What an e-commerce website costs in India

What an e-commerce website costs in India depends on the cost lines you add up: the platform, design, apps and extensions, payment gateway fees, shipping, development, content, compliance and your own team's time. The platform fee is often the smallest of these, so compare options on the full yearly total. For reference, ShopenUp Growth is ₹25,000 a year plus GST, and custom work is INR 199 an hour with a 150 hour minimum, paid after you accept it.

Why quotes vary so much

Two merchants can ask for "an online store" and get quotes that differ many times over. One means forty products on a template with prepaid orders only. The other means three thousand variants, COD rules, dealer pricing and Tally sync. Both are fair quotes for different things. The way to get a useful figure is to list what your store must do, then cost each line.

Use your own numbers throughout. Plans, fees and rates change, and anything quoted on a blog goes out of date.

One time costs

Setup and design

Choosing and configuring a theme, setting up the brand colours and fonts, building the home page and key landing pages. On a hosted platform this can be a few days of work. A fully custom design takes longer and costs more. On ShopenUp, mobile themes work on day one, and custom storefront branding is built for you as custom work.

Catalogue setup

Writing titles and descriptions, setting up variants, categories and tags, and uploading photos. This is usually the largest hidden cost, because it is your team's time. A catalogue of a few hundred products with variants can take weeks.

Photography

Your own phone and a window cost almost nothing. A professional shoot costs more and may be worth it for best sellers. See product photography on a budget.

Migration

If you are moving from another platform, budget for moving products, customers, orders and URL redirects so you keep search traffic. See migration.

Custom features

Anything the platform does not do natively: Tally or ERP sync, subscriptions, dealer portals, returns workflows, multi warehouse stock. Price these in hours, and ask exactly what is included.

Recurring costs

Platform fee

The monthly or yearly fee for the store software and hosting. On self hosted options such as WooCommerce, the software may be free while hosting, security and updates are paid separately. ShopenUp Growth is ₹25,000 a year plus GST for up to 5,000 products, with hosting, updates and support handled by the Code Colonies team. Larger catalogues are on Enterprise, priced to the scope. See pricing.

Apps and extensions

On many platforms, features such as reviews, advanced discounts, invoices or WhatsApp notifications come from separate apps with their own subscriptions. These add up. List every one you would need and its current price.

Transaction and payment fees

Your payment gateway charges a fee on each online payment, on any platform. Some platforms add their own transaction fee on top, depending on the plan and the gateway. Check both, and work them out on your expected yearly sales.

Shipping and packing

Courier charges by weight and zone, COD handling fees, packing material, and the cost of parcels that come back. For COD heavy stores, return to origin losses can be a large line. The RTO loss calculator shows what they cost you each month.

Domain and email

A domain name and business email accounts. Small, but recurring.

Maintenance and development

Bug fixes, theme updates, new features and help during sales. On a self hosted store this is a real yearly line. On a managed platform, updates are included, and new features are custom work.

Marketing

Ads, creators, email and SMS tools. This is a business decision more than a website cost, but it belongs in the plan.

Compliance and accounts

Your CA's fees for GST filings, and legal review of your policies. These are general business costs; confirm what applies to you with your CA or lawyer.

Your team's time

Order processing, customer support, catalogue updates and stock counts. Put a rupee value on these hours. A platform that saves your team two hours a day is worth paying for.

Adding it up: an illustrative example

As an illustrative example, take a Pune organic grocery planning its first full year online. It lists every line above in a sheet with three columns: one time, monthly and yearly. It enters its own quotes for photography and packing, its gateway's fee on expected sales, its courier rates and the hours its two staff will spend on orders. It then adds the platform option it is considering.

For ShopenUp, the platform line is ₹25,000 plus GST for the year. The grocery needs weekly subscriptions, which are built for you, so it asks for an hourly estimate for that module. The custom line is that estimate at INR 199 an hour, with a 150 hour minimum per engagement and payment only after it accepts the work. Gateway and shipping costs stay the same on every platform, so they sit on both sides of the comparison.

The point of the exercise is the comparison. When every option carries every line, the cheapest monthly plan is often not the cheapest year.

Costs that appear in year two

The first year is usually the most expensive in setup and the cheapest in running costs, because volumes are low. In the second year, app fees often move to higher tiers as orders grow, transaction fees rise with sales, and the team spends more hours on support and returns. Plan the second year at your expected order volume, and check which lines scale with orders and which stay fixed. A fixed yearly platform fee is easier to plan around than costs that rise with every sale.

Questions to ask any provider

• What is included in the fee, and what needs an app or add on?
• Is there a transaction fee on top of the gateway fee?
• Who applies updates and fixes, and is that included?
• How are custom features priced, and when do I pay?
• What does it cost to export my data and leave?
• Are prices shown with or without GST?

Ways to keep costs down

• Launch with a smaller range and add products once the operations work.
• Use native features first and build custom only for what is unique to your business.
• Prefer prepaid with a small discount to reduce COD returns.
• Do the catalogue work in batches with a fixed routine.
• Review your apps every six months and cancel the ones you no longer use.

For the trade offs between options, see store builder, platform or custom build and what managed hosting should include.

Enter your own figures in the store cost calculator to see your yearly total next to ShopenUp Growth.