vendor plan, and by category from the Plus edition
- Paid vendor plans and listing fees
- Accounting of accruals, deductions and balances
- Payout history and statements per vendor
- 70+ payment methods
Storefront and customer trust
Why customers buy from you
- Search, filters, comparison, favorites
- Reviews and ratings of products and vendors
- Questions to the vendor before purchase
- Customer account: orders, addresses, returns
- A responsive storefront, and a mobile app from the Plus edition
Marketing and SEO
How to attract and retain
- Discounts, promo codes, promotions and reward points
- Order emails and newsletters to customers
- SEO-friendly URLs, meta tags, sitemap, structured data
- Banners and editable blocks on the home page
- Subscriptions and abandoned carts
Analytics and reports
What the owner sees
- Sales by vendor, category and product
- Commission and payout reports
- Vendors’ own reports in their panel
- Google Analytics tracking
- Data exports for ERP and BI
Administration and integrations
What everything runs on
- Staff roles and permissions, action log
- Languages, currencies, and multiple storefronts from the Ultimate edition
- Open source code without restrictions
- REST API and webhooks
- Exchange with ERP and accounting systems
Anything the box does not cover, we build around your processes, from vendor settlements to integrations with your systems.
Four plans for the size of your marketplace
The price includes the Multi-Vendor license, a premium theme, add-ons, server setup and the move to production. Multi-Vendor licenses are yearly subscriptions; perpetual options are below.
Test the niche
Multi-Vendor Standard + UniTheme2
MVP marketplace
Launch, bring in the first vendors and test demand without investing everything at once.
from $4,870
license and theme included · launch in 6–8 weeks
- Multi-Vendor Standard license: $725 a year
- A premium theme and the storefront, catalog and vendor panel built on it
- Server: installation, SSL, backups, monitoring
- Vendors: sign-up, plans, commissions, permissions
- Two payment methods and three shipping carriers, order splitting
- Terms for vendors and customers, privacy policy
- Google Analytics with goals, go-live and training
Most popular
A working marketplace
Plus + 7 add-ons + app
Turnkey
A full marketplace with moderation, payouts, a mobile app and integrations.
from $9,850
app for customers and vendors · 10–14 weeks
- Everything in MVP, plus:
- Multi-Vendor Plus: one app for customers and vendors
- Brand design: home page, catalog, product page, vendor panel
- Vendor agreements, plan periods and plan restrictions
- SMS notifications to vendors and a knowledge base for your staff
- Hiding customer contacts from vendors, so turnover stays on the platform
- Integrations: ERP or CRM, product feeds
Several niches
Ultimate: storefronts, warehouses, source code
Multi-niche
Several storefronts for different niches or regions, warehouses, complex commission rules.
from $20,430
premium vendor support · 4–6 months
- Everything in Turnkey, plus:
- Multi-Vendor Ultimate: storefronts for niches and regions
- Multiple warehouses and shipping rules
- Your own commission and plan rules by category
- Extended accounting and logistics integrations
- Performance tuning for load and load testing
- Mobile app source code
Your own logic
Built from scratch
Custom
A non-standard model: services, booking, rentals, your own vendor settlements.
from $26,400
estimate after the brief · from 6 months
- Business analysis, UX design and your own design from scratch
- Your own monetization model and vendor settlements
- Booking, rentals, services, digital goods
- High load and a fault-tolerant setup
- A dedicated team and a development roadmap
What each plan includes
Scroll the table sideways to compare the plans →
| Parameter | MVP test the niche | Turnkey most popular | Multi-niche several storefronts | Custom your own logic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Launch time | 6–8 weeks | 10–14 weeks | 4–6 months | from 6 months |
| Turnkey price | from $4,870 | from $9,850 | from $20,430 | from $26,400 |
| Multi-Vendor license | Standard, $725/yr | Plus, $1,449/yr | Ultimate, $3,599/yr | chosen for the task |
| Storefronts | one | one | as many as you need | as many as you need |
| App for vendors and customers | — | included in the license | included, with source code | your own, built for the task |
| Vendor management add-ons | — | 7 add-ons | 7 add-ons | as needed |
| Design | theme in your brand style | custom design of the key pages | design of every storefront | unique design from scratch |
| Warehouses and stock | — | — | included | included |
| Accounting integrations | basic | ERP or CRM | extended | any |
| Server setup | included | included | included, tuned for load | fault-tolerant setup |
| Warranty after launch | 100 days | 100 days | 100 days | 100 days |
| Maintenance | from $80/mo | from $160/mo | from $320/mo | by agreement |
Hosting is paid directly to the hosting provider: around $60 a month for a marketplace.
