Ecommerce Website Cost in India: Shopify vs Custom (2026)

The ecommerce website cost in India is a one-time build fee plus running costs that continue every month, and the running costs are the part most quotes leave out. With us, a Shopify store build starts at ₹45,000 and a custom-coded store at ₹65,000. As of October 2026, Shopify's Basic plan costs ₹1,499 a month on yearly billing and adds a 2% fee on orders paid through a third-party gateway such as Razorpay, while a custom store has no platform fee but needs paid hosting and upkeep.

We build Shopify stores and also code custom sites, and our two starting build prices are only ₹20,000 apart. The bigger difference is what you pay every month after launch, and how much control you get for it.

Ecommerce website cost in India: the quick answer

Here is how the three common routes look as of October 2026, split into what you pay once and what you pay every month.

• Shopify store: build from ₹45,000 with us. Then Shopify's plan from ₹1,499 a month on yearly billing (₹1,994 if you pay monthly), Shopify's 2% fee on Basic for orders paid through a third-party gateway, and the gateway's own fee. You pay the Shopify subscription directly to Shopify.
• WooCommerce store: the WooCommerce plugin is free. You pay for hosting, a domain, paid extensions (WooCommerce's own pricing page puts these at $29 to $299 a year each), the gateway fee and someone to keep WordPress updated. We don't publish a WooCommerce package, so get that build quoted on its own.
• Custom store: build from ₹65,000 with us, made up of our Intermediate Website build (from ₹45,000), a payment gateway (from ₹5,000) and an admin panel (from ₹15,000). No platform fee, but you pay for hosting, upkeep and the gateway fee.

Every route pays a payment gateway on online orders. Razorpay's published rate is a 2% platform fee per successful domestic transaction on UPI, netbanking, wallets and most cards, plus 18% GST on that fee. That works out to 2.36% of each online order, with no setup or annual maintenance fee.

Three routes: Shopify, WooCommerce and a custom build

Shopify: fastest to launch, fees grow with sales

Shopify includes hosting and an SSL certificate in every plan, so there is no server for you to run. It suits brands with a standard catalogue and a small team who want to start selling in weeks.

The catch for Indian sellers is payments. As of October 2026, India is not on Shopify's list of countries where Shopify Payments, its own gateway, is available. So you connect a third-party gateway such as Razorpay, and Shopify charges its third-party transaction fee on those orders: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus.

WooCommerce: no platform fee, more to look after

WooCommerce is a free plugin for WordPress, and it takes no platform fee or revenue share. It suits businesses that already run WordPress, publish a lot of content, or want full say over their hosting.

The costs move rather than disappear. You need hosting that copes with sale days, paid extensions, theme licences and regular updates to WordPress, WooCommerce and every plugin. If nobody owns those updates, the store gets fragile.

Custom build: most control, most responsibility

A custom store is coded around your business: your catalogue rules, your checkout, your admin and your integrations, with no platform taking a percentage. It suits brands with unusual products (made to order, B2B price lists, complex bundles), heavy integration needs, or enough online sales that percentage fees start to hurt.

You also own the upkeep. Hosting, security patches and every later change need a developer, so budget for that from the first day.

Running costs most quotes leave out

These are the line items that turn a ₹45,000 build quote into a much bigger first-year bill. Provider figures come from each official page as of October 2026.

GST on top of the fees

Shopify charges GST on its fees for stores located in India. It says you are exempted once you give it your GSTIN, but only on invoices issued after you submit it, and GST already charged can't be reversed or refunded. If you're registered, add your GSTIN on day one, and ask your CA how GST on these fees works for your business.

Razorpay's GST is already inside the 2.36% figure above. When you compare build quotes from different studios, ask whether each one includes GST or adds it on top. Our website design cost guide explains how GST applies to a studio's fee.

How Shopify's fee is worked out

Shopify works out the third-party transaction fee on the product price after discounts, plus tax and shipping. Manual payment methods, including cash on delivery, carry no Shopify transaction fee. As of October 2026, Shopify also offers a 3-day free trial and then ₹20 a month for the first 3 months on most plans, which helps while your store is being built but doesn't change the long-run maths.

Total cost over 1 year and 3 years at three order volumes

Here is the same store at three sizes. Every assumption is listed, so you can swap in your own numbers.

• Average order of ₹1,500, including GST and shipping.
• Every order paid online through Razorpay. Cash on delivery orders would lower Shopify's fee.
• Shopify on yearly billing, on the cheapest plan for each volume: Basic at 100 orders a month, Grow at 500 and 2,000. The ₹20 intro offer is ignored.
• Build at our starting prices: ₹45,000 for Shopify, ₹65,000 for the custom store.
• Shopify figures are before any GST Shopify charges on its fees.
• Left out on purpose: domain, apps, premium themes, marketing, and hosting and upkeep for the custom store.

The gateway fee is the same on every route, so it sits outside the table. At Razorpay's 2.36%, it comes to about ₹42,480 a year at 100 orders a month, ₹2,12,400 at 500 orders and ₹8,49,600 at 2,000 orders.

