How much does a UX audit cost for a small online store in 2026
A UX audit costs US$500 to US$1,750 from a freelance expert, US$1,800 from an agency and $7,000 from Baymard, going by prices published on 3 October 2026. Once real testers are involved, the price turns on recruiting, the hours spent watching sessions and the written report, and on how much of that work lands on you.
Going by the published prices we checked on 3 October 2026, an expert review of your store costs US$500 to US$1,750 in the freelancer offers listed on Contra, US$1,800 at an ecommerce agency and $7,000 for Baymard’s checkout audit. Once real people have to be recruited and watched while they shop, the orders of magnitude published by MeasuringU move into the thousands: a moderated study with five to eight people sits between $10,000 and $25,000 (2018 figures).
The gaps come mostly from what actually gets done. An expert walking through your site alone is not the same job as recruited people trying to buy while a team watches every session. Here are the published prices, then what moves them, then what each option leaves on your plate, and finally how to choose without buying the wrong thing.
Published prices, by type of service
Every amount below appears on the provider’s own page, as published on 3 October 2026. We kept only displayed prices, because a price available on request cannot be compared.
| Type of service | Published example | Listed price | What the page says you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expert review by a freelancer | Two UX audit offers on Contra | $500 and US$1,750 | A report and ranked recommendations. The first lists about 5 days and a 10 to 15 minute recorded walkthrough. |
| Agency audit | Netalico, UX audit for Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce | US$1,800 | A report, prioritized fixes, a roadmap, a kickoff call and a review meeting. Delivered in 5 to 10 business days. |
| Specialist expert audit | Baymard Institute, Checkout UX Audit | $7,000 | Checkout on desktop and mobile: a 40 to 50 page report, 15 to 20 suggestions, two scorecards benchmarked against 343 sites, a one-hour video call. |
| Credit-based testing platform | Userfeel | Free with 3 credits a month, then from $3,000 a year (50 credits, $60 per credit) | A 20-minute unmoderated session costs 1 credit. Recruiting, tester incentives, transcription and AI analysis are included in the credit. |
| Done-for-you service with testers | YuzuTrace (our service) | US$397, US$797 and US$1,997 | US$397: a functional check by our team, no testers. US$797: one journey, 5 testers. US$1,997: three journeys, 15 testers. A written report in all three. |
Our prices are a one-time payment in US dollars. As a rough guide, at the Bank of Canada rate for 2 October 2026 (US$1 = C$1.4246) and the European Central Bank rate for the same day (€1 = US$1.1225), US$397 is about C$570 or €350, US$797 about C$1,140 or €710, and US$1,997 about C$2,840 or €1,780. Taxes may apply depending on where you are.
The details of our three options, turnaround included, are on our pricing page.
What makes the price vary
Recruiting. Finding people who look like your customers costs money, and the narrower the profile, the more it costs. In its article on what a usability test costs, MeasuringU puts one recruited person for an unmoderated study at $7 to $10 for a general consumer profile, and $40 to $100 for a specialized one. For a moderated study, recruiting firms charge $100 to $300 per qualified person, plus a project management fee. An expert review has no such line: nobody is recruited.
Analysis time. Five 20-minute sessions are a hundred minutes of video before the first note. Then someone has to rewatch the unclear moments, write down the exact words, group what repeats and rank it by severity. This is often the longest part, and it is the part a platform leaves to you.
Number of journeys. Checkout, product search, booking an appointment: each journey is its own test. Adding testers to the same journey, on the other hand, pays off less than you would think. Jakob Nielsen estimates that a first test with five users finds 85% of the usability problems, and recommends three tests of five over one large one. So the price follows journeys more than headcount.
Devices. Testing on desktop and on a phone means preparing two contexts. MeasuringU notes that testing across several platforms takes more time to set up and a larger sample.
The deliverable. Raw videos and a transcript, or a written report that says what to fix first: the price difference shows up as hours of work on the other side.
