“How much does a website cost in India?”
It’s the most searched question in this space — and the most dishonestly answered. You’ll find articles quoting ₹5,000 in one tab and ₹5,00,000 in another, with no explanation of what actually drives the difference.
This guide gives you the real numbers. What things cost, why they cost that, what’s worth paying for, and what’s a waste of money for most Indian small businesses.
No filler. No “it depends” without an actual answer.
The short answer
| Type of website | Realistic cost range | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Single landing page | ₹7,000 – ₹15,000 | 3–7 days |
| 5-page business site | ₹13,000 – ₹25,000 | 1–2 weeks |
| Business site with CMS | ₹28,000 – ₹45,000 | 2–3 weeks |
| E-commerce / school / brand | ₹48,000 – ₹80,000 | 3–5 weeks |
| SaaS / custom web app | ₹1,00,000 – ₹5,00,000+ | 2–6 months |
These are honest market ranges for India in 2026 — not agency rack rates, not Fiverr race-to-the-bottom pricing. What a skilled independent developer charges for work that actually performs.
What actually determines the price
Before comparing quotes, understand what drives cost. There are four variables:
1. Number of pages More pages = more design, more content, more development time. A 5-page site and a 15-page site are not the same job.
2. Custom design vs. template A template (Wix, WordPress theme, Shopify preset) is designed once and sold thousands of times. A custom layout is designed specifically for your business. Custom takes longer and costs more — but it doesn’t look like everyone else’s site.
3. Functionality A brochure site with a contact form is fundamentally simpler than a site with a booking system, an admin panel, a payment gateway, or a content management system. Every function added is engineering time.
4. Who’s building it A large agency with 20 employees, an office, and an account manager has overhead to cover. A solo developer working directly with you does not. The work can be identical. The price won’t be.
Breaking down each category
Landing page — ₹7,000 to ₹15,000
A single page. One job: convert a visitor into a lead.
Used for: ad campaigns, product launches, new service offerings, event registrations.
What’s included at this price point from a good developer: custom layout, hero section, offer/service section, social proof, WhatsApp or form-based lead capture, mobile-optimised, fast load time.
What’s not included: multiple pages, CMS, payment gateway, custom logo.
Red flag: Anyone quoting under ₹5,000 for a landing page is using a template and swapping your name in. It will look like a template.
5-page business site — ₹13,000 to ₹25,000
The most common requirement for Indian SMEs. Home, About, Services, Gallery, Contact.
This is the standard for: clinics, salons, CAs, photographers, local tour operators, contractors, coaching centres, and most service businesses.
What a well-built one includes: custom design, WhatsApp-integrated contact form, mobile-first layout, Lighthouse 90+ performance score, basic SEO setup (meta tags, sitemap, schema), free hosting year 1.
The lower end of this range (₹13,000–16,000) is a solo developer working lean. The upper end (₹18,000–25,000) reflects more design complexity, bilingual content, or additional sections.
What to watch: A 5-page WordPress site with Elementor from a local freelancer might cost ₹8,000–12,000. You’ll pay less upfront. But factor in hosting (₹3,000–8,000/year), plugin renewals (₹3,000–6,000/year), and developer time when something breaks. The custom site is cheaper over 3 years.
Business site with CMS — ₹28,000 to ₹45,000
For businesses that need to update content themselves — regularly, without calling a developer every time.
Used for: boutique hotels updating room availability, coaching centres publishing schedules, travel operators adding packages, solar contractors publishing completed project galleries.
The CMS (Content Management System) is a custom admin panel or a headless CMS like Sanity — not a WordPress dashboard buried under plugins. Your staff logs in, edits content, and publishes. Clean, purpose-built, no dev needed.
This range also covers 10–15 page sites for larger businesses: multiple service pages, team pages, project portfolios, regional language support.
E-commerce, school portal, brand site — ₹48,000 to ₹80,000
Full builds. Multiple systems working together.
E-commerce: Product catalogue, cart, Razorpay/UPI/COD checkout, order management, admin dashboard. Built custom — not Shopify, not WooCommerce. You own the stack.
School portal: Public site + admissions panel + admin access for staff. Everything the institution needs, nothing it doesn’t.
Brand site: Logo + identity + full website + storefront. Delivered as one sprint, not three separate projects.
Real example: ChinkiZ Knitting Knife — D2C store for a 600K YouTube creator. Custom video gallery matching her tutorial aesthetic, Razorpay cart, COD support. No Shopify theme. No compromise. Delivered in this price range.
