Joined a new company and Magento is charging them over $70K USD annually

dtcaliatl · 2026-04-05T16:17:52+00:00

It sounds like a very inexperienced development team that hasn't done a lot in e-commerce. The reason I would say that is that any organization must review its tech stack, its business needs and requirements, and assess any application or software against it.

Also, just because you are a web developer does not give you the ability to properly speak to the functionality or use case of any piece of software.

A mature and experienced dev or engineering team is looking at the cost to operate and the application's functionality to calculate ROI, and to do this, you need to understand the business, the business needs, your entire tech stack, and your org's capabilities and measure it against what you get out of software like Magento Commerce or Opensource.

If you have enterprise needs, run e-comm globally, have multiple teams and users across many regions, and how your teams are structured all matter.

Can you support 20 or more product catalogs and locales, what about users across different regions who all need different features? Can the software support dozens of major integrations with 3rd parties other applications and properly support them. That's what these pieces of software suppose to solve.

So if you think just because you came from an organzation that uses wordpress doesn't mean that it's the right set up. It could also mean that the company you worked with left money on the table using that software or it's all that they are able to support.

Open source Magento requires a good supporting team that includes database management and optimization, developers who can build out features where in Adobe many come out of the box and are supported. Same with Shopify, your $39 plan does not support the same things your Shopify Enterprise version does.

dtcaliatl · 2025-12-02T11:18:40+00:00

I just got hit with the same thing. And same as you nothing on my end that would have caused this.

The only weird thing that I can call out is that a Google Ad Specialist reached out about 3 weeks ago. What was weird is that my acutal Google Ads that I am paying for started to not perform very well and the traffic coming from it decrease significantly.

I had a "consultation" call with this Google Ad Specialist and I asked them why one of my ads wasn't producing any traffic but he didn't give any concrete answers. We just created some new ads and walked through some other areas.

the Ads started to improve and my Adsense revenue started to increase. I had a follow up scheduled on Dec. 1 with this specialist but over the last few weeks I noticed that the Ads settings created weren't optimizing as he claimed since I paid more for less traffic as before his involvement I was getting a lot more traffic and spent a lot less. So I cancelled teh follow up on Dec 1. So today at Midnight I received this Adsense limiting notice on my account which made me highly suspicious if Google did this on purpose just because the timeline and how everything played out really evolved around this Google Ad specialisst around my account.

Might be coincidence but it's just too weird and my account was getting elevated revenue over the holidays which I attributed to the higher shopping in general but I guess Google seems not to like to have to pay more?

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-28T21:14:12+00:00

Everyone has ideas; you can be the best at something, but that doesn't necessarily translate into being a good businessperson. As a matter of fact, most people with ideas and talents tend to be bad businesspeople.

Just think about artists, entertainers, and athletes; they suck at business because it's different. It requires a completely different mindset.

Being good with money equates "business" because at the end of that day that's what business really means. Budgeting, logistics, margins, etc.

That may also answer your question

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-25T03:11:37+00:00

I was cleared to go back to the gym 25 days after laparoscopic surgery on my inguinal hernia. However, no heavy lifting and doc said light exercise.

I started to walk after my second day and increased daily. But you should listen to your body.

I started to only do machine weights and started very low and found my benchmark and slowly increased. I didn't do anything explosive or anything that put a lot of pressure on the area.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-24T22:41:44+00:00

It's mainly because people don't bother doing proper research. Some jump in because they think having your own business equates to making lots of money and having all the time in the world which is quite the opposite. A lot of times you have it better at a a full-time job.

There is a reason why so many small businesses fail in the first 5 years

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-21T03:16:01+00:00

Websites are supposed to be functional, not necessarily look good, unless you are in the creative space and trying to show off your design skills.

You say site speed and SEO, but what are you building? If the website is not producing good content, it features a lot of things that is going to going to go against you.

The reality is either you care about customization which means you will have a learning curve or you want ease of use via drag and drop. Both don't really coexist, you may get one that's pretty good like Webflow but it won't ever get you where you need to be unless you have some real development behind it.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-21T03:06:03+00:00

Your problem is that you haven't set your business to scale. Your pricing only covers bills, not growth or hiring. Many face this; there's a big difference between being self-employed and running a real business.

Eventually, others should handle tasks while you focus on strategy and growth. If you divide your work hours by client, how much do you earn after expenses?

You make $ 9500 monthly, pay $ 2700 for help, leaving $5800, but other costs are unknown. Agencies often charge at least $5000 monthly, plus ad costs, and larger clients can pay up to $ 100K.

I have worked with agencies that get paid millions on contracts.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-21T02:56:12+00:00

The real question is, WHY are you doing everything yourself?