What the price covers, and what it leaves to you
With an expert or an agency, you get a reasoned opinion on your site, measured against known good practice. You still write the brief, attend the scheduled calls and sort through the recommendations. What you do not get is what someone who has never seen your site actually does in front of it: the expert infers it, and does not observe it.
On a platform, Userfeel’s page states that recruiting, tester incentives, transcription and AI analysis are included in the credit price. The rest is yours: writing the scenario and the instructions, choosing the profile, watching the recordings, deciding what matters and explaining it to your team. For a small store with no researcher in house, that time is the real cost.
With us, you pick the journey and your customers’ profile (language, device, age, comfort with technology). A more precise profile, such as a job or an industry, is a separate recruitment, offered only as a custom order with its own quote. We recruit real people, mostly in Canada, who test in English, French or Spanish, only in the language they know best, on their own device. They get a goal, never the steps, and think aloud. Our team watches every session in full and writes the report. You watch no video.
The report is a PDF. Each finding is ranked by severity (critical, major, minor), with the device, how many testers hit it, what they did and said in their exact words, and a suggested fix. The bugs from the functional check are added to it. You can read a complete example, ten findings on a fictional store, in our sample report. What is left for you: applying the fixes.
How to choose, honestly
A platform is the better fit if someone on your team knows how to write a test and has time to watch the sessions, or if you plan to test often over the year. Userfeel’s paid plans are annual, and the price per session drops as volume goes up. For a first try, there is a free plan.
A freelancer is the better fit if your budget is tight, if your store has not launched yet or gets very few visitors, or if you want a quick expert look at the whole site. Keep in mind that it is one person’s judgement, not your customers’ behaviour.
Baymard’s audit makes sense when checkout is the main concern and you want a detailed comparison with a large set of major sites. An agency makes sense if you want a point of contact, meetings and a roadmap.
A done-for-you service with testers is built for when you want to see real people who match your customers run into your site, without spending your evenings on it. If what you mainly suspect is a breakdown (a payment that fails, a form that does not send), the US$397 functional check is enough: our team checks one feature end to end, on desktop and phone, and every bug comes with the steps to reproduce it. If you want to know why people leave, you need testers. The most common reasons people abandon at checkout are covered in our article on the full cart that gets abandoned.
If you cancel before recruiting starts, you get a full refund. If the tester profile you asked for cannot be found, you choose: wait, widen the profile, or take a full refund. The three options and their turnaround are on our pricing page.
Sources
Provider prices taken from their own pages, with no intermediary. Exchange rates published by the central banks.
- Contra, Full UX Audit, Health Check & Action Plan. Freelancer UX audit at $500, about 5 days.
- Contra, UX audit. Freelancer UX audit at US$1,750.
- Netalico, Professional UX Audit for Shopify Magento BigCommerce Stores. US$1,800, delivered in 5 to 10 business days.
- Baymard Institute, Checkout UX Audit. $7,000 for desktop and mobile, 343 benchmark sites.
- Userfeel, Pricing. Plans, credit price, 20-minute session at 1 credit, what the credit includes.
- MeasuringU, How Much Does a Usability Test Cost? (Jeff Sauro, 2018). Ranges by type of study, recruiting costs, the effect of multiple devices.
- Nielsen Norman Group, Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users (Jakob Nielsen, 2000). 85% of problems with five users, three small tests rather than one large one.
- Bank of Canada, daily exchange rates. US$1 = C$1.4246 on 2 October 2026.
- European Central Bank, euro reference exchange rates. €1 = US$1.1225 on 2 October 2026.
Prices and rates read on 3 October 2026. Other providers’ prices can change at any time, and only their own page is authoritative. Amounts are reproduced as displayed, in dollars. MeasuringU’s ranges date from 2018 and describe studies run in the United States: read them as orders of magnitude, not as a quote.
Five testers who match your customers, one written report.
US$797, one-time payment. Our team watches every session in full and hands you a report with every obstacle ranked by severity and a suggested fix, in 7 to 10 business days.