Quick answer: in 2026, a business website in India costs anywhere from ₹20,000 for a template build to ₹20,00,000+ for a complex custom platform. Most small and mid-sized businesses land between ₹60,000 and ₹2,50,000 for a site that is professionally designed, fast, and built to generate enquiries.
"How much does a website cost?" is usually the first question we hear — and the honest answer is "it depends on what the website has to do." A brochure site that just needs to exist is a very different project from a site that has to rank on Google, convert visitors into leads, and plug into your CRM. This guide breaks down the real price bands in the Indian market, what pushes a quote up or down, and the costs nobody puts in the proposal.
The four price bands in the Indian market
| Tier | Typical price | What you get | Right for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Template site | ₹20,000–60,000 | A pre-built theme with your logo, copy and photos dropped in. 5–8 pages, basic contact form. | Getting online fast when budget is the main constraint. |
| Semi-custom business site | ₹60,000–2,50,000 | Custom design on a proven framework, mobile-first build, on-page SEO, analytics, CMS so your team can edit. | Most SMBs that expect the website to bring in enquiries. |
| Fully custom build | ₹2,50,000–8,00,000 | Ground-up design and development, conversion strategy, integrations (CRM, WhatsApp, payments), performance tuning. | Established businesses where the website is a primary growth channel. |
| Platform / e-commerce | ₹8,00,000–20,00,000+ | Large catalogues, custom user accounts, dashboards, multi-language, heavy integrations and ongoing engineering. | E-commerce at scale, marketplaces, funded startups. |
Prices exclude GST. City matters less than it used to — a Gurgaon agency and a Coimbatore freelancer can quote the same project three lakh apart based on process, not postcode.
What actually drives the price
- Number of unique page designs. Ten pages that reuse three layouts cost far less than ten bespoke layouts. Ask for the count of unique templates, not pages.
- Custom design vs. theme. Original design is roughly 30–40% of a custom project's cost — and the main reason two quotes differ.
- Content. If the agency writes your copy and sources visuals, expect ₹3,000–8,000 per page. "Client provides content" is the most common cause of stalled projects, so decide this early.
- Integrations. CRM, WhatsApp Business API, payment gateways, booking systems — each adds development and testing time.
- SEO foundations. Proper heading structure, schema markup, Core Web Vitals optimisation. Cheap builds skip this, and retrofitting costs more than doing it right the first time.
- Who you hire. Freelancers are cheapest but single-threaded; studios add process and accountability; large agencies add account layers you may not need.
The costs nobody mentions in the proposal
- Domain: ₹800–2,000/year (.in and .com are similar).
- Hosting: ₹3,000–30,000/year for most business sites; more for heavy traffic.
- Maintenance: ₹2,000–15,000/month for updates, backups, security patches and small changes.
- Licences: premium plugins, fonts or stock imagery can add ₹5,000–25,000/year.
- Redesign cycle: most business sites need a meaningful refresh every 3–4 years. Amortise that into your budget.
Template or custom: how to decide
Ask one question: is the website a cost or an asset? If it just needs to exist so customers can find your address, a template is genuinely fine — spend ₹40,000 and move on. If it is expected to produce leads, a custom, conversion-focused build almost always wins the maths: a site that converts 3% of visitors instead of 1% pays its own premium back within months of decent traffic.
How to brief a web project without overspending
- Lead with business goals ("30 qualified enquiries a month"), not feature lists. Let the builder propose the how.
- Fix the page/template count in writing — scope creep is where budgets die.
- Ask who owns everything — domain, hosting, code, content. (At Dansborg Partners, the client owns all of it, from day one.)
- Ask for performance commitments: Lighthouse scores, mobile experience, load time.
- Compare quotes on what's included — SEO, content, integrations, post-launch support — never on the bottom-line number alone.
The bottom line: pay for outcomes, not pages. A ₹1,50,000 website that generates enquiries every week is cheap; a ₹40,000 website nobody finds is expensive.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average cost of a business website in India?
Most SMBs spend ₹60,000–2,50,000 for a professionally built site. Template sites start around ₹20,000; complex custom platforms run into tens of lakhs.
What are the ongoing costs after launch?
Domain renewal (₹800–2,000/year), hosting (₹3,000–30,000/year) and maintenance (₹2,000–15,000/month) are the recurring essentials.
How long does a business website take to build?
Template builds take 1–3 weeks. Semi-custom sites typically run 4–8 weeks. Fully custom builds and platforms run 8–16 weeks or more, driven mostly by content readiness and integration complexity.