Freelance website developer in Mumbai: rates and what to check

A freelance website developer in Mumbai usually charges somewhere between ₹600 and ₹3,000 an hour for Indian clients, and most small business websites built by a freelancer land between ₹15,000 and ₹50,000. An online store starts around ₹40,000 and climbs with the number of products and features. Before you pay anyone, check three things: live websites they built that you can open on your own phone, a written scope with a fixed price, and that the domain and hosting are registered in your name.

Those numbers come from rate guides and from price pages published by Mumbai agencies, so read them as what you're likely to be quoted, not as an official survey. Nobody runs one. The rest of this post goes through the detail: website cost in Mumbai by website type, what a WordPress site costs, what you keep paying after launch, and the checks I'd run if I were the one hiring. I'm a freelance developer myself, based in Gurugram, so I'll also be straight about when someone local to Mumbai is the better choice than a remote developer like me.

Sources for the figures above: Freelance Rate India, Prateeksha Web Design, Mumbai Web Design and DisyTax.

How much does a freelance website developer in Mumbai charge?

Expect ₹600 to ₹3,000 an hour from a freelance website developer in Mumbai, with experience explaining most of the gap. That range is from Freelance Rate India's Mumbai page, which says web developers in the city typically charge ₹600 to ₹3,000 an hour for domestic clients and that the Mumbai market supports rates about 20% above the national average. The page says its benchmarks are based on 2026 market data from platforms such as Upwork and Toptal. I couldn't check its method, so use it as a rough guide.

Other guides read the market differently. Here are two side by side.

Hostinger's India pricing guide sits in the middle, at ₹800 to ₹3,000 an hour for freelance developers and ₹500 to ₹2,500 an hour for freelance WordPress designers.

The guides don't agree, and that's normal. Internshala is a jobs and internships platform, so its numbers probably lean towards newer freelancers. Prateeksha is a web design agency in Andheri West, and its figures are for freelance web designers across India, not Mumbai alone. Take ₹200 and ₹5,000 as the outer edges. A full-time freelancer with a few years of client work behind them will usually sit inside Hostinger's ₹800 to ₹3,000 band.

Is Mumbai dearer than other Indian cities? The salary numbers suggest yes, at least at the bottom of the range. Internshala estimates the monthly cost of an employed web developer at ₹65,000 to ₹1,80,000 in Mumbai, against ₹50,000 to ₹2,00,000 in Bangalore, ₹45,000 to ₹1,40,000 in Pune and ₹40,000 to ₹1,60,000 in Delhi NCR. Mumbai has the highest starting figure of the cities listed. Freelance rates follow salaries, because a developer in Powai or Lower Parel is choosing between your project and a job down the road, and rent in Mumbai isn't getting cheaper.

One practical point. Hardly any freelancer bills a small business by the hour for a new website. You'll get a fixed project price. The hourly rate only matters later, for changes and extras, so ask for it up front: "What do you charge per hour for work after launch?" A clear answer is a good sign.

What is the website development cost in Mumbai by website type?

Website development cost in Mumbai runs from about ₹8,000 for a single landing page to ₹1,00,000 or more for custom software, going by price guides from two Mumbai agencies. I've put those two guides next to a third from an agency that sells to Mumbai businesses remotely. All three are published by companies selling websites, so they show what you'll be quoted, not what the whole city pays.

A few plain-English notes on the rows.

A landing page is one page built around one action, such as "book a table" or "get a quote on WhatsApp". A business website is the usual set: home, about, services, a page for each service, and contact. An online store has products, a cart and online payment. A custom web application is software that runs in the browser, such as a booking system, a dealer login or a customer dashboard.

Freelancers come in under these agency numbers on small jobs. Prateeksha's guide puts a freelancer-built basic site at ₹15,000 to ₹50,000, against ₹40,000 to ₹1,00,000 from an agency for similar work. Hostinger's India guide gives a freelancer-built static site ₹10,000 to ₹40,000 and a business site with a content system ₹40,000 to ₹1,50,000.

What does that look like for real Mumbai businesses? Some examples, using the ranges above.

