E-commerce website cost in India: Shopify vs custom

How much does an e-commerce website cost in India?

There are three routes, and each has its own cost shape. A hosted platform such as Shopify is cheap to set up and charges a monthly plan for as long as the store runs. A custom store costs more to build, then runs on hosting you pay for, with no store-platform plan. A ready-made store sits between them: software that already has a live demo, set up under your brand, bought once or rented monthly.

Our prices for each route are below, read from the price list. Each is a starting price for the scope listed on the package’s page.

• Shopify Store Setup — from ₹15,000
• E-commerce Build — from ₹50,000
• Retail & Marketplace Stock Sync — from ₹50,000

• StyleCart — buy ₹49,000 or rent ₹9,999 a month

Shopify or custom: which costs less over time?

A Shopify store’s running cost is its monthly plan, the paid apps you add, and any transaction fees that apply to your payment setup. Shopify publishes its plans for India on its own pricing page; check the current figures there before you decide, because plans and fees change.

WooCommerce, the store plugin for WordPress, is free software ¹. A WooCommerce store’s costs are hosting, a theme, any paid extensions and the time to keep WordPress, the theme and the plugins updated.

A custom store has no store-platform plan and no app subscriptions, but you pay for hosting, and each new feature is development work rather than an app install. It earns its higher build price when the catalogue, checkout or back office has to work in a way a theme does not: B2B price lists, custom bundles, GST rules specific to your products, or stock that must match Tally or a marketplace.

Every route pays the payment gateway on each successful payment and pays a courier or shipping aggregator for each shipment. Those costs barely depend on the platform, so leave them out when you compare build quotes and put them back in when you budget.

What moves the price of an online store?

Most of the difference between a cheap store quote and an expensive one comes from the items below. Ask about each one before you compare prices.

• Catalogue. How many products, how many variants, and who enters them. Our Shopify setup covers up to 50 products with variants; the custom build handles catalogues with variants and bundles.
• Checkout and payments. Both store packages include Razorpay and cash on delivery; the Shopify setup adds UPI, and the custom build adds Stripe.
• Shipping. Both connect Shiprocket or Delhivery, so labels and tracking do not have to be handled by hand.
• GST invoices. GST-compliant invoicing is part of both store packages.
• Stock across channels. Keeping one stock number across your store, Amazon, Flipkart and your own site is a separate package, Retail & Marketplace Stock Sync.
• Accounts. Posting orders, refunds and payouts into TallyPrime is integration work; see the Shopify to TallyPrime integration or Amazon and Flipkart to Tally.
• Recovering sales. The custom build includes abandoned cart recovery; the Shopify setup includes order-status updates on WhatsApp.

What will you pay other companies each month?

None of these are in our package prices. Our terms list hosting, domains, payment-gateway fees and software licences as other companies’ fees, outside our price unless the proposal says otherwise, and the scope call is where we go through which ones apply to your store.

• Store platform: the Shopify plan (or another builder’s), monthly or yearly, plus any paid apps.
• Payment gateway: a fee on each successful payment, set by your gateway and the payment method the customer uses.
• Shipping: per-shipment rates from your courier or aggregator.
• Domain and hosting: a yearly domain renewal for every store, and hosting for a custom or WooCommerce store.
• WhatsApp messages: if you send order updates through the WhatsApp Business API, Meta charges per delivered message. Our WhatsApp API pricing guide has the current rates and worked examples.

Ready-made store: buy or rent?

StyleCart is our ready-made fashion store, with product management, payments, offers and marketing tools, live in 7 days. Buying it for ₹49,000 gives you the source code and the right to run and change it for your own business under your own brand, with three months of support. Renting it for ₹9,999 a month is a licence, with maintenance and fixes included for as long as you pay.

On price alone, five months of rent already cost more than buying outright. Renting still makes sense when you want to test a store before committing, or would rather not look after the software yourself. Either way you get brand customisation, deployment and hosting setup, an admin panel, Razorpay or Stripe payments with invoice templates, and documentation and training.

What do typical e-commerce budgets look like?

A store rarely ships alone. These examples add up the starting prices on our cards, the same arithmetic as the website cost calculator.

• New brand, first Shopify store: Brand Identity Kit, Shopify Store Setup — from ₹28,000 together
• Shopify store with orders posted to Tally: Shopify Store Setup, Tally Integration & Automation — from ₹27,000 together
• Custom store with Tally and WhatsApp support: E-commerce Build, Tally Integration & Automation, WhatsApp & Support Automation — from ₹74,000 together
• Custom store selling on Amazon and Flipkart too: E-commerce Build, Retail & Marketplace Stock Sync — from ₹1,00,000 together

How do you compare e-commerce quotes?

Ask each supplier the same questions, in writing. Store quotes often differ most in what happens after a customer pays.

• Who enters the products, and how many are included in the price?
• Which payment methods are set up, and is the gateway account in your company’s name?
• Which courier or aggregator is connected, and are labels and tracking automatic?
• Are GST invoices generated for every order with your GSTIN?
• What happens to stock when you also sell on Amazon or Flipkart?
• Who owns the store account, the code and the domain once you have paid?
• Is GST on the build included in the quoted price? Our prices exclude GST; where it applies, 18% GST is added and shown in the written proposal.

How we worked out these figures

Every MakinForU price on this page is read from our live price list and products page when the page is built. Example budgets add those starting prices together; they are not bundle discounts.

Store-platform plans, transaction fees, gateway charges and courier rates depend on the provider, the plan and your volumes, and they change during the year. We name each cost and leave the figure to the provider’s own current pricing page rather than print a number that may already be out of date. Facts about other companies’ software come from their own published files, on the date shown.

Sources

1. WooCommerce licence file (GNU GPL version 2 or later), WooCommerce repository, checked 7 Oct 2026