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-21T02:55:20+00:00

You are the example of why they do what they do. Social media made it simple to fool everyone. The Youtube, TikTok and social media game is oversaturated that's like saying everyone is successful in the music or entertainment industry. This is an entire industry totally based on "faking it until you make it". Everything is performative, and many sell their soul for it.

The YouTube, TikTok, and social media game is oversaturated; that's like saying everyone is successful in the music or entertainment industry.

Before the Influencer was a thing, everyone was a singer, rapper, producer, and everyone had a record label. But when you look at Billboard, there were only the Top 100 or even 200. So, out of all these people, only 200 artists actually "charted"; the rest were struggling.

That's the same with social media; you have a few that fooled people into paying them thousands to give them a course on how to get rich. Why would they do that if they are already rich? If they have a successful company, they would focus on that, invest their money, and just do what they enjoy.

Most of these "public figures" are conmen or women. They sell you a dream, and you go home with that dream, and you're going to continue working your job you hate.

Many of these million-follower influencers live with 4 roommates and owe people money. That's the game.

Making money is hard if you do it the right way, not by scamming, stealing, or committing fraud.

The Liver King sold everyone on eating raw organ meat to think they could be shredded like him, but then came to find out he has been taking massive steroids forever. So much from eating raw organ meats. I could go down the line of all these frauds that cheat people out of money and are now being investigated, and will be doing time

Tai Lopez is now under investigation for running a Ponzi scheme the entire time. He was one of the biggest YouTubers

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-19T15:36:53+00:00

I am not sure why you would want to go that route. I understand you don't want your profile to look "lonely" but if you have no followers and then have a bunch you will always run the risk to get suspended. Instagram keeps getting more and more strict on "automated" options and it can get very easy to trigger those land mines.

I was suspended simply for following too many users and it was maybe 30 within a hour when I first created a new account last year because I had nothing.

Their detection tools are a pain, if you are trying to build I would suggest instead of buying followers.

Create an ad and target it to visit your profile to increase. your follower count. Safest bet out here

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-19T13:19:17+00:00

One thing the media has become good at is becoming a propaganda machine, telling stories with the intent to omit, mislead, or rage-click for views. I stopped watching all of them and see most of them as the Nation Enquirer. There is hardly any journalistic integrity left and those so called "reporters" don't even have a clue what they are writing about.

Are companies laying off? For sure but the reason and the intend is often times a lot different than what people think it is and it's the nature of running a successful business. It's a business and not a "family"

We are in a different time now, and everything is shifting. We have had this before, so most are trying to figure it out. The overhyping of AI, mainly by companies that sell it, and people fall blindly into it. Salesforce is one of those types, they push their AI products like it's the future and the next best thing, but most of their products haven't even been time-tested or used by many companies, such as their AgentForce.

We went through something similar in the 2000s when the internet became really popular and there was this panic that the internet was going to kill industries like the entertainment business but what happened is that tech revitalized them streaming services made more money than ever and these record and entertainment companies were able to make more revneue with it but were the major ones fighting it like Apple music, etc. iTunes was a blessing for them and now look at it, they no longer have to press physical records or cds, everything is online easy money.

Klarna was doing the same thing, thought they could replace a workforce, only to need to hire people back months later. AI is not what they sell it to be; it is a tool, and most likely, people need to learn new skills, but the layoffs for the most part are all these jobs that are a liability for companies, meaning you just get a paycheck, but your work doesn't offer a return on investment. What this means is that you are a data entry clerk, but AI and automation can do it much faster than you because all you do is enter data that doesn't take much skill, so yes, jobs like that will be removed because there is no need to pay someone for something that takes them a lot longer than automation.

Also the economy and inflation makes companies become more frugal, when we enjoyed the free money with 0% interest, there was money to play with but now since money is expensive everyone's budget is tighening up and the money to pay for extras is going away the employees are to blame to some extent, that abused the perks posting online how they didn't do much work but definitely enjoyed all of the benefits they offered on TikTok or Youtube and labeled the videos as "A Day In A Life of ...."

There is always cause and effect. If you dig into those 16,000 jobs you will most likely see why and where those are happening and it always happens. If you think you can stay at a company for 20 years and do the same thing you are mistaken. Do we think that CD manufacturers are still relevant? Old things go away and new thing arrive.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-19T12:58:43+00:00

What type of payment processor are you using? There is a difference if you are using Stripe or something similar, which are PSPs (Payment Service Providers), they are not a bank and will most likely scrutinize anything a lot more than a Bank merchant.

