How Much To Create A Website In India

how much does it cost to build website in India

Be in India, USA or any other country, everyone who want to build a website also like to reduce the overall website cost. There are cost of website components we cannot evade. Some website costs are optional which we can pick and choose depending on functional requirements. So, the knowledge of website components that affect the final website pricing is the key. This understanding gives us the ability to determine what exactly do we want from our website vendor and avoid unnecessary expenses.

Website cost vary for for different types of websites. Simple sites are quick and easy to design and develop and cost less. These are static html websites, CMS based sites. But the same yardstick can't be applied with e-commerce website costing and they can be expensive. Fully customized websites are extremely expensive.

How much does a website cost in India

In India, website cost is more sensitive and restrictive issue when it comes to selling a website. The website cost depends on many factors which are explained in details. One cost factor is the paying capacity of the buyers of a country.

Website pricing differs from country to country. In USA, the development cost is high, whereas in India and it's subcontinent, website development cost is low as compared to USA and European countries.

Average website development cost in a country depends on it's currency strength and per-capita income. Average website design and development cost in India is 15% of the cost in USA and European Union. This discount in percentage differs for different parts of the world.

To reach a realistic ball park figure for the website cost is not easy since many factors play it's role, but with some prudent calculations you can figure out an estimated cost for your website. The cost of a website varies a lot and it mostly depends on the choices you make and development method you adopt.

The website cost includes the cost of design, development and maintenance. The final cost of website design and development will then largely depend on the features the customer wants in his website and option of maintenance he adopts.

The design and development cost of your website also depends on vendor you have chosen to build, develop and maintain your website. Choosing a right website vendor for your website is critical to reduce the costing and success of your website.

Website design and development incurs monthly costs, yearly costs (including website maintenance) and some one-time cost. In India, website making cost generally include fixed and recurring costs but exclude maintenance cost. Website Maintenance is a separate from development and sold as annual maintenance contract(AMC). AMC covers the scope of work and period of maintenance.

Website is not a commodity which one can buy and forget. The website needs to be maintained, updated and upgraded regularly. It is a live business tool.

When building a website from scratch, it will have fixed, recurring and ad-hoc cost items.

Website Development Cost Breakdown

Let us explore STEP BY STEP METHOD to develop / build a website and get approximate costs associated in each of these steps. From building website yourself to hiring a freelance web developer or engaging a website development agency, we will answer to the following and its cost:

#1. Domain cost - Annual renewal

The journey to building a website starts with domain name registration. We will need a domain registrar likeGoDaddy, HostGator, BlueHost etc. These domain registrars offer integrated services where we get dashboard for managing DNS, hosting, email accounts and databases. This will cost from INR 900-1200/year.

#2. Hosting cost in India - Annual renewal

The

host

will provide you space on a web server that costs you monthly / annually. The hosting is a recurring cost that depends on the package / services you opt from hosting provider. In India, website hosting cost ranges anywhere from INR 5000 to 10,000/- on shared hosting platforms.

At times, hosts offer free account or a high discount for first year hosting. There are many types of hosting packages available for different types of websites. Shared server is good for medium to small business website. If you own a professional website with business operations and expecting to yield major traffic, you should host your web site on

VPS

which may cost from INR 40,000 to 100,000/- per anum depending on the server configuration. For more advanced and transactional web application with heavy traffic, you can host your web application on dedicated server and this can cost you from INR 150,000 to 400,000/- again depending on the server configuration and hosting platform. Custom website with specialized services need more control on server resources require a dedicated server.

Hosting on Indian server in India region is a little more expensive than hosting in USA or Singapore in terms of INR.

#3. Design cost - One time

Website design is as important as website functionality and services. Website designs are ready-made and can be customized. Many web design sites offer ready-made web design templtes. You can select a design, buy and use it. One can select a new design for your website exclusively. Exclusive web designs are not shared or sold to anyone and is highly priced. The website design is the major cost and it varies from design to design. Professional design costs are higher as they have all essential elements of the business and clean navigation. Website design is one time cost but modification and subsequent update to the design costs more within the same or subsequent years. Some all purppse designs are free but with many undisclosed limitations. Those are amateur designs not tuned for performance and business needs. They are stray coded designs which are not maintainable. You will get no help for free designs. Good professional designs in India cost you around INR 10,000 to 60,000/- with a single site shared license. For an exclusive design, you may need to cough up from INR 100,000 to 300,000/- or even more. You can also outsource your web design to a reputed web designing company to have an exclusive design but it may cost you 2-10 times higher.

