"How much does a website cost?" is the most common question we get, and the honest answer is: it depends entirely on who builds it and how much of the ongoing work you want to own. The same five-page website for a salon can cost ₹3,000 or ₹3,00,000 depending on the route you pick. This post breaks down every route with real numbers, so you walk in knowing what you should pay and what you should never pay.
We build websites for Indian small businesses for a living, so we see the bills people get quoted every day. Below are honest ranges, not marketing fluff.
The four routes, at a glance
There are really only four ways to get a business website in India:
- Hire a freelancer off a marketplace or a referral
- Hire an agency or a web design studio
- Do it yourself on a builder like Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress
- Use a managed service like Neweb that bundles the build, hosting, domain, and upkeep
Each has a different upfront cost, a different ongoing cost, and a very different amount of your time required. Let us go through them.
Route 1: Hiring a freelancer
Upfront: ₹8,000 to ₹60,000. Ongoing: ₹3,000 to ₹15,000 a year, plus per-change fees.
A freelancer is the most common first choice for a small shop. You find someone through a friend, on a marketplace, or via a local WhatsApp group, and they build you a four or five page site.
The upfront price depends heavily on whether they build on WordPress (cheaper, more common) or hand-code it (rarer, pricier). A simple WordPress brochure site from a competent freelancer in a Tier 2 city runs ₹8,000 to ₹25,000. In Mumbai, Bengaluru, or Delhi, the same work is often ₹25,000 to ₹60,000.
What the quote usually does not include, and where the surprises hit:
- Hosting and domain. Often billed separately, ₹3,000 to ₹8,000 a year, and sometimes registered in the freelancer's name instead of yours. Always insist the domain is in your business's name. We explain why in our guide on picking a domain name.
- Changes after handover. Want to update your menu or add a photo next month? That is often ₹500 to ₹2,000 per change, or the freelancer has moved on and is not replying.
- Speed and SEO. Most freelance WordPress sites are slow on mobile data and ship with no local SEO setup. You get a website, not a website that ranks.
Freelancers are a fine choice if you find a reliable one and you are comfortable owning the upkeep. The risk is the disappearing freelancer, which is more common than anyone admits.
Route 2: Hiring an agency
Upfront: ₹40,000 to ₹3,00,000 and up. Ongoing: ₹15,000 to ₹1,00,000 a year.
An agency gives you a project manager, a designer, and a developer, with a contract and a timeline. For a business that needs a custom look, e-commerce, or many pages, this is the professional route, and the work is usually solid.
The catch is the price and the timeline. A custom agency website takes six to twelve weeks and starts around ₹40,000 for a small studio, climbing past ₹3,00,000 for a polished build with custom design, e-commerce, and integrations. Ongoing retainers for maintenance and SEO add ₹15,000 to ₹1,00,000 a year.
For most small shops, restaurants, and clinics, an agency is overkill. You are paying for a level of customisation a five-page local business website does not need. Agencies make sense once you have real revenue and a specific, complex requirement. A clinic booking system or a restaurant with online ordering across ten outlets is a fair reason. A single salon is not.
Route 3: Do it yourself on a builder
Upfront: ₹0 to ₹5,000. Ongoing: ₹6,000 to ₹30,000 a year. Plus your time.
Wix, Squarespace, and self-hosted WordPress let you build it yourself with drag-and-drop tools. The software cost is low, ₹500 to ₹2,500 a month for the paid tiers you actually need once you want a custom domain and no ads.
The real cost here is your time. Building a decent site yourself takes most first-timers 15 to 40 hours, and that is before you learn anything about SEO, page speed, or mobile layout. If your time is worth anything, the "free" route is not free.
DIY builders also tend to produce slow sites unless you are careful, and they rarely set up the Google Business Profile and citation work that actually brings customers. You end up with a website that exists but does not get found.
DIY is a genuinely good choice if you enjoy the work, have the time, and treat it as a skill worth learning. For most owners who just want customers, it becomes an abandoned half-finished site.
Route 4: A managed service
Upfront: usually ₹0. Ongoing: from $9 a month billed yearly with Neweb ($19 month-to-month).
This is the route we built Neweb for, so treat this section with appropriate skepticism, but the maths is straightforward. A managed service bundles the website, hosting, a free domain for the first year, SSL, Google Business Profile setup, and ongoing SEO and maintenance into one monthly fee.
With Neweb's plans, that starts at $9 a month billed yearly ($108 a year, or $19 month-to-month), and a free plan lets you preview the site before paying anything. You do not pay per change, you do not chase a freelancer, and the SEO and page speed work is done for you and kept up to date.
The trade-off is customisation. A managed service uses proven templates rather than a bespoke design. For a salon, a tuition centre, a clinic, or a local shop, that is exactly right. For a brand that needs a one-of-a-kind look, an agency is still the better fit.
A quick comparison
| Route | Typical upfront | Typical yearly | Your time | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freelancer | ₹8k to ₹60k | ₹3k to ₹15k | Low to medium | Finding a reliable one |
| Agency | ₹40k to ₹3L+ | ₹15k to ₹1L | Low | Complex, custom needs |
| DIY builder | ₹0 to ₹5k | ₹6k to ₹30k | High | People who enjoy it |
| Managed (Neweb) | ₹0 | from $108 ($9/mo billed yearly) | Very low | Local shops, clinics, salons |
The hidden costs nobody quotes you
Whatever route you pick, budget for these, because they are real and routinely left off quotes:
- Domain renewal, ₹500 to ₹1,200 a year, forever. Check ours with the domain checker.
- SSL certificate, free with Let's Encrypt but sometimes billed as an extra. Never pay more than zero for basic SSL.
- Maintenance and security updates, especially on WordPress, which needs regular plugin updates or it gets hacked.
- Copywriting and photos. A website with bad photos and placeholder text does not convert. Budget for a half-day photo shoot.
- The cost of being invisible. The biggest hidden cost is a website that nobody finds because nobody set up local SEO. A cheap site that ranks beats an expensive site that does not.
So what should you actually spend?
For a typical Indian small business, a sensible budget is ₹3,000 to ₹15,000 in the first year, all-in, including hosting and domain. If a quote is far above that and you are not getting custom design or e-commerce, ask what exactly you are paying for.
The single biggest mistake is paying ₹50,000 for a beautiful site that nobody visits. Spend less on the build, and make sure whatever you build is fast, mobile-friendly, and set up to be found locally. That is worth more than any amount of visual polish.
If you want a managed route that bundles hosting, a free domain and the SEO work into one subscription, see Neweb's pricing. If you would rather hire it out, do, just keep your domain in your own name and insist on a fast, findable site.