Launch a marketplace in 2 months?
An MVP version gets your project live in the shortest time
What the price is made of
Software at our store prices, work at $30 per hour. General-purpose add-ons cost twice their base price on any Multi-Vendor edition, because they are licensed for a larger setup.
MVP marketplace
- Multi-Vendor Standard license: $725 a year
- UniTheme2 theme: $249
- Work, 122 hours: $3,660
- Reserve for small changes: $236
Turnkey
- Multi-Vendor Plus license: $1,449 a year
- UniTheme2 theme: $249
- Eight vendor add-ons: $540
- Work, 238 hours: $7,140
- Reserve for small changes: $472
Multi-niche
- Multi-Vendor Ultimate license: $3,599 a year
- UniTheme2 theme: $249
- Vendor add-ons: $540
- Speed-up pack: $360
- Work, 490 hours: $14,700
- Reserve for small changes: $982
Custom
- License edition: chosen for the task
- Add-ons: as the project needs
- Work, from 800 hours: from $24,000
- Risk reserve: 10%
Subscription or perpetual license
The main difference from a store: Multi-Vendor licenses are sold as a yearly subscription, but the higher editions have a perpetual option. Features and license prices of each edition: CS-Cart Multi-Vendor editions compared.
| Edition | What it gives | Yearly subscription | Perpetual | Pays back in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | A quick MVP launch: 500+ features, full code access, standard customer care | $725 | — | — |
| Plus | Extended vendor management, 70+ payment methods for vendors, one app for customers and vendors | $1,449 | $3,590 | 1.5 years |
| Ultimate | Storefronts for niches and regions, warehouses, mobile app source code, premium customer care | $3,599 | $7,990 | 1.5 years |
| Unlim | Everything in Ultimate, a lifetime license, five years of updates and of mobile app source code | — | $19,990 | — |
A simple rule: if the marketplace lives longer than about a year and a half, the perpetual license is cheaper. Moving Plus to perpetual costs $2,141 on top of the first year’s subscription and saves $1,449 every following year. So it makes sense to start on a subscription and switch to perpetual after the first year.
What a marketplace costs per year
An example for the Turnkey plan: a 100-day warranty, then Standard maintenance. On a perpetual license the second year comes to $2,640.
First year
The Turnkey plan, then maintenance after the warranty
- Launch: $9,850
- Hosting, 12 months: $720
- Maintenance, 9 months: $1,440
- Total: $12,010
Year two and after
Subscription renewal, hosting, maintenance
- Multi-Vendor Plus license: $1,449
- Hosting, 12 months: $720
- Maintenance, 12 months: $1,920
- Total: $4,089
What marketplaces add
Prices are for the Multi-Vendor edition: general-purpose add-ons cost twice as much as on Store Builder Plus because they are licensed for a larger setup. Add-ons built only for marketplaces have their own price, the same for every Multi-Vendor edition.