#4. Content management system (CMS) cost - Optional

Static sites are the websites that do not change its content frequently. Static sites do not require a CMS. Dynamic sites are active sites that is involved in frequent updates and is generally data driven and CMS powered. Business environment changes by time and so is the content. When you decide to build a website which will have continuous updates, choose a quality content management system (CMS). You will need a CMS to change content of a website or application without disturbing the structure.

There are many free Web CMS available in the market viz. Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, WEC etc. But remember, these CMS solve simpler aspects of a website. When you have a unique way of engaging your customers, then these CMS may not of any help. In that case, you need to build a new CMS from scratch with the help of a web developer, a team of developers or web development agency. Building custom CMS with a team of developers or outsourcing to build a custom CMS in India will cost you anywhere from INR 100,000 to 500,000/-.

#5. Cost of copyright content - Optional

Will you write your own content or have a content writer?

The content is the lifeline of a business website. Content engages and talk to your customers. This conversation may finally cut through a business conversions. In a way, content is the life blood of your digital marketing campaign. Be it Images, documents, write-ups, videos or any other resources, all of these are content / business resources. The presentation, writing and linking of these resources help your business to get recognized and help build a perspective in the mind of your customers.

Web content is different than print content and have different objectives as well. Web Content focus on creating short attractive title, building better link profile, adding more and more keywords, engaging people, maintain inter-activeness and increase social media outreach. Web content writing is a specialized job and each copyright content or update cost you. On an average, you will have to spendINR 3000/page for a good and professional copyright content in India.

#6. Search engine optimization (SEO) cost - Optional but critical

What is the use of a website if no one is visiting? The next step is to draw internet customers to your website. This is achieved by using search engine optimization^[1][2][3][4]. SEO is a technique by which you allow search engines to index your web pages with relevant keywords of your business so that search engine can send users to your website. This will make your website appear before the customers when they search for businesses like yours. This is an optional but critical website cost. SEO optimization in India will cost anywhere between INR 20,000 to 55,000/-. SEO services are offered in packages. These packages offer you a range of options including on-site SEO, off-site SEO, on-page SEO, off-page SEO or a mix. The SEO impact on business will need at least 6 months.

#7. Social media cost - Optional

The social media is now one of the most influencing factor in digital marketing and outreach. Billions of people hang out on social media. It builds your social digital footprints (social bookmarks) and search engines give these high preference when it validates the site for correctness. There are many popular social media sites like facebook, twitter, linkedin, instagram etc. and their cumulative traffic outnumbers all search engine marketing channels. Therefore, social media can not be ignored in a real business scenario. Social media setup is about setting up your account / pages and updating that regularly with your business updates. It also includes answering to people who is interested in your business or in some other ways. This work can be taken up by some of your employee who have used it before in good effect. Building social media influence also need a good social strategy. Outsourcing social media management may cost you anywhere from INR 5000 to 20,000/year in India.

#8. Cost of setting email newsletter - Optional

Business need to send newsletter to their customers or need to advertise using newsletters. It is a kind of mailing list service. These services can be availed separately with the likes of mailchimp etc. Integrating newsletter application services into your website may cost you depending on the type of newsletter service you want. This will form your optional website cost. Newsletters can be used to target anonymous, subscribers or customers for business updates. You can utilize newsletter to build a community.

#9. Responsive web pages are costlier that static pages

Responsive website means a collection of web pages that opens seamlessly irrespective of the device and screen sizes. Google has recently announced that the responsive website is a ranking factor and mobile page speed is also a ranking factor. In this scenario, responsive websites is a must if your into a serious business and digital marketing is the next opportunity you are aiming at. Making such pages require more CSS and media queries or incorporation of CSS frameworks like bootstrap, flex etc. and hence it costs you more. In simple words, responsive website means a website that displays well on devices of various sizes like desktops, laptops, tablets and smart phones. In India, responsive websites (website with pages with responsive layout) cost you additional INR 3,000 to 5000/site for sites which have about 5-10 pages. For bigger websites, it could go even higher as the number of pages increase.

#10. Clean & smart navigation cost

Clean and consistent navigation structure is the backbone of a good website design. It allows your visitors to predict where they would find certain information. Building such a clean navigator need careful understanding of the human behavior and adapt to such structuring. Building such customized navigation adds to website cost. For example, opting to have a smart collapsible menu will cost you more. If you include images and icons in the menu / navigation design, it costs you dear. Smart menu / unique navigation may cost you from INR 5,000 to 50,000/- depending on the complexity of the navigation menu.

#11. Cost to include internal site search

Site search adds to the navigation capability of a website. It is like a virtual assistant for you when you are unable to locate certain items / information. It eases the task of a visitor when he finds difficulty looking for some items you might have shifted to some other segments. Adding search pages and search index service to the website will add to your website cost. Advanced searches for further filtering down the results could cost even more. It could be free if you are building your site using popular free CMS or it may range from INR 10,000 to 30,000/- per website and depends on what type of search capability is required.

