Ecommerce website developer in India: cost and what to check

If you hire an ecommerce website developer in India, expect to pay about ₹15,000 to ₹50,000 for a template store, ₹1 lakh to ₹5 lakh for a designed store with integrations, and ₹10 lakh or more for a fully custom build, going by Hostinger's India cost guide. WooCommerce, Shopify and custom code can all sell well in India. The right one depends on your order volume, who will run the store day to day, and how unusual your needs are. Before you pay anyone, check who will own the domain, the hosting and the payment gateway account, and get the scope in writing.

I'm Mohit Goyal, a freelance web developer in Gurugram. I've built WooCommerce stores for Indian brands and I set up Shopify stores with my e-commerce partners, so I don't have a favourite to sell you. This guide is written for a business owner, not a developer. Every price below is a market figure with a link to where it was published. None of them is my own rate.

How much does ecommerce website development cost in India?

Ecommerce website development cost in India runs from about ₹50,000 for a small store to ₹15 lakh for a marketplace, and the number of products and the amount of custom work decide where you land. One Indian developer, CodingClave, publishes this breakdown with timelines:

Other published ranges don't match these exactly, and that tells you something. Hostinger puts a basic template store at ₹15,000 to ₹50,000 and a mid-level store with custom design and integrations at ₹1,00,000 to ₹5,00,000. Riolabz says custom ecommerce builds run from ₹1.5 lakh to ₹45 lakh and more, with most serious brands spending ₹4 lakh to ₹18 lakh. Prateeksha puts the all-in first-year cost of an ecommerce website in India between ₹60,000 and ₹8,00,000.

All four sources are companies that sell websites or hosting, so read these as rough bands. Nobody publishes an independent price survey for this market. What the bands agree on is the shape: a small catalogue on a ready-made theme is a five-figure job, a store designed around your brand with shipping and invoicing connected is a low six-figure job, and anything with its own logic (wholesale pricing, many sellers, an ERP link) climbs fast.

So when someone asks me "what is the website cost for ecommerce?", my honest answer is a question back: how many products, which payment and shipping partners, and what does your team do by hand today that the site should do for you?

What does an ecommerce website developer in India charge?

Indian ecommerce developers charge either a fixed project price or an hourly rate, and the rate depends heavily on whether you hire a freelancer or an agency. For hourly work, Hostinger lists developer support in India at ₹500 to ₹5,000 an hour.

Rates quoted to overseas clients are usually in dollars. Second Talent puts a mid-level freelance developer in India at $20 to $52 an hour. On Clutch's directory of ecommerce developers in India, most of the agencies on the first page list either under $25 an hour or $25 to $49 an hour, with minimum project sizes from $1,000 up to $25,000.

You have three realistic ways to get a store built:

I'm a freelancer, so weigh my view accordingly. For a first store with a few hundred products, a good freelancer or a small studio is usually enough. A larger agency starts to make sense when the project needs several specialists working at the same time, or when your company's process requires a vendor with a formal support desk.

WooCommerce, Shopify or a custom build: which is right for an Indian store?

Shopify is the quickest to launch and the least work to run, WooCommerce costs less per order and gives you full ownership, and a custom build only pays off at high volume or with unusual workflows. No single platform wins for every Indian business.

Here is how the three compare on cost, using the first-year table Prateeksha publishes:

The gap between Shopify and WooCommerce in year one is small. It widens later, as orders grow. CodingClave modelled the three-year cost at 300 orders a month:

• WooCommerce3.6 lakh
• Shopify4.7 lakh
• Custom6 lakh

Shopify in India

Shopify is a hosted platform. That means Shopify runs the servers, the security and the updates, and you rent the store by the month. On Shopify's India pricing page, Basic costs ₹1,994 a month (₹1,499 a month if you pay yearly), Grow costs ₹7,447 (₹5,599 yearly) and Advanced costs ₹30,164 (₹22,680 yearly).

There's one India-specific cost many guides skip. Shopify's own payment system, Shopify Payments, isn't offered in India, so you connect a gateway such as Razorpay. When you use an outside gateway, Shopify charges its own transaction fee on top: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced, per the same pricing page.

Apps add up as well. An app is a paid add-on for things like reviews, WhatsApp messages or abandoned cart reminders. Prateeksha estimates five to eight apps cost ₹5,200 to ₹15,800 a month.

What you get for that money is real, though. You don't patch anything, you don't think about hosting, the checkout is proven, and your staff can learn the admin screen in an afternoon. For an owner with no technical person on the team, that is worth paying for.

