A Shopify website in India costs ₹15,000 to ₹40,000 for a freelancer to set up an existing theme, ₹75,000 to ₹2 lakh for an agency-built custom theme, and ₹1.2 lakh to ₹4 lakh for an agency build with integrations, going by one April 2026 Indian price guide. These are vendor figures, and price lists disagree. Running costs come on top: plans from ₹1,499 a month on yearly billing, Shopify's fee on prepaid orders, and apps. A GST-registered seller adds 18% to the build fee. Send every bidder the same scope list so the quotes can be compared.
What a Shopify website costs in India, by route
A Shopify website in India costs from ₹15,000 to ₹4 lakh or more to build, and the route you choose decides where you land. The table below uses Topaz Infotech's April 2026 guide, the one price list we read that splits every route by freelancer and agency.
| Route | Freelancer | Agency |
|---|---|---|
| Set up an existing theme and add products | ₹15,000 to ₹40,000 | ₹40,000 to ₹80,000 |
| Custom theme development | ₹40,000 to ₹1,00,000 | ₹75,000 to ₹2,00,000 |
| Full store build with integrations | ₹60,000 to ₹1,50,000 | ₹1,20,000 to ₹4,00,000 |
| Migration from WooCommerce or Magento | ₹30,000 to ₹80,000 | ₹70,000 to ₹2,00,000 |
| Custom app or API work | ₹50,000 to ₹2,00,000+ | ₹1,50,000 to ₹10,00,000+ |
Every rupee figure in this section comes from a firm that sells this work, so treat them as price lists and not as measured market data. Other lists land in a similar place for small stores and spread out above that:
- Prateeksha Web Design (June 2026) lists one-time setup on Shopify Basic at ₹20,000 to ₹80,000.
- Codingclave (March 2026) lists Shopify theme customisation at ₹15,000 to ₹50,000. Across all ecommerce platforms, it puts a store of 200 to 1,000 products at ₹1,50,000 to ₹3,00,000.
- CartCoders (March 2026) quotes in dollars and does not limit its figures to India: $8,000 to $35,000 for a full custom store, $40,000 to $120,000 or more for Shopify Plus, and $60,000 to $200,000 or more for a headless build.
Why Shopify build quotes differ so widely
Shopify quotes differ because they price different amounts of work under the same name. A "Shopify website" can mean a theme with your logo on it, or an original design wired into your warehouse. Six things move the number.
- Design. Using a theme's own sections costs far less than an original design for every page, which then has to be built from scratch.
- Unique templates. Home, collection, product, cart and landing pages each add design, code and testing. Count them before you ask for a price.
- Integrations. Courier, ERP, WhatsApp and COD tools each need setup and testing. Codingclave prices features of this kind, such as shipping integration, at ₹30,000 to ₹1,00,000 each, across platforms. If COD is a large share of your orders, the checks in our guide on cutting COD returns and RTO belong in the scope.
- Data. Moving from another platform means products, customers, past orders and URL redirects. Shopify's migration docs say to import products, customers and historical orders in that order, so orders link to the right records. Our replatform checklist lists the rest.
- Custom logic. Bundles, tiered discounts and delivery rules can need Shopify Functions or a custom app, which is the most expensive line in the table above.
- Testing. Real phones, gateway test orders, COD orders, tracking and redirects all take hours. Ask whether the quote includes them and who signs them off.
What a theme costs: free, $100 to $500, or custom
A Shopify theme is free, a one-store purchase of $100 to $500, or a custom build you pay a developer for. When we read the Theme Store listing on 4 November 2026, it showed 24 free themes and 1,335 paid ones, with paid prices from $100 to $500. Codingclave puts a premium theme at ₹12,000 to ₹30,000.
Shopify's page on adding and buying themes sets four rules that affect your budget:
- You can preview up to 19 paid themes in your admin before buying.
- A trial theme's code cannot be edited, so buy the theme before a developer starts on its code.
- Purchases are final sale, and the theme developer cannot refund them.
- A theme is licensed only to the store you bought it for, so a second store may mean a transfer or a second purchase.
The longer-term difference is updates. Shopify's page on updating themes says updates to Theme Store themes are free and theme editor changes carry over, while code edits carry over only if they do not conflict. Automatic updates are not supported for uploaded themes, which is how a custom theme runs. Every new feature on a custom theme is therefore work you pay for.
