There is no standard price, but three bands cover most needs: a website builder for a monthly fee plus your time, a custom marketing site, which at Accendoz typically runs ₹85,000 to ₹3,00,000, and online stores or web apps scoped separately. Then add the running costs.
There is no standard price for a business website in India, but three bands cover most needs. Building it yourself on a website builder costs a monthly subscription plus your own time. A custom-designed marketing site with a content editor and proper technical SEO typically costs ₹85,000 to ₹3,00,000 at Accendoz, depending on page count, integrations and content. Online stores and web applications are scoped separately, and every band carries running costs after launch.
Buyers get confused because one word covers very different products. Two 20-page sites can look identical in a proposal, yet one passes Google's Core Web Vitals on a phone, describes the business in structured data and works with a keyboard and screen reader, while the other does none of these. Those properties are what you are paying for, not the number of pages.
Here is what each band includes, the recurring costs that proposals tend to leave out, and five questions that separate an engineered build from a decorated template.
- Cost of a Google Business Profile, which Google lists among its no-cost tools
- ₹0
- Cost of a Google Business Profile, which Google lists among its no-cost tools
- Monthly price of Shopify's Basic plan in India on yearly billing
- ₹1,499
- Monthly price of Shopify's Basic plan in India on yearly billing
- Razorpay's standard fee per successful domestic payment, plus GST on the fee
- 2%
- Razorpay's standard fee per successful domestic payment, plus GST on the fee
- Google's threshold for a good Largest Contentful Paint
- 2.5 s
- Google's threshold for a good Largest Contentful Paint
01
What a website budget actually covers
A quote usually describes the build. The full cost has two parts: the build, paid once, and the running costs, which arrive every month or year for as long as the site is live. Ask every vendor for both in writing, as separate figures, before you compare.
| Cost item | When you pay | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Design and build | Once | A fixed written quote, the pages and features included, revision rounds, and whether GST is included |
| Domain name | Every year | Registered in your business's name, with your own email as the contact |
| Hosting or platform plan | Monthly or yearly | The renewal price, not only the first-year offer |
| HTTPS certificate | Often free | Let's Encrypt is a free certificate authority, so ask what any SSL fee pays for |
| Payment gateway | Per transaction | The percentage fee, plus GST on that fee |
| Plugins, themes and tools | Usually yearly | Licences held in your name, and what stops working if one lapses |
| Maintenance | Monthly or yearly | Who applies security updates, how fast, and at what cost |
02
The three bands, and what each one buys
Do it yourself. Website builders and hosted shop platforms charge a subscription. Shopify lists its Basic plan in India at ₹1,499 a month on yearly billing, or ₹1,994 paid monthly, and on that plan it adds a 2% fee when you take payments through a third-party provider, on top of the gateway's own charge. The hidden cost is your time, and the ceiling is whatever the template allows.
Custom marketing site. This is the band most service businesses need: a site designed around your services and the enquiries you want, a content editor your team can use, and speed, structured data and accessibility built in from the start. A Kochi dental clinic that wants treatment pages, appointment requests and a Malayalam version, for example, might sit here. At Accendoz this band typically runs ₹85,000 to ₹3,00,000 on a fixed written quote, and a focused site takes four to seven weeks. Other studios price differently, so compare what is included, line by line.
Online stores and web applications. Catalogues, customer accounts, bookings and links to your billing or CRM are scoped individually, because the work depends on the systems involved. Get the full integration list in writing before anyone gives you a number.
03
Why similar-looking sites are priced so differently
The difference sits in work a design mock-up cannot show. Speed on a real phone: Google's Core Web Vitals rate a page good when its main content appears within 2.5 seconds, it responds to taps, clicks and key presses within 200 milliseconds and its layout shift score stays at 0.1 or less, measured at the 75th percentile of page loads, separately on mobile and desktop. Our look at page speed and conversions covers what slowness costs in enquiries.
Structured data: markup in JSON-LD, the format Google recommends, helps search engines understand what a page is about and the business behind it, and Google's Rich Results Test validates it. Accessibility: building to WCAG 2.2 AA is easiest from the first design. Measurement: analytics that count enquiries, calls and WhatsApp clicks, not only visits. Editing: a content editor, often a headless CMS, so your team can publish without calling a developer.
We highly recommend site owners achieve good Core Web Vitals for success with Search
04
The running costs that proposals leave out
Most budget surprises arrive after launch. Check the renewal price for hosting and the domain, which can differ from the introductory offer. Payment fees are percentages: Razorpay's standard plan lists 2% per successful domestic transaction, with 18% GST charged on that fee rather than on the payment, and a hosted shop platform may add its own charge when you use an outside gateway. Ask whether each premium plugin or theme needs a yearly licence to keep receiving updates.
Then there is upkeep. Someone has to apply security updates, check backups and fix forms when an update breaks them; our website security essentials explain why that cannot wait. Plan for privacy work too. India notified its Digital Personal Data Protection Rules in November 2025 with an 18-month phase-in, so most duties apply from May 2027, including a clear, standalone notice whenever you ask people for consent to use their personal data. In January 2026 MeitY asked companies for views on cutting that runway to 12 months, so the date could still move earlier. Your enquiry forms will need attention.
05
Five questions that expose the difference
Put these to every vendor on your shortlist. The answers separate engineering from decoration faster than any portfolio.
- Can I see a live site you built, on my phone? Run it through PageSpeed Insights and read the mobile result first.
- Does its structured data validate? Paste the address into Google's Rich Results Test and look for errors.
- Who owns the domain, hosting, code and analytics at handover? The only good answer is you.
- Is the quote fixed, written and clear about GST? Ask what happens if the scope grows.
- Who applies updates after launch, and what does that cost each year? A site nobody maintains becomes a liability.
06
What to do before you ask for quotes
A clear brief gets you quotes you can actually compare. Before you speak to anyone:
- Write down the three jobs the site must do, such as bringing enquiries, taking bookings or selling products.
- List every integration you need: payment gateway, WhatsApp, CRM, billing or booking.
- Decide who will update the site and how often the content will change.
- Prepare your content early. In our projects, copy, photos and approvals are the most common cause of delay.
- Ask each vendor for the build price and the yearly running cost as two separate figures.
- Keep the domain, hosting and analytics in your own name from day one.
Sources
Plan prices and fees change, so confirm them on each provider's page before you budget.