Most small businesses in India get talked into either a Rs 999 website that they do not own, or a Rs 80,000 website with animations nobody asked for. The useful version sits in between and is simpler than either.
This guide covers what a small business site actually needs, the three ways to get one, honest prices, and how to do it yourself for under Rs 1,500 a year if you want to.
Five pages is plenty. More than that and you are writing pages nobody opens.
Two non-negotiables: it must look right on a phone, because that is where nearly all of your visitors will be, and there must be a WhatsApp or call button visible at all times. A beautiful site with no obvious way to contact you is a brochure, not a business tool.
Realistic cost: the domain only. A .in domain is roughly Rs 500–900 a year and a .com roughly Rs 900–1,200, from Hostinger, GoDaddy, BigRock or Namecheap. If your site is simple pages with no login or database, hosting can be free and permanent on GitHub Pages, Netlify or Cloudflare Pages — this site runs that way. A business email on your own domain is free on Zoho Mail’s forever-free plan.
Builders like Wix, Squarespace or Google Sites are the easier route if you do not want to touch files; budget roughly Rs 500–1,500 a month for a paid plan with your own domain. Avoid the free plans — they put the builder’s name in your address, which looks exactly as unprofessional as it sounds.
Time: a weekend, honestly, if your text and photos are ready.
The common Indian range: Rs 3,500–20,000 for a one-page or landing site, Rs 8,000–60,000 for a five-page business site, more for e-commerce. The spread is enormous because it depends entirely on who you find.
What to check before paying: can you see three sites they built, do those load fast on your phone, will the domain be registered in your name, is hosting included or separate, how many revisions, and what happens after launch when you want a price changed.
From around Rs 40,000 upward. Worth it when you need design, copywriting, photography and integrations handled together. For a single-location salon, clinic or shop, it is usually more than the job needs.
Not later, at build time, because it costs nothing then: a clear page title on every page with the words customers search, a one-line description per page, real headings rather than big bold text, image file names that describe the image, a sitemap.xml, and the site submitted to Google Search Console. That is most of what small business SEO is.
If you would rather not do any of this, our website prices are published — landing page Rs 3,500, five-page business site Rs 8,000, at launch prices for the first ten clients — and the domain is always registered in your name. But do the free listing check first: for a lot of businesses the Google profile brings more calls than a new website would, and it is cheaper to fix.
Doing it yourself: a domain is roughly Rs 500–1,200 a year and static hosting can be free, so under Rs 1,500 a year in total. Hiring a freelancer: a one-page site is commonly Rs 3,500–20,000 and a five-page business site Rs 8,000–60,000. Agencies start around Rs 40,000. Anyone quoting Rs 999 for a complete website is selling you a template on their own subdomain that you do not own.
For being found, the Google listing does most of the work. A website earns its place when someone is deciding whether to trust you — prices, past work, who you are — and when you want to run ads, because ads need a page to send people to. Start with the listing, add the site when you have something to show.
Always yours. Buy the domain yourself on your own account and give the developer access, or insist the invoice and registrant are in your business name. Domains held in a developer’s account are the most common way small businesses lose their website.
For most small businesses in India, a builder like Wix or a simple hand-built static site is less trouble. WordPress is more flexible but needs updates, backups and a plugin you will eventually have to fix. Choose WordPress only if you will blog regularly or someone is maintaining it.
Three days to two weeks, and the delay is almost never the coding — it is waiting for the business to send photos, prices and text. Gather those first and the build is quick.
Send your business name. The free 15-point check tells you whether your Google listing or a website will bring more calls — and we will say so honestly either way.
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