WooCommerce in India

WooCommerce is a free plugin that turns a WordPress website into a store. You pay for hosting, a theme, a few paid plugins and a developer's time, and there's no platform cut on your sales. CodingClave puts developer setup at ₹30,000 to ₹80,000 with a premium theme and standard plugins, or ₹1 lakh to ₹2 lakh for a custom build, with hosting at ₹1,000 to ₹2,000 a month for a store taking a few hundred orders.

The trade is responsibility. Somebody has to update plugins, take backups and keep the site fast. If nobody does, a WooCommerce store gets slow and then gets hacked. With a maintenance plan in place it's a very capable platform, and it's the stronger choice if blog content and search traffic are a big part of how you sell, because WordPress is built for publishing. I've written a fuller breakdown in how much a WooCommerce website costs in India.

The IPL Biologicals store shows what running a WooCommerce store involves after launch. I built this WooCommerce store between September and December 2023, and since 2025 I have looked after it on a monthly maintenance retainer. That retainer covers new pages such as Grow Organic, catalogue and price updates, and store operations support. So the work on a WooCommerce store does not stop on launch day, and someone has to be named for it.

A custom-built store

A custom build means a developer writes the store for you, usually with a framework such as Next.js, instead of using a ready platform. CodingClave prices a lean custom storefront at ₹2 lakh to ₹4 lakh over 8 to 12 weeks and a full build at ₹6 lakh to ₹15 lakh over 4 to 8 months, and says a custom build only pays for itself above roughly 1,500 orders a month.

Custom is right when the platform is fighting you: pricing rules no plugin handles, a deep link to your ERP (the software that runs your stock and accounts), or a buying flow that isn't a normal cart. It's wrong when the reason is "we want something unique". A custom design on WooCommerce or Shopify gets you unique at a fraction of the cost. Also remember that with custom code you depend on whoever wrote it, so documentation and code ownership matter far more.

A worked example: fees on ₹5 lakh of monthly sales

Say your store in Jaipur takes ₹5,00,000 a month in online payments. Razorpay's standard pricing is 2% per successful domestic transaction, with 18% GST charged on that fee, and no setup fee or annual charge.

• On WooCommerce you pay the gateway only: ₹10,000 plus ₹1,800 GST, so ₹11,800.
• On Shopify Basic you pay the same ₹11,800 to the gateway, plus Shopify's 2% third-party fee of ₹10,000.
• On Shopify Grow that Shopify fee drops to 1%, or ₹5,000, but the plan itself costs about ₹5,450 more each month than Basic.

That extra ₹10,000 a month on Basic is the price of not running your own hosting and updates. For some owners it's a bargain. For others it's a salary. These sums are my own arithmetic from the published rates, so check them against your real payment mix.

If you want the non-cost side of this decision, I've compared the two main platforms in Shopify vs WooCommerce.

What do ecommerce website development packages in India include?

Ecommerce website development packages in India are fixed-price bundles that cap the number of products, pages, payment gateways and shipping rules, with a set period of free support after launch. They're easy to compare, which is their appeal, but the caps are where the extra bills come from.

One published example makes the pattern clear. Aarav Infotech lists three WooCommerce packages, all plus 18% GST:

I'm showing this as a sample of how packages are structured. I haven't worked with this company and can't vouch for the work.

Before you sign any package, ask what sits outside it:

• Who adds the products? "Up to 200 products" often means the store can hold 200, while you or your staff type them in.
• Photos and descriptions. Prateeksha puts product photography at ₹200 to ₹800 per item, which by my arithmetic is ₹20,000 to ₹80,000 for 100 products.
• GST. Most quotes exclude 18% GST. On a ₹1,32,999 package that's roughly ₹24,000 more.
• Hosting and domain renewals. Check the renewal price in year two, and whose name the accounts are in.
• Design revisions. How many rounds, and what does an extra round cost?
• Shipping and invoicing setup. Connecting a courier partner is often a separate line. Prateeksha prices shipping integration at ₹5,000 to ₹20,000.
• What happens after the free support ends. Get the monthly maintenance price now, in writing.

A package is fine when your store is ordinary. Once you need anything the package doesn't name, ask for a custom quote. Paying for add-ons one by one almost always costs more.

What is the full website cost for ecommerce after launch?

The build is a one-time cost. The running costs come every month, and on a small store they can pass the build cost within a few years. Here's what to budget, with published figures:

The cost nobody quotes you is cash on delivery returns. In India a lot of buyers still choose COD, and COD parcels come back far more often than prepaid ones. The trade calls this RTO, return to origin: the courier couldn't deliver or the buyer refused, and you pay shipping both ways. In ClickPost's FY2026 data from D2C brands, 37.51% of COD orders ended as RTO against 5.28% of prepaid orders. ClickPost's cost model puts one RTO at about ₹350 on a ₹1,200 order.

