How Much Does a Business Website Cost in India? A Practical Budget Guide

If you have asked three developers to quote for a business website, you have probably received three very different numbers. One person says ₹8,000, another says ₹40,000, and an agency sends a proposal for ₹2 lakh. None of them is necessarily wrong. They are quoting for different things, and most quotes do not make that clear.

The short answer: a simple, professionally built information website for an Indian small business usually costs somewhere in the low tens of thousands of rupees to build, plus a few thousand rupees a year to keep online. Sites that take payments, bookings or logins cost considerably more, because they are closer to software than to a brochure. The rest of this guide explains where your money actually goes, so you can tell a fair quote from a padded one and plan for the costs that come after launch.

One note on numbers: the ranges below are indicative. They come from published price lists, including our own packages, and they move with scope, location and who builds the site. Treat them as a way to sanity-check quotes, not as fixed market rates.

Start with the job the website has to do

The biggest factor in cost is not design or page count — it is what the website is expected to do. Most business websites fall into one of five groups.

Type	What it does	What pushes the cost up
Information site	Explains who you are, what you offer and how to reach you. Typically 4–10 pages.	Number of pages, custom design, writing the content
Lead-generation site or landing page	Persuades a visitor to call, WhatsApp or fill a form.	Copywriting, form integrations, tracking set-up
Catalogue or booking site	Shows products or services and lets people enquire or book a slot.	Booking logic, calendar sync, admin panel
E-commerce store	Lets customers pay online and you manage orders.	Payment gateway, inventory, shipping, tax invoices
Web application	Logins, dashboards, customer portals or internal tools.	Custom features, security, testing, ongoing development

A dentist who wants patients to find the clinic, see the services and tap a WhatsApp button needs an information site. The same dentist wanting patients to book and pay for appointments online needs a booking system, which is a different project with a different budget. Being clear about this before you ask for quotes saves you from comparing apples with oranges.

Four ways to get the site built

1. Do it yourself with a website builder

Builders such as Wix, Squarespace or Hostinger's builder let you assemble a site from blocks for a monthly or yearly subscription. The build costs you time rather than money. This works well for very small businesses that are comfortable writing their own content. The trade-offs are that you are tied to that platform, and that design and SEO quality depend on your own effort.

2. A template customised by a professional

A developer starts from a proven design and adapts it to your brand, content and features. Because the structure already exists, most of the budget goes into your content, branding and integrations rather than reinventing layouts. For most small businesses this is the best value. Our template library works this way: you pick a design and we build it out with your content.

3. A custom-designed website

A designer creates the look from scratch and a developer builds it. You pay for discovery, design rounds and more development time, so the cost rises. It makes sense when your brand needs to stand apart, or when your content does not fit any existing layout.

4. A custom web application

If your "website" needs user accounts, dashboards, complex bookings or integration with internal systems, it is really a software project. These are usually priced by the feature or by time, and the budget is typically several times that of a brochure site. We cover planning for this in our guide on turning a SaaS idea into a working product.

What actually drives the build price

Once you know which type of site you need, these are the things that move a quote up or down.

• Number of unique page layouts. Ten pages that share two layouts cost less than five pages that all look different.
• Who writes the content. Writing clear service descriptions, and sourcing photos, is real work. Many low quotes assume you will supply finished text and images. Ask.
• Functionality. Forms, WhatsApp click-to-chat, maps and galleries are routine. Online payments, booking calendars, member areas and multi-language support each add meaningful work.
• Integrations. Connecting to a CRM, an accounting tool or a delivery partner's API takes development and testing time.
• Performance and SEO set-up. A fast, mobile-friendly site with correct titles, descriptions, structured data and a sitemap takes more care than one that merely looks right. Google indexes the mobile version of your site first (Google Search Central), so mobile quality is not optional.
• Revisions and timeline. Unlimited revisions or a rushed deadline will be priced in, openly or not.

The running costs most quotes leave out

The build is a one-time cost. A website also has recurring costs, and a surprising number of quotes do not mention them.

Domain name

Your .in, .co.in or .com address is renewed every year. Registrars often advertise a low first-year price, and renewal is higher. Compare the renewal price, not the promotional one, and make sure the domain is registered in your business's name and login. .in domains are administered by the National Internet Exchange of India (registry.in), and you buy them through accredited registrars.

Hosting

Shared hosting for a small static or WordPress site is inexpensive. Dynamic sites, online stores and web apps need more capable hosting, and the cost rises with traffic and with the resources the app needs. Ask your developer what hosting the site needs, and whose account it will live in.

SSL certificate

Every site should load over HTTPS. Most hosts now include free certificates from Let's Encrypt, so you should rarely need to pay for one on a small business site.

Business email

An address like hello@yourbusiness.in looks more trustworthy than a Gmail address. Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 charge per user per month. Some hosting plans include basic mailboxes.