SaaS / web app — ₹1,00,000 and above
If you need user accounts, a database, real-time features, a dashboard, an API, or anything that behaves more like software than a website — you’re in web app territory.
This is a different category of work. Longer timeline, more architecture decisions, ongoing maintenance. The price varies enormously based on scope.
Not the right fit for most small businesses reading this guide. If you’re not sure whether you need a web app or a website — you probably need a website.
Ongoing costs: what nobody tells you upfront
The cost of building a website is a one-time expense. The cost of running one is annual. Know what you’re signing up for.
Domain name: ₹600–1,500/year. You buy this directly — GoDaddy, Hostinger, Google Domains. No markup from the developer.
Hosting: ₹0–8,000/year depending on the platform. Vercel’s free tier handles most small business sites comfortably. Shared hosting (Hostinger, Bluehost) runs ₹2,000–5,000/year. Managed WordPress hosting is ₹5,000–15,000/year.
Maintenance: A well-built custom site needs minimal ongoing maintenance. WordPress sites need someone updating plugins, themes, and the core — budget ₹1,000–3,000/month if you want this done properly.
Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC): Many developers offer this — hosting, uptime monitoring, small edits, SSL renewals — bundled for ₹2,000–3,500/month. Worth it if you’d rather not think about the technical side.
SSL certificate: Comes free with most hosting. Should never cost extra in 2026.
Why quotes vary so wildly
You get one quote for ₹8,000 and another for ₹80,000 for “the same thing.” Here’s why:
Different deliverables. The ₹8,000 quote might be a template install. The ₹80,000 quote might include custom design, CMS, Razorpay integration, and a year of hosting. They’re not the same thing at different prices — they’re different things.
Different quality of code. A Lighthouse score of 55 and a Lighthouse score of 95 are both “websites.” Only one of them ranks on Google.
Different ownership. A Wix or Shopify site means you’re renting. A custom-coded site means you own the code outright.
Different developer overhead. A 10-person agency has rent, salaries, account managers, and project managers to cover. A solo developer has none of that. Same output, meaningfully lower cost.
What you should actually ask before hiring
Not “how much?” — that comes last. These first:
Can I see 3 live sites you’ve built? Not mockups. Not screenshots. Live URLs. Click them on your phone. Do they load fast? Do they look custom or like a template?
What’s my Lighthouse score on mobile? If they don’t know what this is — or say it doesn’t matter — stop there.
Who owns the code when you’re done? You should own it entirely. No lock-in, no proprietary system they control.
What happens if something breaks after launch? Know the fix window (30 days free fixes is standard), what counts as a bug vs. a new feature, and what ongoing support costs.
Do you handle hosting and domain? You should buy your own domain directly. Hosting can be managed by the developer — but you should have access to the server, not them.
The mistake most Indian SMEs make
Optimising for the cheapest upfront number.
A ₹6,000 website that loads in 8 seconds on mobile, scores 50 on Lighthouse, looks like a free template, and has no WhatsApp integration is not cheap. It’s expensive — because it doesn’t do the one thing a website is supposed to do: generate business.
A website is a sales tool. Judge it by what it produces, not what it costs to build.
Where my pricing sits
For reference — since this is my blog and you’re probably here because you’re considering hiring me:
- Landing page: ₹7,000–10,000. 5 days. Custom-coded, WhatsApp-first, Lighthouse 90+.
- 5-page business site: ₹13,000–16,000. 14 days. Everything above, plus SEO basics, free hosting year 1.
- 10–15 pages with CMS: ₹28,000–32,000. 2–3 weeks. Admin panel included, regional language ready.
- School / e-com / brand: ₹48,000–55,000. 3–5 weeks. Custom admin, Razorpay, identity if needed.
GST invoice on first payment. 50% advance, 50% on delivery. Day-5 design preview — if you don’t like it, full refund, no questions.
The bottom line
A website that earns its keep — fast, custom, ranking on Google and readable by AI search — costs ₹13,000 to ₹32,000 for most Indian SMEs. Anything meaningfully below that is a template. Anything meaningfully above it, for a standard business site, is agency overhead you’re paying for.
Know what you need. Ask the right questions. Judge the work by its output.
Have a specific project in mind? WhatsApp me and I’ll give you a straight quote in 10 minutes — no discovery call, no proposal deck.