This matters for the website itself. A good developer will ask how you want to handle COD: a small COD fee, a discount for paying by UPI, COD switched off above a certain order value, or a phone or WhatsApp confirmation before dispatch. Each of those is a setting or a small piece of work during the build, and each one costs more to add after launch.

What moves the price of an ecommerce website up or down?

Scope moves the price far more than the platform does. Riolabz says features and business model can push ecommerce development cost in India up or down by a factor of 2 to 5. These are the things that do it:

• Number of products and variants. 40 simple products is a week of data entry. 2,000 products with sizes and colours needs an import, clean data and good filters.
• Design. A ready-made theme with your logo and colours is cheap. A design drawn for your brand in Figma (a design tool) and built to match costs more and usually sells better.
• Integrations. Each link to another system (courier, accounting, WhatsApp, ERP) is its own job. Hostinger puts freelance integration work at ₹4,000 to ₹4,00,000 per integration, which is a wide range because a courier plugin and an ERP sync are very different jobs.
• Special selling rules. Wholesale pricing by customer, minimum order quantities, subscriptions, made-to-order products, several sellers on one site.
• Content. Product photos, descriptions, policies and banners. If the developer's team produces them, the quote goes up.
• Moving from an old store. Bringing over products, customers, orders and Google rankings is careful work.
• Speed. A fast store is cheaper to build than to fix. Prateeksha prices speed optimisation after the fact at ₹15,000 to ₹50,000.

If a quote is far below the others, something on this list has been left out. Ask which one.

Related guide: Clothing brand website cost in India: Shopify or WooCommerce?

What does an online store in India need that foreign guides skip?

An Indian store needs UPI at checkout, a plan for COD, GST-ready invoices, pin code checks and the legally required pages. Most cost guides are adapted from US articles and miss these, so check that your developer brings them up without being asked.

UPI and Indian payment methods. Buyers expect UPI, cards, netbanking and wallets. A gateway such as Razorpay covers these in one account. You'll need to complete the gateway's KYC (identity and business checks) yourself, in your company's name. Start it early, because the gateway won't go live until it's approved.

COD rules. Covered above. Decide the rules before the build.

GST invoices. If you're GST-registered, every order needs an invoice with your GSTIN, the right tax split and HSN codes (the product classification codes used for GST). On registration, Cashfree's guide to GST for online sellers says a business selling only through its own website needs GST registration once turnover crosses ₹40 lakh for goods in most states, that selling to customers in another state makes registration mandatory whatever the turnover, and that marketplaces such as Amazon and Flipkart need it before your first sale. I'm a developer, not a chartered accountant, so confirm your own position with your CA before launch.

Pin code serviceability. Buyers want to type their pin code on the product page and see whether you deliver there and how long it takes. This usually comes from your courier partner's system.

The required pages. The Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 apply to online sellers. According to IndiaLaw's summary of the rules, a store must show the legal name of the business and its address, name a grievance officer who acknowledges complaints within 48 hours and resolves them within one month, state the country of origin of goods, and give clear return and refund terms. Have a lawyer check your policies. Your developer's job is to make sure those pages exist and are easy to find.

Mobile first. Most Indian shoppers will see your store on a phone, often on a patchy connection. Ask to see the developer's past stores on your own phone, on mobile data.

How long does it take to build an ecommerce website in India?

Most ecommerce websites in India take 8 to 12 weeks from first call to launch, according to Riolabz. A simple catalogue store can be done in 4 to 6 weeks, and marketplaces or complex B2B builds take 4 to 6 months. CodingClave's figures are similar: 2 to 4 weeks for a basic store and 8 to 16 weeks for an advanced one.

In my experience the build is rarely what causes delay. The usual hold-ups are on the client's side: product photos that aren't ready, descriptions nobody has written, a payment gateway account waiting on documents, and feedback that takes two weeks to arrive. If you want a fast launch, get your product sheet, photos and gateway paperwork moving before development starts.

Related guide: Jewellery website development cost in India: a breakdown

What should you check before hiring an ecommerce developer in India?

Check their live stores, who will own the accounts, and what the quote covers in writing. Those three checks prevent most of the bad outcomes: a store you can't log in to, a bill that keeps growing, and a developer who has stopped replying.

1. 1

   Buy from a store they built

   Open two of their live stores on your phone. Add a product to the cart and go as far as the payment page. Slow pages or a confusing checkout there will be on your store too.