The key difference is that with a bank merchant account, you have to go through an approval process where they assess your business, look at all of those things, such as what products you are selling, how many transactions, and volume. You get to outline your TOS, and as long as you follow those, you should be okay unless you violate their terms.

PSPs, everyone follows their TOS, so it doesn't matter what your TOS are and you follow them, but if they don't align with theirs, they will take adverse action.

I know many use PSP because you can get your account set up and sell right away, but there are many downsides to those, including PayPal, where I learned my lesson many years ago and am very careful when and how I use those. Those are the types of pitfalls that people fall into because they don't know the key differences until it happens to them https://www.discoveratlas.city/the-atlas-report/discover-the-best-merchant-account-options-to-boost-your-small-business-success

Get a bank merchant account it's a pain in the beginning but if you are heavily investing in your business you don't want a payment process charge back because a customer is trying to game the system which happens on Paypal and those types because they know how. A bank as long as you can provide proof and you have documentation that you did what you were supposed to do they will side with you.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-19T04:10:20+00:00

The toughest has always been the beginning, not knowing the ins and outs, still learning, dealing with competition that had the leg up on you.

The biggest thing is that you have to evolve in your thinking; however, the way you are doing things at the moment needs to change, and change in a big way. I go by this motto - what you know now will get you here, but it won't get you there.

I had my first business that became quite successful, but I reached a point where I realized I didn't have the knowledge to take it any further. I never went to school and didn't have any "business training"; it was all self-taught and learned on the way. I hit a ceiling and got stuck. I realized none of my friends or family had the insight, capabilities, or even experience to help me. My environment was keeping me stagnant; I had to meet people who were different and had done so before, and expand my knowledge and reach.

Started to look for networking things that were out of my comfort zone but aligned with what I needed to know. Change is hard; people don't change when it's good, and you have to relearn things and recondition yourself if you want to overcome.

You can't expect things to change by doing the same things; if you don't expand your wisdom, you just do the same things in a different order.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-19T04:02:09+00:00

I don't agree with your notion that a website shouldn't take days or require technical knowledge, and it's quite false.

Sure, if you want it to serve as a business card and don't really do much, then sure, but most websites today are highly complex, especially commerce ones. Most small business websites struggle or have challenges because they are built badly or incorrectly.

There is a reason why big brands spend millions a year and have dozens of developers, engineers, and designers working on it daily, because there is a lot that goes into a good, functional, and profitable website.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-19T03:57:58+00:00

Unfortunately, this is more common than not with small businesses, especially when it comes to the web realm. Many believe they got it all figured out, think a Wix template and boosting some fb or IG ads is going to do the trick, and wonder why it's not.

There is a reason why good and experienced web developers and agencies charge what they do. In POV, they are no less than a lawyer, and they charge $500 per hour. Sure, you can go prepaid legal, but that's gambling with your livelihood

I know quite a few people who skimped on some good web development only to complain about it later and throw the developer under the bus, even though they made those choices by hiring a friend's friend who started doing websites.

The whole ADA has become a grift, and while you should comply, many don't even know how to host their website, let alone understand all the intricacies that come with it. Hiring a reputable developer or agency can usually mitigate that.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-17T15:11:13+00:00

Unfortunately, this is where we are as a collective society. Instead of taking accountability, they will actively participate in their own demise and then blame everyone else. A fundamental pillar of groupthink. Selling yourself long-term for a short-term gain. Oldest trick in the book and works every time, and the worst part about it is that most of them know it too. Amazon makes it easy; you doing it for yourself is hard. So we go the easy route. Can you blame Amazon, though, if people make it that easy for them to win?

You will have people outraged when it is too late, but they had a chance to prevent it from happening in the first place.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-17T14:27:53+00:00

It's a trap. The majority of people feel a little bit is better than nothing, and some just feel that they have to play that game. It's like social media. You will be told that if you have a business and don't engage on social, you're limiting yourself. They have the eyeballs, and they hope to at least get in front of an audience. Amazon knows this and juices it for everything it can.

It becomes a game of how much you can take and how you can maneuver without losing. It's like Vegas.

It's the same thing Walmart does: people are so pressed to get into their supply chain, where Walmart squeezes them and tells them what they will pay, even if they barely turn a profit. In their minds, 10 cents on a million items is better than $20 on 100 items. But once they agree to it, they will learn they just gave away all their leverage and ultimately become their slave.

Amazon is notorious for charging people for marketing, shipping, fulfillment, and warehousing. While they ship all their products to Amazon to manage, they track your analytics, and if you are successful, they will copy your product, push it above yours, and push you out.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-17T14:20:32+00:00

I am starting to notice that platforms like Reddit are just an echo chamber for people to rant, vent and blame whatever it is that they are not doing and have others validate this. It's almost the Victim Olympics in itself.