The last column is the one to read. Our monthly maintenance add-on is ₹5,000 to ₹15,000, before hosting. So at small volumes Shopify usually costs less, in the middle it depends on your hosting and upkeep, and at high volumes a custom store has room to pull ahead.

One caution on that last row: a store selling ₹30 lakh a month usually needs more than a starting-price build. Treat ₹65,000 as the floor, not the estimate, and redo the sum with a real quotation.

Two plan notes fall out of the same maths. Moving from Basic to Grow pays for itself once sales paid through your gateway pass about ₹4.1 lakh a month, because Shopify's fee drops from 2% to 1%. On fees alone, Advanced only beats Grow above about ₹42.7 lakh a month.

India-specific needs: COD, Razorpay and UPI, GST invoices, shipping and WhatsApp

• Cash on delivery. Shopify treats COD as a manual payment, so there's no Shopify transaction fee on it. You still carry the cost of refused parcels and returns, so plan how you'll handle them before launch.
• Razorpay and UPI. Razorpay's Shopify integration enables UPI, cards, wallets and netbanking. Razorpay's pricing page says UPI is free of MDR under RBI policy, but its 2% platform fee still applies. Its documentation also says the Shopify plugin doesn't support Razorpay Subscriptions, so plan recurring orders separately.
• GST invoices. Shopify says it doesn't create a GST-compliant bill, and its default GST settings must be reviewed and updated before you use them. It points you to a GST invoicing app or a local invoicing service. On a custom build, GST invoice generation is a feature you scope and pay for once.
• Shipping. Courier rates and pickups come from your courier or shipping partner. Our Shopify package includes shipping and tax configuration; the courier account and its charges are yours.
• WhatsApp. Many buyers want to ask a question before they pay. WhatsApp and enquiry forms are part of our Shopify package, and WhatsApp is part of the Intermediate build.
• Selling abroad. Shopify's pricing page marks showing prices in local currencies as needing Shopify Payments, which isn't available in India. If export is a big part of your plan, check this before you choose.

When Shopify wins and when a custom store wins

Shopify is usually the better choice when:

• You're launching or testing a product and want to sell in weeks.
• Your online sales are small enough that Shopify's fee costs less than hosting and upkeep would (see the last column above).
• Your catalogue fits a standard product and variant setup.
• Nobody on your team wants to think about servers, security patches or plugin updates.

A custom store is usually the better choice when:

• Online sales are high enough that percentage fees cost more each month than a developer's time.
• You need checkout or pricing logic that would otherwise take several paid apps: B2B price lists, made-to-order options, complex bundles.
• You want to own the code and data outright and connect your own inventory, ERP or CRM.
• Page speed and design control matter to you. In a lab test of our own website (not a store) on a simulated slow 4G phone, adding compression, caching and image fixes took the homepage's first paint from 5.1 seconds to 1.6 seconds. That is lab data, not field data, and it is the kind of fix that is easier when you control the code and the server.

WooCommerce sits between the two: no percentage fee, like a custom build, and ready-made plugins, like Shopify's apps, with the upkeep that comes with them. If you're not sure you need a store yet, our website design cost guide covers sites that don't sell online.

What our build includes, what you pay separately, and the timeline

Shopify store: from ₹45,000, in 10 to 20 working days

Our Shopify Website package covers store setup and configuration, custom Shopify theme development, homepage, about and collection pages, product listing and detail pages, cart and checkout setup, payment gateway integration, shipping and tax configuration, product search and filtering, WhatsApp and enquiry forms, Google Analytics, Search Console, Meta Pixel, basic SEO, and testing and launch support.

You provide the domain, the Shopify subscription, product information, images, content and any third-party accounts. If you don't have product visuals, we make custom images at ₹99 to ₹150 each.

Custom store: from ₹65,000, Intermediate build in 15 to 30 working days

A custom store starts from our Intermediate Website build at ₹45,000: React, Next.js or Vite on the front end, Node.js with Express or Next.js API routes on the back end, and MongoDB or PostgreSQL for data, with authentication, search and filtering, forms and file uploads. A store then adds a payment gateway (from ₹5,000) and an admin panel (from ₹15,000) for products and orders.

The stack is chosen with you at quotation, and that choice changes the price. You provide the domain, hosting, content, brand assets and API credentials, such as your Razorpay account.

What's charged separately, and how payment works

• Hosting and domain, unless the quotation says otherwise.
• Premium themes, plugins, APIs, software and third-party subscriptions, such as your Shopify plan and paid apps.
• Features outside the agreed scope, quoted separately. An additional page is ₹1,500 to ₹4,000.
• Monthly maintenance, if you want it, at ₹5,000 to ₹15,000.

We bill 40% at project confirmation, 30% at the agreed design or build checkpoint, and 30% at final delivery, before handover. The work runs in four steps: we listen, we send a written quotation (starting prices are a floor, and the quotation is the fee), we design and build while you see the work as it lands, and we hand over with launch, training and one section change after.

Every starting price is on our pricing page. If you tell us your catalogue size, expected orders and how you want to take payments, we'll say which route fits and put the number in writing. Start that conversation here.