How much does a website cost in India? A practical guide for 2026

“How much does a website cost?” is the question we are asked most often, and the honest answer, “it depends”, is also the least satisfying. So this guide does the next best thing. It explains what a website price is actually made of, so that when quotes arrive you can tell which ones are for the same job, which are missing something, and which are simply padded.

We are a website design and development company in Delhi, so we have an interest here. We have tried to write the guide we would want a friend to read before buying a website from anyone, including us.

Why quotes for “a website” vary so much

A business owner sends the same message to five agencies and freelancers: “We need a website for our company, around ten pages.” The replies range from a few thousand rupees to several lakh. It looks arbitrary, but usually each person has imagined a different website.

The cheapest reply imagined a ready-made theme with your logo and text dropped in. The middle replies imagined a designed site on WordPress with a contact form. The most expensive imagined custom design, copywriting, photography, search engine set-up, integration with your CRM and a year of support. Each price can be fair for what its author pictured. The problem is that nobody wrote down what was wanted.

So the first rule is simple: you cannot compare prices until you compare scopes. The rest of this guide is about the parts of a scope that move the price most.

1. The number of distinct page designs

People tend to count pages, but designers and developers count templates. A template is a page layout: the home page, a service page, an about page, a blog article, a contact page. Once a service page template exists, adding the fifteenth service page is mostly a matter of content.

So a forty-page website built from five templates can cost less than a twelve-page website where every page has a unique layout. When you brief a vendor, list your pages and group them: “one home page, eight service pages that can share a layout, an about page, a contact page and a blog.” That single list removes a lot of guesswork from every quote you receive.

2. Who writes the words and supplies the pictures

Content is the most underestimated part of any website. Someone has to write clear descriptions of your services, your company and your process. Someone has to supply photographs that are not obviously stock images. If you need Hindi or another language as well, someone has to translate and check it.

If you supply finished content, the price falls. If the vendor writes it, the price rises, and so should the quality of the result, because writing for the web is a skill. Many quotes are low because they assume you will supply everything. Then the project stalls for weeks while you try to write twelve pages in between running a business. Ask each vendor directly: who writes the content, and is that included?

3. Features beyond pages

A brochure website shows information and has an enquiry form. Each feature beyond that adds design, development and testing work. Common examples:

• online appointment or table booking;
• online payments through a payment gateway;
• a product catalogue with filters, or a full online store;
• a customer login area;
• integration with a CRM, WhatsApp, an email marketing tool or accounting software;
• multiple languages;
• a careers section that collects applications.

Some of these are small additions. Others, such as customer logins or an online store, move the project from “website” towards “web application”, with very different costs. If you are unsure which side of that line you are on, our article on choosing between a website, web app and mobile app may help.

4. The platform

There are three broad ways to build a business website, and each has a different cost profile.

A hosted website builder is the cheapest way to start. You pay a monthly or yearly subscription and use the builder’s templates. It suits a very small site that rarely changes. The limits show when you need speed, flexibility or features the builder does not offer.

WordPress is the most common choice for Indian business websites. It is flexible, widely understood and easy for staff to edit. The build cost depends on whether the developer uses an off-the-shelf theme or designs custom templates. Running costs include hosting, premium plugin licences if any, and regular updates, because an unmaintained WordPress site is a security risk.

A custom-built site, for example with Next.js and a headless content management system, costs more to build and can be faster, more secure and easier to extend. It makes sense when performance, search visibility and future growth matter enough to justify it.

No platform is “best”. The right one depends on how often your site changes, who edits it, how much traffic and search competition you face, and what you expect to add later.

5. Search engine and performance work

Every vendor will say their websites are “SEO-friendly”. Ask what that means in practice. The basics that affect search visibility include unique page titles and descriptions, a sensible heading structure, structured data for your business and services, an XML sitemap, fast loading on mobile phones, image optimisation, and connecting Google Search Console and analytics in your name.

If you are replacing an existing site, add one more item: a redirect map from every old page address to its new equivalent. Skipping it is one of the most common ways businesses lose Google rankings they spent years building.

Ongoing SEO, meaning content, local listings and link building over months, is a separate service and should be priced separately. Be cautious of anyone who promises first-page rankings by a date; nobody controls that.

6. Who does the work

A freelancer, a small studio and a larger agency will price the same scope differently, and each has trade-offs. A freelancer can be economical and responsive, but your project depends on one person’s availability. An agency costs more and should bring a process, a team that covers design, development and testing, and continuity if someone leaves. Whoever you choose, check who will actually do the work and who you will speak to after launch.

The running costs most quotes leave out

The build is a one-time cost. A website also has running costs, and you should see them in writing before you start:

• Domain name, renewed every year.
• Hosting, monthly or yearly, depending on the platform and traffic.
• Business email, if it is not already set up.
• Licences for premium themes, plugins or a hosted content management system.
• Maintenance: security updates, backups, uptime monitoring and small changes. Our article on what a maintenance contract should cover sets out what to ask for.
• Transaction fees, if you take payments online.

Insist that the domain, hosting, analytics and Search Console accounts are registered in your organisation’s name. A cheap website whose domain belongs to the vendor can become very expensive the day you want to move.

Warning signs in a website quote

• A single price with no list of pages or features.
• No mention of who writes the content.
• No mention of running costs or who owns the domain and hosting.
• A promise of guaranteed Google rankings.
• Full payment demanded before any design is shown.
• No questions asked about your business before the price was sent.

None of these automatically means a vendor is dishonest. Each is a gap you should close in writing before you sign.

How to get quotes you can compare

Before you contact anyone, spend an hour writing a one-page brief:

1. What your business does and who your customers are.
2. What you want visitors to do: call, WhatsApp, fill a form, book, buy.
3. Your page list, grouped by layout.
4. Features beyond pages, as listed above.
5. Who will write the content and supply images.
6. Two or three websites you like, and what you like about them.
7. Your deadline, and why it exists.
8. A budget range, even a rough one.

Send the same brief to every vendor and ask each to show what is included, what is excluded, the assumptions made, the timeline and the running costs. Our guide to scoping a project before asking for quotes goes into more depth, and our checklist for choosing a web development company in Delhi covers what to ask in the first meeting.

How we price websites

We do not publish a rate card, because it would either overcharge simple sites or underprice complex ones. After a short scoping call, we send a written, fixed price against an agreed page list and feature list, with inclusions, exclusions, timeline and running costs stated separately. If what you need is a simple site on a hosted builder, we will say so. You can read more about how we work on our website development page, or send us your brief for a quote.