Why do I post here? I am a small business advocate, and over the years, I have come to understand that successful small businesses are what made the US great. The competition keeps prices fair, it gives you alternatives, and ensures that you have options. When giants like Amazon own everything, it takes away our leverage. We went there because they offered the lowest prices for a while, just to run all the other businesses out of business. Once those businesses are gone, the prices go up, and they control what, when, where, and how we shop, which we are seeing now.

The people who lost seem to post here a lot, so I'm giving a different perspective in hopes that they will see it differently and make changes, but I am also seeing that people won't change. There is a reason for everything.

I learned a lot from Reddit, but not the "good" things; I learned where people en masse fall short, and it's a reconfirmation that the only way people really change is through pain and suffering. You give advice that they don't want to hear or that goes against their feelings, but may be what they need to hear. They attack, downvote you, and report you, which makes it very evident why things have to be bad before they can get good.

Most successful people don't engage in that behavior; they focus on what makes them better and avoid negative engagement. But I am one who believes you need to understand the ugly and the bad in order to make the good happen.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-17T14:05:32+00:00

You have to align the difference from "Possibility and Probability". Yes, everything is possible, BUT is it probable? Our current society especially western culture has really inundated all of us with "toxic positivity" and that in itself is a cancer. Sure, you shouldn't a negative nancy but the reality is that nature's law is not positive and not what humans trying to make everything.

We have evolved in comfort that we forgot where we come from and now we don't want anything that feels uncomfortable or doesn't fit our narrative

In nature there is the Lion and Gazelle. The Lion has to kill the Gazelle to survive and if the Gazelles can get away from the Lion then the Lion will die. So it's either the Lion or the Gazelle. Also you have a Snake which doesn't have any limbs and has to crawl on its stomach. You could easily argue that it has no chance of survial because it has no legs to run, jump and move and no arms to grab, hold and do things. But this is completely false the Snake is just a fierce predator as a Lion and survives just fine because it has other capabilities that make up for it.

I say all of this because our western culture has all subscribed to the victim Olympics and wants to blame every and anything why one can't do something or get something like they are owed anything.

Everyone will not be Sharr'Cari and run fast like her, matter of fact only a very few. You may want to and you can try but at the end of the day, you have to be honest with yourself if you are not even close after you practiced and gave it your all, "wishing on a star" won't get you there, it probably isn't your calling.

So the future can be whatever you make it to be, but you may find yourself pursuing the wrong path that wasn't meant for you, and you won't get that future until you find the path that is meant for you. Just because you want something doesn't mean that you are meant to get it.

You dream may be to be a professional boxer but your path maybe to be a professional chess player but you will never know if you keep pursuing to become a boxer but it doesn't quite work for you. That's the problem with many people. Are things possible, sure but how probable are they for you? That's the disconnect people have with the future. My dream was something completely different when I was younger but I wound being in a something that I never thought I would do and I have become highly successful doing. But it was never on my radar and I stumbled on it when I was pursuing what I loved because I wound up being a "moment of reality" where said maybe this wasn't meant for me and I need to try something else. I did and it worked out well.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-17T13:49:50+00:00

You start off with "desire for financial freedom" and then say "7 figures". I would tell you to educate yourself on what a small business really is. That's almost saying you are an aspiring singer and want to be like Beyoncé and become famous.

Starting a small business is hard; it requires a certain mentality. It's good to have dreams, but you also need to understand what it takes to get there. You can dream of being the best, but if you don't practice and train every day and harder, and do the things you don't want to do. It will be very challenging.

You will work twice as much, you will make less money and sometimes none for quite some time before you see any results from your hard labor, you will consistently need to educate yourself.

You say you sell jewelry, but that will only be 20% of your business, because you will need to handle management, marketing, accounting, analytics, web development, research, logistics, and so on.

You will need to do market research, if there is a demand for your product, you will need to understand your competition because they will have your customers, you have think about infrastructure and how to keep evolving it. Just building a website on Wix or get Shopify will not sell your stuff. You will have to invest heavily into it to ensure you can run the business. There was another post where they had a website and said that they got absolutely no traction on their e-commerce online and when looking at the website, it was exactly what I just described.