Maintenance

Someone has to update software, fix things when a browser or plugin changes, renew certificates and take backups. Either budget a yearly maintenance fee or agree on an hourly rate for changes. WordPress sites with many plugins need more regular attention than simple static sites.

Third-party services

Payment gateways charge a fee on each transaction; check the gateway's current pricing page before you plan your margins. The official WhatsApp Business Platform (the API, as opposed to the free WhatsApp Business app) charges for certain template messages, based on the message category and the recipient's country (Meta's pricing documentation). Booking widgets, email marketing tools and premium plugins usually come with subscriptions too.

GST

If your developer is GST-registered, their invoice will normally add GST on top of the quoted price. Web development is generally taxed at 18% in India. Check whether a quote is "inclusive" or "plus GST", and confirm the tax treatment for your business with your accountant (see the CBIC GST portal for the official rate schedules).

Hidden costs and red flags

Low quotes are not always bad, but these patterns often mean you will pay later:

• The developer owns the domain or hosting account. If the relationship ends, you may lose your website or your email. Insist that both are in your name, with your login.
• "Free hosting for life". This is usually paid for some other way: through lock-in, an inflated renewal fee or a slow server.
• No mention of content. If the quote does not say who writes the text and supplies the photos, assume it is you.
• Unclear revision limits. Agree on how many rounds of changes are included before work starts.
• Paid plugins and themes in someone else's name. Licences need renewing. Know what is used and who pays.
• No handover. You should receive admin access, and the source files or a backup, when the project ends.

Custom or template: how to decide

A customised template is the right choice when your goal is a credible, fast, mobile-friendly site that generates enquiries, and your content fits a standard structure. Restaurants, clinics, salons, gyms, consultants and local service businesses usually fall into this group. You get a proven layout at a lower price, and you launch sooner.

Custom design earns its higher cost when your brand is a core part of what you sell, your content is unusual, or the site has to support workflows no template anticipates. A middle path works well too: start with a customised template, measure what visitors actually do, then invest in custom work where the data shows it will help.

A realistic budgeting checklist

Before you ask anyone for a quote, write down answers to these questions. Sharing them with every developer also makes their quotes comparable.

• What is the one action you want visitors to take (call, WhatsApp, form, book, buy)?
• Which pages do you need, and do you already have the text and photos for each?
• Do you need payments, bookings, logins or any integration with existing tools?
• Who will own and pay for the domain, hosting and email accounts?
• Who will make small text or price changes after launch, and how quickly do they need to happen?
• What is included: design rounds, content writing, basic SEO set-up, training, support period?
• Is GST included or extra?
• What are the yearly costs after the first year: domain, hosting, maintenance, subscriptions?

Add the one-time build cost to two or three years of running costs. That total, not the build price alone, is what the website really costs you.

A worked example (hypothetical)

Consider a hypothetical physiotherapy clinic in Pune that wants six pages: home, about, treatments, team, FAQ and contact. It wants WhatsApp enquiries, Google Maps and a contact form, but no online payments. It already has photos, and needs help writing the treatment descriptions.

That is an information site with light copywriting, which is well within the scope of a customised template. The yearly costs would be a domain renewal, small-business hosting and, optionally, a business email account. The decision that matters most here is not the design — it is making sure the treatment pages clearly answer what patients search for, and that the site loads quickly on a phone.

If the same clinic later wants patients to book and prepay sessions, that is the point to budget for a booking system. It is better to plan that as a second phase than to pay for it on day one, before you know whether patients will use it.

What Stackquil charges

For transparency, our own packages are published on our pricing page. They currently start at ₹6,999 for a five-page website, with business and premium tiers for more pages and features such as payments and an admin panel. Each package lists what is included, so you can compare it line by line with other quotes. You can also read more about what we build, or browse examples for specific industries.

Frequently asked questions

Can I get a good business website for under ₹10,000?

Yes, for a straightforward information site built from a template, provided you supply most of the content. You should not expect custom design, online payments or extensive copywriting at that price.

Is WordPress cheaper than a custom-coded site?

Often it is cheaper to build, because of the large ecosystem of themes and plugins. It can cost more to maintain, because plugins need regular updates and occasionally conflict with each other. A lean, well-built site of either kind can serve a small business well.

How long does a small business website take?

Once the content is ready, a template-based site can often go live within one to two weeks. Waiting for content is the most common cause of delay, more often than development itself.

Do I need to pay for SEO separately?

Basic on-page SEO should be part of any professional build: page titles, meta descriptions, headings, a sitemap, fast loading and mobile friendliness. Ongoing work such as content creation and local SEO is a separate, continuing effort, and it is usually priced separately.

The bottom line

A business website's cost depends far more on what it has to do than on how many pages it has. Define the job first, compare quotes that cover the same scope, insist on owning your domain and hosting, and budget for the yearly costs as well as the build. Do that, and you will be in a much better position to judge whether a quote is fair, whoever you hire.