Our advice is to start with a Theme Store theme unless your brand needs layouts its sections cannot produce. If you are weighing bigger architecture choices, our guide on headless versus theme covers when the extra cost pays back.
What the store costs to run in the first year
Running costs are the Shopify plan, Shopify's fee on prepaid orders, apps and a domain, and they recur every year. These plan prices come from Shopify's India pricing page on 4 November 2026.
| Plan | Per month, billed yearly | Twelve months | Shopify's fee on gateway payments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | ₹1,499 | ₹17,988 | 2% |
| Grow | ₹5,599 | ₹67,188 | 1% |
| Advanced | ₹22,680 | ₹2,72,160 | 0.6% |
| Plus | From ₹1,75,000, with 1 and 3 year terms offered | ₹21,00,000 or more | 0.2% |
The fee applies to prepaid orders through a gateway such as Razorpay, on top of the gateway's own charge. Our guide to payment gateways in India compares those charges. Shopify's page on manual payments says third-party transaction fees are not charged on manual payments, which is how cash on delivery runs. To choose a plan from your own prepaid revenue, see which Shopify plan to pick in India.
Shopify's pricing page also advertises ₹20 a month for the first 3 months on most plans. Ask who sets up the store before you count on it. Shopify's partner docs say a client transfer store moved onto a live plan is no longer eligible for promotions or free trials.
Add up apps carefully. Prateeksha puts a mid-tier store with 5 to 8 paid apps at ₹5,200 to ₹15,800 a month, which is ₹62,400 to ₹1,89,600 a year. Shopify's page on app charges describes recurring, usage-based and one-time charges, and one-time charges arrive on separate invoices, so read past bills in full. Codingclave puts a domain at ₹500 to ₹1,500 a year. Work after launch is a separate budget, covered line by line in Shopify maintenance cost.
A worked first-year budget for a growing store
A store on Grow with an agency build and ₹3 lakh of prepaid sales a month should plan for roughly ₹3.1 lakh to ₹7.7 lakh in year one, using the figures above. Change the inputs to match your store.
| Line | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Agency build with integrations, plus 18% GST | ₹1,41,600 | ₹4,72,000 |
| Grow plan, billed yearly | ₹67,188 | ₹67,188 |
| Shopify's 1% fee on ₹36 lakh of prepaid sales | ₹36,000 | ₹36,000 |
| 5 to 8 paid apps | ₹62,400 | ₹1,89,600 |
| Domain | ₹500 | ₹1,500 |
| First-year total | ₹3,07,688 | ₹7,66,288 |
This leaves out the gateway's own charge, photography, maintenance and any tax on Shopify's and the apps' bills. A smaller store can spend far less. Prateeksha's year-one estimate for Shopify Basic is ₹62,000 to ₹1,76,000, and Codingclave's first-year total is ₹80,000 to ₹5,00,000.
The 18% is the rate tax guides give for this work. IndiaFilings lists website and software development under SAC 998314 at 18%. A small freelancer may not be registered for GST, in which case the invoice carries none. Check whether a quote is before or after GST, and ask your accountant whether you can claim it as input credit.
Freelancer, agency or in-house hire
A freelancer costs least per hour, an agency covers more skills, and an in-house hire only makes sense when one person would be busy full time. The published rates below are starting points.
| Option | Published cost | Suits | Check before you commit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freelancer | ₹800 to ₹2,500 an hour (Topaz) | A clean theme build with a clear brief | Availability during launch week, and who fixes bugs afterwards |
| Agency | ₹1,500 to ₹4,000 an hour (Topaz) | Custom design, integrations, migration | Who actually writes the code, and whether a developer joins your calls |
| In-house, 2 to 5 years | ₹7.1 lakh a year, about ₹59,000 a month | A steady stream of work after launch | Recruitment and tools cost extra, and it is one skill set |
| In-house, 5 to 8 years | ₹11 lakh a year, about ₹92,000 a month | Custom theme and integrations in-house | Cover for leave and sale periods |
The salary figures are median all-in CTC from Flexiple's salary data, updated in August 2026 from 4,979 records.
Dollar rates for India vary more than the rupee list suggests. Meetanshi, in an article first dated September 2024, gives an average of $20 an hour on freelance platforms, and CartCoders gives $30 to $70. On 4 November 2026, most firms on Clutch's India listing showed under $50 an hour, with a few at $100 to $199, and one DesignRush listing page showed $7 to $100. Compare total price for the same scope, because a low rate on many hours can cost more than a higher rate on few.
