In 2026, most Indian businesses should budget roughly ₹50,000–₹2 lakh for a professionally built 5–10 page website, ₹1.5–10 lakh for a corporate or B2B site, ₹75,000–2.5 lakh for a first Shopify store and ₹5 lakh upward for a custom web app. These are indicative market ranges, not quotes. Then set aside 15–25% of the build cost every year for hosting, maintenance and content, because that is what keeps the site earning.
Key takeaways
- The same “10-page website” can honestly cost ₹25,000 or ₹4 lakh; the difference is strategy, original design, copywriting, integrations and who is accountable after launch.
- Budget for the whole first year: build, plus domain, hosting, email, licences, content and maintenance, plus 18% GST on Indian invoices.
- Content (copy, photography, product data) is the most commonly forgotten cost and the most common cause of delay.
- Brief every bidder with the same one-page document and compare quotes line by line, not by the total.
- Save money by phasing features, not by cutting speed, tracking, content quality or ownership of your accounts.
How much does a website cost in India in 2026?
A website in India costs anywhere from about ₹10,000 for a freelancer-built landing page to ₹60 lakh or more for a custom web application built by a full-service agency or engineering firm. The table shows typical 2026 market ranges by website type and by who builds it.
| Website type | Usually includes | Freelancer | Small studio | Full-service agency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Landing page | One page, enquiry form or WhatsApp button, tracking | ₹10,000–40,000 | ₹30,000–1 lakh | ₹75,000–2 lakh |
| Small business website | 5–10 pages, theme or light custom design, editable CMS, forms | ₹20,000–75,000 | ₹50,000–2 lakh | ₹1.5–4 lakh |
| Corporate or B2B website | 15–50 pages, product catalogue, RFQ forms, CRM link, two or more languages | ₹75,000–2 lakh | ₹1.5–5 lakh | ₹3–12 lakh+ |
| Portfolio or brand website | Original design, case studies, motion, CMS | ₹25,000–1.5 lakh | ₹1–4 lakh | ₹2.5–10 lakh |
| Ecommerce store (Shopify or WooCommerce) | Theme setup to custom theme, gateways, COD rules, shipping, apps | ₹30,000–1.5 lakh | ₹1–5 lakh | ₹3–15 lakh |
| Custom web app or portal (MVP) | Logins, dashboards, workflows, integrations | ₹2–8 lakh | ₹5–25 lakh | ₹15–60 lakh+ |
These are indicative 2026 Indian market ranges, not a quote and not a gaa-tha price list. They exclude 18% GST, domain, hosting and paid third-party software. Treat the ranges as a sense check: a quote far below the bottom of a range usually leaves something out, and one far above should explain what extra it delivers.
Why do freelancers, studios and agencies quote so differently?
Quotes differ because you are buying different amounts of strategy, design, writing, engineering and accountability, not just “a website”. A website is effort in disguise: a 10-page site with original design and written content is typically 60–150 hours of discovery, structure, copy, design, development, testing and launch work.
- Freelancer. One person, often strongest at one skill, usually development or design. Lowest cost and direct contact; you supply content, project management and decisions, and you depend on one person’s availability.
- Small studio. Two to ten people covering design and development, sometimes copy. A good middle ground for brand and small business sites; check who handles content and what happens after launch.
- Full-service digital agency. Strategy, branding, copywriting, photography, development, SEO and marketing under one roof. Higher cost, but one accountable team and a site connected to the campaigns that will send it traffic.
- Product engineering firm. Larger engineering teams for web apps, portals and SaaS. Strong process and scale; often more than a marketing site needs.
Indicative hourly rates help explain the spread: experienced Indian freelancers often charge somewhere around ₹500–2,500 an hour and agencies a blended ₹1,500–4,000, depending on seniority and city. International buyers, including our clients in Canada, usually find Indian quotes well below North American rates; compare scope, seniority and time-zone overlap rather than the hourly number. Our guide on choosing a website and app development company covers each provider type in depth.
What drives the cost of a website?
Ten factors decide most of a website’s price, and the first three usually matter most.
- Number of unique templates, not pages. Fifty product pages on one template cost far less than ten pages that each need a different layout.
- Design originality. A configured theme, a customised theme and a fully original design in Figma are three different price points.
- Content. Whether the provider writes the copy, plans the structure and produces photography, or you supply everything.
- Integrations. CRM (Zoho, HubSpot), ERP or Tally, payment gateways such as Razorpay, the WhatsApp Business API, booking systems, maps and search each add scope and testing.
- Platform. Custom code costs more to build and less to run; WordPress, Shopify and Webflow the reverse. See custom vs WordPress vs Shopify vs Webflow.
