Website cost in India by type of build
There are four common ways to get a website in India. They differ in up-front cost, yearly cost and how much you can change later. The ranges are general market patterns, not quotes.
| Option | Up-front cost | Yearly cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Template or website builder (DIY) | Low: a plan fee and your own time | A subscription for as long as the site exists, higher for more features | A simple site you will edit yourself |
| Freelancer | Commonly tens of thousands of rupees | Hosting, domain, fixes billed as needed | Brochure sites with a clear brief and a modest budget |
| Agency | Commonly tens of thousands to a few lakh | Hosting plus a maintenance plan | Businesses that want design, content and project management handled |
| Custom Next.js build | Varies by studio; StackWise starts at ₹34,999 (about US$400) | Usually low hosting, plus optional maintenance | Fast, SEO-focused sites you own outright, with room to add features |
Mumbai follows the same pattern. Agencies in large metros often quote toward the upper end because their overheads are higher, but location tells you little about quality. Compare what is included, not the city. StackWise is a Mumbai software studio working with clients in India and abroad.
What a website quote should include
Two quotes for "a five-page website" can describe very different work. A complete quote covers:
- Design: custom layouts around your brand, or a theme with your logo and colors. Ask how many revision rounds are included.
- Pages and content: how many pages, and who writes the copy and sources the images.
- Responsive build: tested on phones, tablets and desktop browsers.
- SEO basics: page titles, meta descriptions, headings, a sitemap, structured data and fast load times.
- Forms and integrations: contact forms, WhatsApp, booking, a CRM or analytics.
- Launch and support: domain and hosting setup, and how long fixes are included after launch.
- Ownership: whether you get the code, the design files and admin access to every account.
StackWise's Starter Build covers business websites, landing pages and marketing sites: a custom Next.js site designed around your brand, responsive, with SEO and speed tuning and 1 month of support. A typical timeline is 2–3 weeks. See web development for the full scope.
Ongoing costs: domain, hosting and maintenance
The build is paid once. These come back every year:
- Domain: a .com or .in domain usually costs a few hundred to a couple of thousand rupees a year. Check the renewal price, not just the first-year offer.
- Hosting: a mostly static Next.js site is cheap to host, from a free tier where the provider's terms allow it to a modest monthly plan. Heavy server work, large media or high traffic cost more.
- Business email: usually billed per user, per month, by the email provider.
- Maintenance: content edits, security and dependency updates, and small fixes. A builder bundles part of this into its subscription; for a custom site, budget for it or use a maintenance plan.
- Plugins and themes: template sites often rely on paid plugins or themes with yearly renewals.
E-commerce website cost in India
An online store costs more than a business site because there is more to build and test: the catalog and product variants, cart, checkout, payments, order emails, shipping rules, GST invoices, returns and an admin to manage it all.
Hosted store builders get you selling quickly for a monthly fee plus transaction or app charges. A custom store makes sense when you need a checkout flow, catalog structure or integration the builders cannot handle, or when those fees add up as you grow. Payment gateways such as Razorpay or Stripe also charge a fee per successful transaction, so check their current rates. StackWise quotes e-commerce builds after scoping, with a typical timeline of 4–6 weeks.
Does SEO cost extra?
Technical SEO should be part of the build: clean URLs, titles and descriptions, a sitemap, structured data, optimized images and fast load times. Ongoing SEO, meaning content, research and links over months, is a separate service with its own monthly cost.
Speed matters for both search and conversions. A custom Next.js site can pre-render pages and ship little JavaScript, which is one reason businesses move off heavy theme-based sites. The trade-offs are covered in Next.js vs WordPress.
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