• A CA firm in Fort or a law practice in Nariman Point. Five to eight pages, a contact form, a map. That's a business website, so ₹15,000 to ₹50,000 from a freelancer.
• A dental clinic in Bandra or a physiotherapist in Chembur. The same business website, plus an appointment request form and Google reviews. Upper half of the same range.
• A jeweller in Zaveri Bazaar or a saree shop in Dadar. If you only want a catalogue with enquiry on WhatsApp, it's a business website. If customers pay online, it's an online store, and the store ranges apply.
• A restaurant in Lower Parel or a cloud kitchen in Andheri. Menu, photos, location, table booking link: a landing page or small business site. Add your own online ordering and it becomes a store.
• A real estate broker in Thane or Navi Mumbai. Property listings with filters push the price above a plain business website, because each listing is a piece of structured content, not a page typed by hand.
• An exporter or manufacturer with an office in Andheri East or Vasai. A product catalogue with an enquiry form per product. Usually a business website at the top of its range.

If someone quotes ₹5,000 for a "complete website", it's almost certainly a ready-made template with your logo dropped in. AI Organics itself notes that some freelancers quote a landing page at ₹5,000 to ₹8,000. That can be fine for an online visiting card. It won't be built around how your customers find and contact you.

What does a freelance WordPress website designer in Mumbai cost?

A freelance WordPress website designer in Mumbai will usually quote ₹20,000 to ₹75,000 for a business website, and more for a store. That band is Mumbai Web Design's published range for a WordPress website. Prateeksha gives a similar figure for a custom WordPress site, ₹20,000 to ₹1,00,000 or more, and Hostinger puts freelance WordPress designers at ₹500 to ₹2,500 an hour.

WordPress is the software behind a large share of business websites. It gives you a login screen where you or your staff can change text, add a blog post or swap a photo without calling a developer. That's the main reason I recommend it to most small businesses: you aren't stuck waiting on me for every small edit.

What you get for the money varies a lot, though. Two ₹30,000 WordPress quotes can be very different things.

Ask which of the two you're getting. Also ask which page builder they use. A page builder is the tool inside WordPress that lets pages be laid out visually. Elementor and Bricks are two common ones, and I build on both. If your quote includes a paid builder or paid plugins (a plugin is an add-on that gives WordPress a new feature), ask whose name the licence is in and who pays the renewal.

Here is the second column of that table on a real job. For Orilite, an AAC block and mortar brand, I built the WordPress site from the client's own Figma design, using custom PHP templates on Oxygen Builder with Advanced Custom Fields for the product and marketing content. The client reported 25 percent faster load times and 40 percent less time on content updates. Those are the same two rows where a site built to your design should beat a bought theme: speed and editing.

For a store on WordPress, the add-on is called WooCommerce. Mumbai price guides put a WooCommerce store at ₹40,000 to ₹80,000 or ₹35,000 to ₹1,00,000. I've covered the wider picture, including what moves a store price, in WordPress website cost in India.

What pushes a Mumbai website quote up or down?

Six things decide most of the price: the number of pages, who makes the design, who writes the content, online payments, special features and deadlines. Here's how each one moves a quote.

Number of unique page layouts. Ten pages that all share one layout cost far less than ten pages that each look different. Ask the developer how many layouts the quote covers, not only how many pages.

Design. A design made for you costs more than a template. If you already have a Figma design from a designer, the build is cheaper and the result is predictable.

Content and photos. Someone has to write the words. If it's you, the price drops and the timeline usually stretches, because content is what holds up most projects. AI Organics lists content writing at ₹500 to ₹1,500 a page and a photo shoot at ₹2,000 to ₹5,000.

Online payments. Taking money online means a payment gateway (the service that processes card and UPI payments), order emails, invoices and testing. That's why a store costs more than a brochure site with the same number of pages.

Special features. Appointment booking, a property search, a login area for dealers, WhatsApp order alerts, a second language such as Marathi or Hindi. Each is a line item. Codingclave says store features alone add ₹30,000 to ₹2,00,000 to a base price.

Deadline. "We need it before Diwali" or "the exhibition at the Jio World Centre is in two weeks" costs extra, because the developer has to push other work aside.

GST. This isn't a feature, but it changes what you pay. Website development for Indian clients is taxed at 18% GST, and a freelancer must register once their yearly service turnover crosses ₹20 lakh. A freelancer below that limit may not charge GST at all. So when you compare a ₹50,000 quote from a registered developer with one from an unregistered developer, check whether GST is included. At 18%, a ₹50,000 fee becomes ₹59,000. If your own business is GST-registered you can usually claim that tax back as input credit, so ask your CA.

What do you keep paying after launch?

After launch you pay for the domain, hosting, paid plugins and upkeep, and for a store, payment gateway fees. For a small business site in Mumbai that's a few thousand rupees a year for the basics, plus maintenance if you want someone on call.

AI Organics adds these up for a corporate site and gets a first-year total of roughly ₹30,000 to ₹70,000, build included.