- Languages. Hindi, Gujarati, Arabic or French versions need translation, hreflang and layout testing.
- Motion and interactivity. Scroll animation, video, 3D or configurators add design and performance work.
- Ecommerce logic. Bundles, COD rules by pincode, B2B pricing, subscriptions and custom checkout flows.
- Quality bar. Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA), Core Web Vitals targets, structured data and cross-device testing take time that cheap quotes skip.
- Timeline. A hard launch date that compresses a six-week project into three adds people and cost.
What does it cost to run a website each year?
Running a typical small or corporate website in India costs a few thousand rupees a year at the minimum and ₹1–6 lakh a year with active maintenance and content. A useful planning rule is 15–25% of the build cost each year.
| Recurring item | Indicative 2026 range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Domain (.com, .in, .co.in) | Roughly ₹500–1,500 a year | Register in your company’s name; renewal prices can differ from first-year offers |
| Hosting: static or Jamstack | Free tier to a few thousand rupees a month | Cloudflare, Vercel, Netlify or Firebase; costs rise with traffic and team seats |
| Hosting: shared or managed WordPress | ₹3,000–40,000 a year | Managed hosting adds backups, caching and security |
| SSL certificate | Usually free | Let’s Encrypt or Cloudflare; paid certificates are rarely needed |
| Business email | Per user per month | Zoho Mail, Google Workspace or Microsoft 365; check current pricing |
| Platform plans and licences | Varies | Shopify or Webflow plans, premium plugins, themes, fonts, a headless CMS |
| Maintenance or care plan | ₹3,000–50,000 a month | Updates, backups, monitoring, small edits; scope varies widely |
| Content, SEO and AEO | ₹15,000–1 lakh+ a month | New pages, articles, FAQs and search optimisation |
All figures are indicative and change with providers and exchange rates. Tools billed in US dollars, which includes many SaaS products, move with the rupee, so check the billing currency.
What does a realistic first-year website budget look like?
A realistic first-year budget adds the build fee, one-off extras and twelve months of running costs, then adds GST. Here is an illustrative example for a mid-sized manufacturer commissioning a 20-page English and Gujarati B2B website from a small studio or agency. The figures are hypothetical planning numbers within the indicative ranges above, not a quote.
| Line item | Illustrative amount |
|---|---|
| Design and development (custom-coded, product catalogue, RFQ form linked to the CRM) | ₹2,50,000 |
| Copywriting and Gujarati translation | ₹50,000 |
| Factory and product photography (one day) | ₹40,000 |
| Domain, hosting and business email for a year | ₹15,000 |
| Care plan, twelve months (₹3,500 a month) | ₹42,000 |
| Subtotal | ₹3,97,000 |
| GST at 18% on services billed in India | About ₹71,500 |
Notice that the build is under two-thirds of the first-year cost, and running costs land at about 23% of the build fee, inside the 15–25% planning rule. Owners who budget only for the build fee end up launching without photography, with half-translated pages, or with nobody to fix the contact form when it breaks. Budget the whole year from day one.
What hidden costs do website quotes leave out?
The costs most often missing from website quotes are content, licences, third-party usage fees and post-launch changes. Ask about each before you sign.
- Copywriting and translation. Many quotes assume you supply final text; writing 15 pages yourself takes weeks.
- Photography and video. Product, factory, team and project shoots, or licensed stock images.
- Font and asset licences. Commercial web font licences are separate from desktop licences.
- Premium themes, plugins and apps. Often annual subscriptions, not one-time purchases.
- Usage-based fees. WhatsApp Business API message charges, SMS (which in India needs DLT registration), Google Maps API, transactional email and payment gateway fees.
- Data migration. Moving products, blog posts, customers and redirects from an old site.
- Legal and compliance pages. Privacy policy, terms and cookie consent suited to India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act and, for overseas visitors, GDPR or Canada’s privacy laws.
- Change requests. Anything outside the written scope is billed separately; an unclear scope makes this the biggest overrun.
- GST. Indian invoices add 18% GST; check whether a quote is inclusive or exclusive.
- Rebuild risk. If the code or accounts are not in your name, changing providers can mean paying for the site twice.
What do ecommerce stores, apps and custom web apps cost?
Ecommerce stores and web apps cost more than brochure sites because they carry business logic, integrations and data, and they need more testing.
Ecommerce stores
A Shopify store on a well-chosen theme with Indian gateways, COD rules, shipping and tracking sits at the lower end of the ecommerce range; a custom theme with bundles, a kit selector, a pincode checker and a one-click checkout such as GoKwik sits higher; a headless storefront can run from about ₹10 lakh to ₹40 lakh or more. Plan for the Shopify subscription, apps and gateway fees on top. Read Shopify website cost in India and see Shopify development.
