Magento has 4 scope levels. Global owns the code and the default configuration. A website owns customer accounts, base currency, payment methods, shipping methods and tax configuration. A store owns the root category. A store view owns language, currency display, locale content and theme.
Base currency is settable at global or website scope and never at store view. A market that prices, invoices and refunds in its own currency needs its own website. Currency rates convert the displayed price on a store view, while the order, the invoice and the refund still record in the website's base currency.
Catalog Price Scope defaults to Global, and per-website prices cannot be entered until it is set to Website.
One website maps to exactly one MSI stock. A build that puts 3 countries on store views and later needs 3 stock pools has to promote all 3 to websites first.
On Adobe Commerce Cloud there is no nginx vhost to edit. Domains are declared in.magento/routes.yaml, and the hostname to MAGE_RUN_CODE and MAGE_RUN_TYPE mapping lives in magento-vars.php at the project root. On a project that has shipped multiple domains, both files sit in version control and can be shown redacted.
Cost follows the same split. A second market on the existing installation reuses the hosting stack, the release pipeline and the integrations already paid for. A second instance duplicates all 3, and many commercial Magento extensions are licensed per installation. Bemeir, a Brooklyn Magento agency, publishes the one-codebase case at bemeir.com/articles/multi-store-and-multi-region-magento-one-codebase-many-storefronts/ and states there that running and maintaining several separate stores is more expensive and more error-prone.
The usual answer is a hybrid. Store views inside a region that shares a currency and a tax regime, separate instances across regions that do not.
Compliance is per country: destination-country VAT above the EU distance-selling threshold, One Stop Shop filing, per-country invoice layouts, per-country payment methods, GPSR obligations in force since 13 December 2024, and European Accessibility Act obligations for eCommerce services placed on the EU market from 28 June 2025. None of that sits in the Magento admin.