On the gateway fee: Razorpay's standard plan has no setup fee and no annual charge, and takes 2% of each successful domestic payment. GST is charged on the fee, not on the whole order. So on a ₹1,000 order you pay ₹20 plus ₹3.60 of GST, which is ₹23.60. International cards cost 3% plus GST, which matters if you sell to customers abroad.

Maintenance means software updates, backups, security checks and small fixes. WordPress needs it. A site left alone for a year is the one that gets hacked or breaks after an automatic update.

Related guide: Freelance WordPress developer in India: rates and how to pick the best

Freelance web developer in Mumbai or an agency: which suits you?

A freelance web developer in Mumbai suits a small or mid-sized website with a clear scope. An agency suits a project that needs several specialists at once, such as branding, a photo shoot, a store and a marketing campaign together. The price gap is real: Prateeksha's guide puts freelancer projects at ₹10,000 to ₹2,00,000 and agency projects at ₹40,000 to ₹10,00,000 or more.

The honest weak point of a freelancer is that it's one person. The honest weak point of an agency is that you pay for an office in Andheri or BKC, a sales team and a project manager, and the person who builds your site may be the most junior in the room. Mumbai Web Design's own guide says a freelancer works if you're tight on budget, with agencies the safer pick for large or business-critical projects. I'd agree with that, with one addition: an experienced freelancer with a written contract and clean handover is safer than a cheap agency.

Does your website developer need to be in Mumbai?

No. A website is built on a laptop and delivered over the internet, so a developer in Pune, Gurugram or Lucknow can serve a shop in Borivali as well as one sitting in Malad. Codingclave, one of the price sources above, is based in Lucknow and says it serves Mumbai businesses remotely. I work the same way from Gurugram with clients in India, the UK and the US.

There are still good reasons to pick someone local:

• You want to meet in person, hand over product samples, or have them visit your showroom or factory.
• You need photos or video shot on site as part of the job.
• You're not comfortable on video calls and prefer to sit across a table.
• Your project needs someone on your premises, say for a billing system that talks to the website.

And good reasons not to limit yourself to Mumbai:

• The pool is much bigger, so you can pick on skill and past work.
• Rates outside Mumbai can be lower for the same experience, since Mumbai rates carry a premium of about 20% by one estimate.
• Calls, screen shares and WhatsApp cover almost every decision on a normal website.

Either way, the checks in the next section matter more than the pin code.

Related guide: Freelance WordPress developer: when to hire one and what it costs

What should you check before hiring a website developer in Mumbai?

Check their live work, the written scope, who owns what, and what happens after launch. That's true for any website developer in Mumbai, freelance or agency. Here's the list I'd run.

1. 1

   Open their live sites on your phone

   Ask for three sites they built that are online today. Open each on mobile data, not office Wi-Fi. Slow or broken on your phone means slow or broken for your customers.

2. 2

   Call one past client

   Ask whether the site was on time, whether the price changed, and whether the developer still answers messages.

3. 3

   Get the scope in writing

   Pages, layouts, features, number of revision rounds, who supplies content, and the delivery date. If it isn't written down, it isn't included.

4. 4

   Confirm ownership

   Domain, hosting and any paid licences should be in your name and on your email address, with the developer added as a user.

5. 5

   Ask what happens after launch

   How long are bug fixes free? What's the hourly rate for changes? Is there a maintenance plan, and what does it cover?

6. 6

   Ask for a handover

   All logins, a backup of the site and a short recorded walkthrough of how to edit pages.

Then ask these questions and listen to how plainly they answer.

1. "Will I be able to edit the site myself?" For a WordPress site the answer should be yes, with a short training call.
2. "Is the site built to load fast on a phone?" Many of your visitors in Mumbai will be on a phone, often on a local train or in traffic. Ask them to show a speed test result from a past project.
3. "Do you set up Google Analytics and Search Console?" These are free Google tools that show how many people visit and what they searched for. They should be in your Google account.
4. "Who writes the page titles and descriptions for Google?" If nobody does, your site launches invisible.
5. "Is your price with or without GST?" Covered above. Get it in the quote.
6. "What isn't included?" A good developer has a ready answer: content writing, stock photos, logo design, paid plugins.

A written scope is the single best protection you have. If you don't know how to write one, my free Project Scope Generator turns a two-line description of your business into a list of pages and features you can send to every developer you're comparing. Then all the quotes are for the same thing. My longer guide to hiring a freelance web developer in India covers the contract side in more detail.

What red flags should make you walk away?

