What a website should cost a small business in India
A straight look at the real options — agency, freelancer, template builder, this — and what each one actually costs over the first year.
Prices for a small-business website in India range from nothing to two lakhs, which is not a useful answer. Here is the shape of each option and where the money actually goes.
An agency
Typically 40,000 to 2,00,000 for the build, then a retainer or an hourly rate for changes. You are paying for design, project management and somebody who is accountable. That is real value if the design matters to your business or you want the whole thing off your plate.
The thing to check before signing is the change process. A site you cannot update becomes wrong within a year, and "wrong" means customers arriving with last year’s prices.
A freelancer
Usually 8,000 to 40,000, and often excellent value. The two risks are availability — they have other clients and a life — and continuity, because the most common way a small business loses its website is the person who built it taking a full-time job.
Ask what happens if you need a change and they are unavailable for a month. If the answer is "nothing", price that in.
A template builder
Roughly 400 to 2,000 rupees a month, forever, whether you change anything or not. Capable and mature. The cost that does not appear on the invoice is your evenings: you are the one dragging boxes, finding the mobile breakpoint override, and working out why the plugin stopped.
This
No monthly fee. You start with 300 free sparks — about forty changes — and after that a change costs three to eight rupees. A release onto a phone store has its own fee, once per release, and only when a release actually happens.
For most small businesses, a year of active use lands in the low thousands of rupees, because a site that is finished mostly gets a price change now and then.
The number nobody quotes
The real cost of a website is not the build. It is the average delay between reality changing and the website agreeing with it.
A 2,00,000-rupee site with a one-week change process is worse for a bakery than a 5,000-rupee site that updates in ten seconds, because the bakery changes its list daily and the 2,00,000-rupee site will be lying by Thursday.
Price the change, not the build. That is the number you will live with.
Build the thing this is about
Ask for access and a person reads it. You start with 300 free sparks, about forty changes.
Request access Take the free founder test
Access is by invitation and a person reads every request. The founder test is free, takes a few minutes, and tells you what you are getting before you commit to anything.