E-commerce Website Cost in India (2026)
Published prices for an online store in India start around ₹20,000 to ₹35,000 from budget agencies, ₹25,000 to ₹1,00,000 for a freelance WooCommerce build, and ₹1,50,000 to ₹4,00,000 or more from an agency. The yearly running costs matter as much: platform or hosting fees, plugins, maintenance and a payment gateway fee on every sale, plus GST.
An online store costs more than a brochure site for a simple reason: it has to work every time someone pays. Product pages, a cart, checkout, payments, stock, shipping and tax invoices all have to fit together, and every one of them needs testing.
This guide sets out the published build prices for e-commerce sites in India, compares the running costs of the main platforms, and lists the questions that make two quotes comparable. For general website pricing, see our guide to website development cost in India.
E-commerce website cost in India: published bands
There is no independent survey of store prices in India. What exists are prices that agencies and hosts publish. They show scale, not a rule.
| Type of build | Published price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Budget agency store | from ₹20,000 to ₹35,000+ | ThePowerHost, OneCity |
| Freelance WooCommerce build | ₹25,000 to ₹1,00,000 | Hostinger’s cost guide |
| Agency-built store with payments and inventory | ₹1,50,000 to ₹4,00,000+ | Hostinger’s cost guide |
| Website builder store plan | ₹5,000 to ₹15,000 a year | Hostinger’s cost guide |
These are other companies’ prices, not ours. The spread inside each band comes from scope: a store with 20 products and one payment option is a different job from one with 2,000 products, variants and a warehouse feed.
Platform choice changes the yearly bill
The build is a one-off. The platform decides what you pay every year after.
| Shopify | WooCommerce (WordPress) | Custom build | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform fee | Basic ₹1,499 a month billed yearly, ₹1,994 billed monthly (Shopify India pricing) | None; the software is free | None |
| Hosting | Included | You pay for hosting | You pay for hosting or servers |
| Extra fee on sales | 2% on the Basic plan when you use a third-party payment provider (Shopify) | None from WooCommerce | None |
| Paid add-ons | Apps, often monthly | Premium plugins, ₹2,000 to ₹10,000 a year each (Hostinger) | Built to order |
| Best fit | Merchants who want the platform to handle updates | Stores that want full control and already use WordPress | Unusual business rules no platform covers |
Hostinger’s guide puts the total yearly running cost of a WordPress store at ₹10,000 to ₹30,000, before transaction fees. For a deeper platform comparison, see our Shopify vs WooCommerce guide; it is written for the UK, but the trade-offs are the same.
Features that move the price
Each item below adds design, build and testing time:
- product variants such as size and colour, with stock tracked per variant
- GST-compliant invoices and HSN codes on products
- shipping rules by pin code, weight or courier, and a courier integration
- cash on delivery, with rules to limit it where returns are high
- coupons, bundles and customer accounts
- syncing stock with a marketplace, a POS or an ERP
- multiple languages or currencies
Write down which of these you need at launch and which can wait. That list is the single biggest lever on the quote. Also note where your orders will come from: a store that mainly takes repeat orders from existing trade customers needs different features from one that depends on new buyers arriving from Google or Instagram ads.
Payment gateway fees
Every online payment carries a fee from the gateway. Razorpay’s published standard pricing is a 2% platform fee on domestic UPI, cards and netbanking, with no setup fee or annual maintenance charge, and 18% GST on the fee itself. On a ₹1,000 order, that is ₹20 plus GST. Other gateways publish their own rates, and some negotiate at higher volumes.
Our guide to accepting online payments on a website in India compares gateways and the RBI rules on card data.
Running costs every year
| Running cost | Published range or price |
|---|---|
| Store maintenance, larger sites | ₹10,000 to ₹25,000 a year (Hostinger’s cost guide) |
| Hosting for a store | ₹5,000 to ₹15,000 a year for higher-tier plans (Hostinger’s guide); Hostlyx plans are ₹799 to ₹3,999 a year, same at renewal |
| Domain | Hostlyx: .in ₹850 first year then ₹900; .com ₹1,299 a year flat |
| Premium plugins or apps | Varies by store |
| Payment gateway | A percentage of each sale |
Add these for three years and set the total next to the build price. The cheapest build can easily be the most expensive store over that period.
GST on the build
E-commerce development is an IT service, and a GST-registered developer adds GST to the invoice, usually at 18% (9% central tax under Notification 11/2017-Central Tax (Rate), matched by 9% state tax), as CGST and SGST or as IGST depending on where you both are. Our guide to GST on website development and hosting explains this with links to the official notifications. Always ask whether a quote is inclusive or exclusive of GST.
How to keep the first version affordable
The surest way to overspend on a store is to build everything you might need before you have sold anything. A tighter first version usually looks like this:
- Launch with your best sellers. A smaller catalogue with good photos and complete descriptions sells better than a large one with gaps.
- One payment gateway, one courier. Add a second when you have a reason, such as a failed payment rate or a region the first courier serves poorly.
- Use the platform’s standard checkout. Custom checkout flows cost a lot to build and test, and the standard ones are already familiar to buyers.
- Keep integrations for later. Syncing with a marketplace or an ERP can wait until order volume makes manual entry painful.
- Choose a theme you can live with. Customise colours, type and layout rather than redesigning every template.
Then plan the second phase in writing, so the developer can build the first version in a way that does not need undoing later. Ask what the second phase would cost as a separate quote; it keeps the first one honest.
Questions to ask before you hire
- Which platform will you use, and what will it cost me each year after launch?
- How many products, variants and categories does the price cover?
- Who loads the products, writes descriptions and supplies photos?
- Which payment gateway and courier are included, and who opens those accounts?
- Will the store issue GST-compliant invoices?
- Are the domain, hosting or Shopify account and gateway in my business’s name?
- Do I own the theme customisations and any custom code once paid?
- What support is included after launch, and what does it cost after that?
- Is the price fixed, and is GST included or extra?
Getting a fixed quote
Hostlyx builds online stores on WooCommerce, Shopify and custom code from Bengaluru, with every account in your name and the renewal costs written down. Send us your product count, payment and shipping needs, and we will reply with a fixed written quote and a three-year running cost.