Walk away if the developer won't put the scope in writing, wants to own your domain, or asks for the full fee before any work. Those three sit behind most stories of half-built sites and lost money.

• The domain is registered in their name. Your domain is your business address online. If the developer holds it, they can hold you to ransom over renewals, or simply vanish.
• No live examples. Screenshots and design mock-ups prove nothing. You want links that work today.
• 100% payment up front. A part payment to start is normal. All of it is not.
• "Unlimited revisions" and "guaranteed first page on Google". Nobody can promise either. A developer who says so will say anything.
• A one-line quote. "Website: ₹25,000" tells you nothing about pages, features or deadlines.
• Pirated themes and plugins. Some cheap builds use cracked copies of paid software, sometimes called "nulled". They often carry hidden malicious code and never receive updates. Ask for the licence receipts.
• They go quiet for days before you've even paid. It doesn't get better after.
• No mention of backups, security or mobile. If they don't raise these, they don't do them.

How should you pay and what should the agreement say?

Pay in stages tied to things you can see, and get a short written agreement even for a small job. Stages protect both sides: the developer isn't working for free, and you aren't paying for work that doesn't exist yet.

A simple structure that works for most small business sites is three payments: one to start, one when you approve the design or the first working pages, and the last before the site goes live on your domain. For a larger store or web application, add more stages, each tied to a working feature.

The agreement doesn't need a lawyer for a ₹30,000 website. An email or a two-page document that both of you confirm is enough, as long as it covers:

• What will be built (the scope) and what won't.
• The total price, whether GST is included, and the payment stages.
• The delivery date, and what you must supply by when (content, photos, logo).
• How many rounds of changes are included, and the hourly rate after that.
• That you own the site, the content and the domain once the final payment is made.
• How long bugs are fixed for free after launch.

Ask for a proper invoice for each payment. If the developer is GST-registered, the invoice should show their GSTIN (their GST number). Pay by bank transfer or UPI to an account in their name or their business name, so there's a record.

How long does a website take to build in Mumbai?

A landing page takes about a week or less, a business website two to four weeks, and an online store four to eight weeks. Those are the timelines two Mumbai agencies publish: AI Organics gives 3 to 5 days for a landing page, 2 to 4 weeks for a corporate site and 4 to 8 weeks for a store, and Mumbai Web Design says about one week for a basic site, 2 to 4 weeks for a small business site and 4 to 8 weeks for e-commerce.

The build is rarely what runs late. Content is. The developer finishes the pages and then waits three weeks for the "About us" text, the team photos and the product list. If you want your site quickly, gather these before the project starts:

• Your logo as a proper file, not a screenshot.
• Text for each page, even rough.
• Photos of your shop, team, products or work.
• Logins for your domain, if you already own one.
• For a store: a spreadsheet of products with names, prices, descriptions and photos.

How can I help if you're in Mumbai?

I'm Mohit Goyal, a freelance senior web developer in Gurugram. I'm not in Mumbai, and I won't pretend to be. I work remotely with clients across India, the UK and the US, and I've shipped more than 100 websites in over four years, mostly on WordPress, WooCommerce and Next.js.

I have done Mumbai work before: I built a WordPress site for a Mumbai client from their Figma design, as a working, visually accurate site. That's the kind of job I do most. A designer or the client hands me a design, and I turn it into a fast WordPress site their team can edit. My WordPress website service page explains how that works on Bricks, Elementor and Oxygen.

A few examples of Indian client work that's close to what Mumbai businesses ask me for:

• A tax and compliance firm. I built the Taxocity website on WordPress, with every enquiry saved to a Google Sheet so no lead gets lost in an inbox. A CA firm in Fort needs much the same thing.
• A product company with a store. I built the IPL Biologicals WooCommerce store in 2023 and still maintain it on a monthly retainer.
• A lighting brand. The Nortek LED store was built from a Figma design with product filters and an optimised checkout.

Where I'm a good fit: you want one experienced person who builds the site, answers your messages directly, and is still around a year later for updates. Where I'm not: you need someone to visit your premises in Mumbai, or you need branding, a photo shoot and ad campaigns from the same supplier. For design, I work with design partners, but for on-site shoots you're better off with someone local.

What should you do next?

Write down what you need in a few lines: what your business does, the pages you want, whether customers will pay online, and your deadline. Send the same note to two or three developers, in Mumbai or outside it, and compare the quotes line by line using the checklist above.

If you'd like me to be one of them, send me that note through my contact page or book a 20-minute call there. I'll tell you plainly what it would take, how long, and whether a freelancer like me is the right choice for your project or you'd be better served by someone local.