How to get Shopify quotes you can compare
Quotes become comparable when every bidder prices the same written scope, line by line. Send each one this list and ask for hours and price against every item.
- Catalogue. Number of products and variants, and who enters them.
- Templates. Every unique page type, and who supplies the design.
- Integrations. Named tools: gateway, courier, ERP, WhatsApp, reviews, loyalty.
- Data. What moves from the old store, and how many URLs need redirects.
- Markets. Languages, currencies and countries at launch.
- Dates. Launch date, and any sale it must be ready for.
- Testing. Devices, test orders and tracking checks, with a signed-off list.
- After launch. How long bugs are fixed free, and the rate after that.
Then check four terms before you sign.
- The store is yours. A developer can work on your store through a collaborator account, or build on a client transfer store and hand it to you. Shopify's docs on dev stores describe them as free stores for building themes that can only process test orders, so your store needs a paid plan before it can take real orders. Our guide on giving a developer access safely covers the setup.
- You own the code. The contract should assign custom theme and app code to you on final payment, and any paid theme should be licensed to your store.
- Revisions are counted. Rounds of design changes, stated as a number.
- Payment follows milestones. Design sign-off, build on a preview, and launch, with the last payment after launch.
We build Shopify stores for D2C brands, with 100+ stores and sites delivered. For Jimmy Luxury, we built the site from scratch and moved the business off WordPress while the old store stayed live and busy. Our Shopify development page explains how we work. If you have a scope list, you can send it through our contact page for a quote.
Questions
How much does a Shopify website cost in India?
One April 2026 Indian price guide lists ₹15,000 to ₹80,000 to set up an existing theme, ₹40,000 to ₹2,00,000 for a custom theme, and ₹60,000 to ₹4,00,000 for a full store with integrations, with freelancers at the lower end of each. A GST-registered seller adds 18% to the fee. Plans, apps and transaction fees are separate running costs. These are vendor figures, so get quotes against a written scope.
How much does a Shopify developer charge in India?
One Indian guide lists ₹800 to ₹2,500 an hour for freelancers and ₹1,500 to ₹4,000 for agencies. Dollar figures range from an average of $20 an hour on freelance platforms to $30 to $70 from an agency's guide. For a full-time hire, Flexiple's August 2026 data puts median CTC at ₹7.1 lakh a year with 2 to 5 years of experience and ₹11 lakh with 5 to 8.
What does a custom Shopify theme cost?
One Indian price list gives ₹40,000 to ₹1,00,000 from a freelancer and ₹75,000 to ₹2,00,000 from an agency. A paid Theme Store theme costs $100 to $500, and 24 are free. Custom themes are uploaded themes, and Shopify does not support automatic updates for those, so new features are work you pay for.
What is the monthly cost of a Shopify website in India?
The plan is ₹1,499, ₹5,599 or ₹22,680 a month on yearly billing for Basic, Grow and Advanced, and Plus starts at ₹1,75,000. Shopify adds 2%, 1%, 0.6% or 0.2% on gateway payments. One Indian guide puts 5 to 8 paid apps at ₹5,200 to ₹15,800 a month. Maintenance is a separate budget if you pay someone for it.
Is it better to hire a freelancer or an agency for a Shopify store?
A freelancer suits a clean theme build with a clear brief and costs less per hour. An agency suits custom design, integrations or a migration, where one person rarely has every skill. In either case, get the same written scope priced line by line, and check who fixes bugs after launch and who actually writes the code.
Can I build a Shopify store myself without a developer?
Yes, for a simple store. The Theme Store has 24 free themes, you can preview paid ones before buying, and the theme editor needs no code. Your cost is the plan, apps and your own time. Bring in a developer when you need layouts the theme cannot produce, a migration from another platform, or integrations with courier or ERP systems.
Is GST charged on Shopify website development in India?
Tax guides list website development under SAC 998314 at 18% GST, so a ₹2,00,000 fee from a registered seller becomes ₹2,36,000. A small freelancer may not be registered, and then the invoice carries no GST. Check whether each quote is before or after GST, ask for a GST invoice, and ask your accountant whether you can claim it as input credit.