2. 2

   Speak to a past client

   Ask one question: when something broke after launch, how quickly did the developer respond?

3. 3

   Settle ownership first

   The domain, hosting, Shopify or WordPress admin, and payment gateway must be registered in your name and email, with the developer added as a user.

4. 4

   Get the scope in writing

   List the pages, product count, integrations, revision rounds, who loads the products, and what counts as extra work.

5. 5

   Tie payments to milestones

   Pay in stages against things you can see: design approved, store working on a test link, launch.

6. 6

   Agree the support terms

   Fix the free support period and the monthly maintenance price before you sign, not after launch.

Good questions to ask in the first call:

1. Which platform do you recommend for my store, and what would make you recommend a different one?
2. Can you show me a store you built with a similar number of products?
3. Who will do the work: you, or someone you hand it to?
4. How will COD, UPI and GST invoices work on my store?
5. Which courier partner will it connect to, and will buyers get tracking updates?
6. How fast will product pages load on a mid-range phone?
7. If I want to move to another developer later, what do I get handed over?
8. What isn't included in this price?

The answer to the first question tells you a lot. A developer who only ever recommends one platform is selling what they know. A good one asks about your order volume and your team before answering.

If you don't yet have a written list of what the store needs, my free Project Scope Generator turns a two-line idea into a feature list and page list you can send to every developer you're comparing. Quotes are much easier to compare when everyone prices the same scope.

What are the red flags when hiring an ecommerce developer?

The biggest red flag is a developer who keeps the domain, hosting or gateway account in their own name. If the relationship ends badly, your store goes with them.

Others to watch for:

• A price with no scope. "Complete ecommerce website, ₹25,000" with no list of what's included will end in an argument.
• Full payment upfront. A deposit is normal. 100% before any work is a risk you don't need to take.
• No live stores to show. Screenshots and design mock-ups aren't proof. You want links you can open.
• A pirated theme or plugins. Cheap quotes sometimes rely on "nulled" (illegally copied) themes. They often carry hidden malicious code and never get security updates. Ask for the licence receipts in your name.
• Promises about Google rankings or sales. Nobody can guarantee first place on Google or a sales figure. A developer can promise a fast, well-structured store. The rest takes marketing.
• No talk of what happens after launch. A store is never finished. If maintenance doesn't come up, ask why.
• Vague answers on COD, GST and shipping. These are the daily reality of selling online in India. Someone who has shipped real stores here will have clear answers.

How can I help with your ecommerce website?

I build WooCommerce stores myself, I set up Shopify stores with my e-commerce partners, and I build custom storefronts on Next.js when a project needs one. Because I work across all three, the recommendation follows your business and not my comfort zone.

What I can point to: I built the Nortek LED store on WooCommerce from the client's Figma design, on a custom theme with product filters and an optimised checkout. After launch, the client's analytics reported a 20 percent uplift in conversion rate and 35 percent faster load times. The full story is in the Nortek Lighting case study. I also built the IPL Biologicals WooCommerce store in 2023 and have looked after it on a monthly retainer since 2025, so I know what a store needs in its third year as well as its first week. For a UK fashion boutique, Wow Vastra, I added a currency switcher and worldwide checkout to its WooCommerce store.

What I do on a store project:

• Help you pick between WooCommerce, Shopify and custom based on your products, orders and team.
• Build from your Figma design, or bring in my design partners if you need one.
• Set up payments, shipping rules, tax and order emails, and write small custom plugins where a ready one doesn't fit.
• Keep the store fast on mobile, which is the part I care about most.
• Hand over every account in your name, and stay on for maintenance if you want that.

What I'm not: a large agency with a marketing department. If you need ads, photography and a call centre from the same vendor, I'm the wrong fit, and I'll say so on the first call. I work from Gurugram with clients across India, the UK and the US, and I stay your single point of contact from start to finish.

You can read more on my WooCommerce stores service page and my Shopify stores service page.

Related guide: WordPress to Shopify migration: cost, risks and who to hire

What should you do next?

Write down four things: how many products you have, how many orders a month you expect in year one, which payment and courier partners you'd like, and who on your team will run the store. With those four answers, any competent ecommerce website developer in India can give you a real quote instead of a guess.

Then get two or three quotes against the same written scope, check the live stores, and settle account ownership before any money moves.

If you'd like my view on platform and scope for your store, send me the details through my contact page or book a 20-minute call there. I'll tell you which of the three options I'd pick for your business and why, even if the answer is one I don't build myself.