Working with vendors
- Vendor agreements: $120
- Vendor plan periods: $60
- Vendor plan restrictions: $60
- Vendor’s minimum order amount: $60
- SMS notifications to vendors: $60
- Hiding customer info from vendors: $60
- Staff knowledge base: $60
- Profile types for users and vendors: $60
Growth and promotion
- Smart search on Elasticsearch: from $35/mo
- SEO pack: $660
- Product statistics and sales funnel: $300
- Speed-up pack: $360
For your project
- Split payments and vendor settlements: by estimate
- Product card matching: by estimate
- Fulfillment and warehouse logic: by estimate
We study your task, research the market, propose tools and a work plan. We write the requirements and sign the contract and an NDA.
We build all the functionality on the back end and the front end, integrate external services and do the initial SEO setup.
What you get besides the code
All of this comes with every plan at no extra charge.
One point of contact for timelines, scope and questions.
The scope and the price are fixed.
You see every step of the project in real time.
Your project is a trade secret and stays private.
We fix bugs after launch free of charge.
Development, design, QA, SEO, content.
Marketplace maintenance
The first 100 days are a warranty included in every plan. After that the marketplace needs updates, server monitoring and development as the number of vendors grows.
Basic
$80 per month
2 hours of work per month
- Uptime and disk space monitoring
- Daily backups with restore checks
- Platform security updates
- Reply within two business days
Most popular
Standard
$160 per month
5 hours of work per month
- Everything in Basic
- Add-on and theme updates for new versions
- Small changes to the storefront and panels
- Reply within one business day
Premium
$320 per month
10 hours of work per month
- Everything in Standard
- Four-hour response to an outage
- 50% off all add-ons in our store
- A technical audit and development plan every quarter
Tell us about your marketplace and we will prepare a proposal
The marketplace model, vendors and commissions, catalog, payments and payouts, logistics, integrations. Answer only what is clear; we will clarify the rest on a call.
We reply within one business day.
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Client reviews
From $4,870 for an MVP: this includes a yearly Multi-Vendor Standard license ($725), a premium theme, server setup and 122 hours of work. A full marketplace with a mobile app, moderation and payouts starts at $9,850. A multi-niche platform with storefronts and warehouses starts at $20,430. The exact figure comes after the brief.
Multi-Vendor licenses are sold as a yearly subscription: Standard at $725, Plus at $1,449, Ultimate at $3,599. Plus and Ultimate also have a perpetual option that pays back in about one and a half years. The logic is simple: start on a subscription, and once the marketplace proves itself, switch to perpetual.
The platform grew out of high-load marketplace projects: hundreds of vendors and hundreds of thousands of products are a normal scenario. The limit is usually not the platform but the server: for growth we tune caching, set up search on Elasticsearch and run load tests.
The platform keeps an account for each vendor: accruals from orders, the commission withheld and the platform’s balance with them. The money itself is split in one of two ways: you take the whole payment and then pay vendors out, or the payment service splits the amount right away (split payments, for example with Stripe Connect). The second option removes the question of holding other people’s money and is added as a separate integration.
It depends on the settlement model. If the money goes through the platform, it usually acts as an agent and issues the document on behalf of the vendor. With split payments the vendor can issue it. Settle this with your accountant before development: the model defines what exactly we integrate.
Yes, individuals are common vendors in services and handmade. Take into account the rules for individual sellers in your country and verify them at sign-up. The vendor mix affects the paperwork, and therefore the scope of integrations.
Three things: hiding customer contacts from the vendor, messaging only inside the system, and real value of the service: fast delivery, a return guarantee, safe payment. The first two are covered by add-ons, the third by your own rules.
An MVP takes six to eight weeks, a turnkey marketplace ten to fourteen, a multi-niche platform four to six months. The timeline depends on how ready your content is and how fast approvals go; everything that depends on us is fixed in the contract by stage.
A 100-day warranty comes with every plan. Then maintenance: monitoring, backups, platform and add-on updates, small changes, from $80 a month. The Premium plan adds a four-hour outage response and 50% off add-ons in our store.
We do not write a marketplace from a blank page. We take a platform where vendor panels, commissions, moderation and payouts already work, and configure it for your model. That is why the launch takes weeks rather than years and costs several times less. We build custom only what the platform really lacks.
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