Mobile apps
Apps are a separate budget line with their own store accounts, backend and release cycle; see mobile app development. Our mobile app development cost guide breaks this down, and does your ecommerce brand need an app? helps decide whether you need one at all.
Custom web apps, portals and SaaS
Dealer portals, customer dashboards, booking systems and SaaS products are priced by features and integrations. Build an MVP with the smallest feature set that proves the idea, then extend it. See custom software development and the SaaS product development guide.
How do you brief a website project to get accurate quotes?
Send every provider the same one-page brief; accurate quotes come from clear inputs, and a shared brief makes quotes comparable.
- Business and audience: what you sell, to whom, in which cities or countries.
- The site’s job: enquiries, sales, recruitment, investor information, showing work. Name the one action that matters most.
- Pages and templates: a draft sitemap, with page types marked (home, service, product, case study, blog, contact).
- Content: what exists, what needs writing, whether photography is needed.
- Features and integrations: forms, WhatsApp, CRM, catalogue, payments, booking, languages.
- Examples: three sites you like and why, and one you dislike.
- Platform preference and who will edit the site after launch.
- Budget range and deadline. Sharing a range saves weeks; good providers will tell you what fits within it.
How do you compare website quotes fairly?
Compare quotes line by line against your brief, because two totals rarely describe the same work.
| Check | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Scope | Number of templates and pages, revisions included, and what counts as a change request |
| Content | Who writes copy, who sources images, who enters content into the CMS |
| Design | Theme, customised theme or original design; mobile designs shown before build |
| Quality | Speed targets, accessibility, cross-device testing, structured data, analytics and form tracking |
| Ownership | Domain, hosting, code and logins in your name; source code handed over |
| Timeline and payments | Milestones tied to approvals, not dates alone; no 100% advance |
| After launch | Warranty period for defects, training, care plan price and scope |
| Taxes and extras | GST, licences, third-party fees and hosting stated separately |
Then look at live sites each provider has built, test them on your own phone and run them through PageSpeed Insights. A cheaper quote that excludes content and tracking is often the more expensive project.
Where can you save money on a website, and where should you not?
Save by reducing scope and phasing features; never save on the things that make the site work after launch.
Sensible savings: launch with the pages that earn enquiries and add the rest later; use a quality theme for a first Shopify store; write first drafts yourself and pay for editing; reuse brand assets and existing photography where they are good enough; defer a second language until the first converts.
False savings: skipping copywriting, buying the cheapest hosting, leaving analytics and lead tracking “for later”, letting the developer own the domain or code, ignoring mobile speed, and skipping a maintenance plan on WordPress. Each of these costs more to fix than to do properly.
gaa-tha does not sell fixed website packages. We scope each project after a short discovery call and send an itemised proposal that separates build, content, licences and running costs, so you can compare it with any other quote. See website development, portfolio and brand websites or SEO, AEO and GEO for what each covers.
Frequently asked questions
A basic 5–10 page business website typically costs about ₹20,000–75,000 from a freelancer, ₹50,000–2 lakh from a small studio and ₹1.5–4 lakh from a full-service agency in 2026. These are indicative market ranges, not quotes. The difference is mostly design originality, copywriting, integrations and support after launch.
A custom website includes original design, structure and code built for your business, while a template site adapts a design someone else made. Custom work takes more hours of design and development but usually loads faster, fits your content better and avoids paying for features you do not use.
Yes, website design and development services billed to Indian clients attract 18% GST. Quotes are often shown before GST, so confirm whether a figure is inclusive. Services exported to overseas clients are generally zero-rated when the provider files a Letter of Undertaking.
Website maintenance typically costs ₹3,000–15,000 a month from a freelancer or small studio and ₹10,000–50,000 a month from an agency, depending on scope. A good care plan covers updates, backups, security monitoring, speed checks and a set amount of content changes each month.
No. Pay in milestones tied to approvals, for example an advance on signing, a payment on design approval, a payment on staging or testing, and the balance on launch. Keep a final payment for after the domain, code and logins have been handed over to you.
A landing page takes about a week, a corporate or brand website two to five weeks, and a larger site with catalogues or multiple languages six to eight weeks. Content and approvals, not development, usually decide the timeline.
Usually yes on rates, but compare the full scope, seniority of the team and working-hour overlap rather than the hourly figure. Insist on the same contract essentials as at home: written scope, milestone payments, and code and accounts in your name.
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