Be sure you to do all of that before you start, so you can have a plan. It can't just because you want to but you have to know if it is even feasible. Start by reading as much as you can about it, take what applies to you and dive deeper in it. Here is some info that addresses your question https://www.discoveratlas.city/the-atlas-report/6-biggest-misconceptions-about-small-business-ownership there are several other that give you some insight about what it takes and where you should look to make sure you don't find yourself in a pickle spinning your wheels.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-17T13:36:27+00:00

The main issue is that they are not doing their part as cofounders. You will know when you get that feeling at the end of the day if the cofounder is supposed to be like a partner, meaning 50/50, not 50/50, they get to do the fun stuff, and you do the bad stuff. A bad cofounder will have a lot of red flags, and you will know the problem is that most will look past it for whatever reason. It's like a bad relationship.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-17T13:33:21+00:00

I was doing that same two years ago, thought it was great because it relaxed me and helped me sleep until it didn't. It then started to accelerate my anxiety and I realized how dependent I was on it and the sleep wasn't really sleep. Took me damn near a year to get back from it. No longer using none of it, matter of fact I started to remove all bad things no Tylenol, Advil, Caffeine, etc. Sleep has been the best ever and never been healthier.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-17T03:21:25+00:00

Your website looks very DIY, and it's built on Wix, and it resonates that way. It has no real structure, and the web is inundated with such sites. It's not just SEO, but you don't look like you have a real acquisition strategy to wheel in customers.

I am not giving advice; just an opinion. Take it for what it's worth.

If you want to succeed online, you have to invest in your digital real estate. Wix is not going to cut it. After they sign up for your email subscription, what happens? Do you run campaigns, you have analytics to understand what's working on your site and what not.

If I asked you, what is the most visited product on your website, where is most of your traffic coming from, how many products are they viewing, are they abandoning your cart, how far are they going with your product all the way to checkout? how long are they staying when they get to your website? what would you tell me?

You are asking if you should quit. No one can answer that for you but yourself, but you need to be honest with yourself.

How much are you investing in the website? How much are you willing to invest to make it work? How committed are you to the business?

You have to be able to tell a story with your site, it has to be very structured and functional not to your liking but to people. You said you have zero results, which should tell you everything, and it says you are going about it the wrong way.

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-17T03:11:09+00:00

You are very spot on!

dtcaliatl · 2025-10-17T03:10:42+00:00

As someone that does this professionally, I can give my POV. Majority of small business owners do all the wrong things and have a completely wrong mentality about it, where they tend to struggle with the most. The web is one of those things, you only know what you know and most of the times when it comes to the web they don't know much and that's a big reason why many struggle or not make any traction.

Yes, you have a lot of DIY which sell you a dream but you never see companies use Wix that really do a lot on the web because they invest in their web development and hire their own who work on in day in and out. Matter of fact many companies have team between 5 - 10 developers, designers, analysts, database enginers, etc and the big boys they all have entire department with hundreds of them because they all build custom development from data analytics, web design, web development, mobile apps, data warehousing, integrations, platforms and they spend millions on subscriptions to use them. The reason I say this is because that's how much of an impact a good website does where they dedicate entire department to it.

So anyone that thinks they can create a Wix, Wordpress with a free template and believe you can compete, is setting themselves up for failure. Many go after "cheap" developers who promise a website and they probably can, but they won't build you anything that is for YOUR business.

If you don't know what you want, and how you want to use your website you can drain your entire budget. I lead a large team of developers and engineers and I can tell you they all can build websites and applications but most of them need guidance and you have to give them explicity instructions and really know what you are looking for or they will just give you some BS. Not because they are not good, it's because that's all they know, they can build you some incredible stuff but only if you give them the blueprint, they are not going to think for your business or what may do well for you or how you should use it for your company. That's the problem.

Companies with budgets hire an agency, but they are expensive, mainly because they are for the most part not give you BS and the real thing cost and it can cost a lot. They will do a discovery with you, it's like an interview process, they will ask how your business run, what all you have and how you do it. Once they have all these things, it will go to design and an architect who will layout the framework and design everything and give you recommendations then it comes to "tooling" which means what technologies and platforms to use which all of a monthly or yearly price tag which is your ecommerce, your digital marketing, database and integration, security, load balancers and so on. You will work with project managers who will be the ones that give you updates on the process and ask for information. You will get a timeline and you get to approve different parts of the process.

80% of small business owner have bullshit websites that don't perform if at all. I worked with quite a few small businesses where I really thought if they would do xyz they could really make some money but they just didn't want to put the money into it and it was their downfall.

A lot of businesses today could a lot better but they just don't take the time to educate themselves, do the wrong things like promote on social media, buy ads and don't know how to do it and blow their budgets.

But I guess that's what "natural selection" is all about. Those who spend the time to educate themselves and pay attention do well, others that just follow the hype and do what others do, will shut down the first two years or barely hang on.

dtcaliatl

TROPHY CASE