Pricing
, 3 min read
How much should a small business website cost in India?
Quotes for the same three page website run from ₹2,000 to ₹80,000. Here is what actually separates those numbers, and how to judge a quote you have been given.
Ask four people what a website costs and you will get four answers an order of magnitude apart. That is not because some of them are lying. It is because "a website" describes a business card and a shop with equal accuracy, and almost nobody says which one they are quoting for.
So here is the honest version, with our own prices in it, and the reasoning you can use to judge anyone else's.
The four price bands, and what is really in them
| Price | What you usually get | Worth it when |
|---|---|---|
| Under ₹2,000 | A template filled in, often on a builder you do not control, sometimes with the builder's branding still on it. | You need something online this week and you plan to replace it. |
| ₹3,000 to ₹10,000 | A small site designed around your business, built properly, on a domain and hosting you own. | You are a real business and the site has to look like it. |
| ₹25,000 to ₹80,000 | A larger site, a content system, custom illustration or photography, and several people working on it. | You have more than a handful of pages, or content that changes weekly. |
| Above ₹1,00,000 | Custom software with a website attached: bookings, accounts, integrations, ongoing development. | The site is part of how the business runs, not how it is found. |
Most small businesses need the second band and get quoted the third. The gap between them is rarely quality. It is scope, and scope is the thing you can control.
What actually drives the price up
- Number of pages. Each page is design, writing and testing, and it is the single biggest lever on cost.
- Whether you are selling. A cart, a checkout and a payment gateway roughly double the work of a brochure site.
- Who writes the words. If the studio writes your copy, expect to pay for the hours it takes.
- Photography. Original photos cost real money. Good stock costs less. Bad stock costs you customers.
- How many people touch it. A designer, a developer and an account manager is three salaries on your invoice.
A three page site should not cost more than a seven page site of the same quality. If it does, ask what the difference is buying you.
What should never be an extra
Some things get sold as upgrades that are simply part of building a website correctly. If any of these appear as a line item on a quote, that is worth a question.
- Working properly on a phone. Most of your visitors are on one.
- Loading quickly. Speed is a design decision, not a paid add on.
- Page titles and descriptions. Google reads these on every page.
- Being usable by someone with a screen reader or low vision.
- An SSL certificate. It is free and has been for years.
The costs that are not the website
Two bills exist whoever builds your site, and they should be in your name rather than the studio's.
- A domain name, usually ₹700 to ₹1,200 a year for a .com or .in.
- Hosting, from a few hundred rupees a year for a small site, more if you are running a store.
Pay these directly to the provider. When a studio owns your domain, moving away from them stops being a decision and starts being a negotiation.
How to read a quote
- Ask for the page count in writing. Everything else follows from it.
- Ask what happens after launch, and what a change costs in month three.
- Ask whose name the domain and hosting will be in.
- Ask to see a site they built that is live, and open it on your phone.
- Ask what is not included. The answer tells you more than the price does.
What we charge, and why we publish it
We publish fixed prices: ₹3,000 for a three page starter site, ₹5,000 for a seven page business site, and ₹10,000 for an online store. One time, not deposits. We publish them because the alternative is asking you to book a call to find out a number, and that wastes your afternoon to protect our negotiating position.
That is not the right price for every project, and we will tell you when it is not. If what you need is a booking system or a site with two hundred pages, the honest answer is that it costs more than this, and we would rather say so on a first call than discover it in week three.