#12. Cost of custom functionality in your website

Apart from typical website functionality, any additional functionality to a website will cost you separately depending on the complexity of functionality and its integration with the mother website. For example, if you like to add a scheduled discussion forum or scheduled chat to your website where subject experts will answer to your customer's query, then you will have cough out more money for this feature on your website.

#13. Cost of eCommerce website extension

Creating an e commerce website or adding an eCommerce extension to your existing website will cost you additional money. Website developer will need to develop the product catalog and add a shopping cart application to your website. You will then require opening a merchant account with payment gateways and integrate with your e commerce application. The developer may need to build or integrate shipping control plugins, manage and configure taxation, billing at the minimum. These features along wih product catalog and shopping cart implementation will cost additionally in the range of INR 10,000 to 30,000/- and integration will cost additionally from INR 10,000 to 60,000/-. You need to collect and organize product details of all your products. Setting up and testing of the e-commerce will take time as well as cost. Adding an e commerce to your site is tempting but is complicated and hence you shall read all myths in e-commerce and stay updated.

#14. Cost of training and user guide

In case, your business does not have any experience on using Content Management System, you will need to allocate resources for managing your website and train them on using your CMS. CMS provider generally provides training on usage of CMS and gives you a user manual. The cost of training will vary from vendor to vendor or it may be part and parcel of the overall development. It may be offered free by some vendors.

#15. More Website Costs

Website making costs that we have discussed so far is not the entire catalog. There are many more resources required for making stunning web applications. These costs include:

SSL Certificates - for additional layer of security to your website
Professional Emails
Custom Logo design
Banner and Sliders
Icons and GIF images
Info-graphics
Premium fonts
Customized videos for youtube
Annual maintenance cost (AMC)

The pricing of the activities and services mentioned above were to let you stay aware whenever you are dealing with different type of vendors.

Sources of Buying Website

There are many types of buying options available to you depending on your budget. You can buy from sources with the like of

Freelance developer
Free Website builders or Website Builder services
Software development agency
Custom Website Developer

Buying from freelance web developers

You can hire the services of freelance developers and designers from many online portals. The popular ones are:

upwork
toptal
simplyhired,
peopleperhour
aquent
crowded
the creative group
fiverr
99design
nexxt

The costs of websites built by these freelance developers are estimated by number of pages on website, search facility, SEO options and the CMS selection. For indulging an Indian developer, the prices are very competitive and vary from anywhere between INR 5000-35000/-.

Buying from website builders

Website builders are the software that makes website building extremely easy. Any person can build their own website by using such tools. The most popular website builders are:

Wix
Squarespace
Weebly
SiteBuilder

With Wix, Squarespace and Weebly, you can build and develop your site for free. Once your site is ready and you want to take it live they will charge hosting and other services.

NOTE: The site developed on these platforms are not portable and when you wish to exit, you will lose control and the site as well. You can only take backup as an HTML backup. You will not get backup as source files and databases.

In ecommerce space you will have the options:

BigCommerce
Shopify

Buying from software development company or a CMS development company

A software development company builds various types of software applications and are generally have high operating cost. Buying from software development company will cost you many times as compared to buying from freelance web developer. If you are building a complex project on a tight timeline, then you shall consider taking services of a software company. For simple websites and limited budget, this is not a good choice. In India, the service fee for website development from software companies starts from INR 250,000/- and there is no upper limit.

Buying from a custom website developer

To build a fully customized website, you can find a custom website developer. This option is cheaper than hiring a software development agency. The cost of building a custom website in India range from INR 100,000-250,000/-. It would be better to hire a reliable developer from your own contact networks.

Cost of building self hosted websites

Self hosted website offer control on every aspect your website development and hosting. You have the liberty to choose your domain name registrar, hosting provider, CMS, email services and type of security. This is suitable for technical person and a developer, since it is least expensive and the developer have full control. In India, a self hosted website cost as little as INR 2,200 when build with free themes. For a non technical person it will incur design and setup cost (one time cost) and maintenance cost to upgrade it from time to time.

In Document References:

How to choose vendor to buy a website
WEC: A Mobile friendly Website Design Framework on ASP.NET
Smart Ways To Earn Money From Website or A Blog
10 important tips to boost your SEO page ranking
Top 30 Off-Page SEO Techniques To Rank #1 in Google
Best On-Page SEO Techniques To Rank And Boost Content Quality
Best Strategy To Get High Quality Backlinks
Myths and realities of a successful eCommerce business