An online store is not a website with a buy button. It is a catalogue, a payment flow, a stock ledger, a shipping integration and an admin panel your staff have to use every day — and each of those is a place a quote can quietly leave something out.
This is the full line-item list we price against. Take it to whoever you are comparing; the gap between two quotes almost always explains itself in about ten minutes once both are itemised.
The seven things you are paying for
- Storefront and catalogueCategory pages, product pages, variants (size, colour, weight), search and filtering. Cost scales with how complicated your variants are, not with SKU count — 2,000 simple products is cheaper than 40 configurable ones.
- Cart and checkoutThe highest-value screens on the site. Guest checkout, address handling, pincode serviceability, coupons and the error states. This is where most stores lose orders, and where cheap builds cut first.
- PaymentsRazorpay, PayU, PhonePe, Cashfree or Stripe; UPI, cards, netbanking, wallets, COD. Plus the unglamorous half: webhooks, failed-payment recovery, refunds and reconciliation that matches your bank statement.
- Inventory and ordersStock levels that hold under two people buying the last unit at once, order statuses, returns and exchanges. If you also sell in a shop or on marketplaces, this is where sync lives, and it is not a small line.
- Shipping and logisticsCourier integration, rate calculation by weight and pincode, label generation, tracking pages and the automated status messages that stop the "where is my order" calls.
- Admin panelThe part nobody demos and your team lives in. Adding products, editing prices, running a sale, checking today's orders — without calling the developer.
- Running itHosting, SSL, payment-gateway fees (roughly 2% per transaction), SMS and WhatsApp credits, and maintenance. Recurring, and the line most first-time sellers forget entirely.
Why two quotes differ threefold
Almost always because one includes reconciliation, shipping integration, an admin panel and post-launch support, and the other includes a storefront. A cheaper total with fewer lines is not a better deal — it is the same project with the hard parts deferred into change requests you will pay for later, usually at a worse moment.
The other big swing is the platform. A Shopify or WooCommerce build reuses a great deal and costs less up front; a custom build costs more up front and less per month, and is the right answer when your catalogue or pricing rules do not fit what the platform assumes.
What you can safely cut from v1
- A mobile appShip a fast, responsive store first. An app earns its cost once you have repeat customers to retain, not before.
- Loyalty and referral schemesAdd them when you know what a customer is worth. Building them first means guessing the economics.
- Custom illustration and videoReal product photography that shows scale and detail sells better than any of it, and costs less.
- Marketplace syncOnly worth building once the volume on Amazon or Flipkart is high enough that manual updates hurt.
The test nobody runs, and should
Before you sign anything, ask to see a checkout completed on a mid-range Android phone on a deliberately throttled connection. That is the device and the network most Indian shoppers are on, and it is where a store built and tested on a fast laptop quietly falls apart. A company that has already done this will show you in two minutes. A company that has not will change the subject.
Frequently asked questions
How long does an e-commerce website take to build?
A platform store on Shopify or WooCommerce with a standard catalogue is typically 4–8 weeks. A custom store with inventory sync, complex pricing rules or a B2B portal is usually 10–16 weeks. The catalogue data is almost always the critical path, not the code — start collecting product photos and descriptions on day one.
Should I start on Shopify or build custom?
Start on a platform unless something about your business genuinely does not fit it — customer-specific pricing, unusual units of measure, a multi-vendor model, or an ERP you must talk to. Platforms get you selling sooner and cheaper. Migrating later is real work, but it is work you pay for with revenue rather than before you have any.
What ongoing costs should I budget for?
Hosting or platform subscription, a payment-gateway fee of roughly 2% per transaction, SMS and WhatsApp credits, and maintenance. A realistic annual planning figure for maintenance is 15–20% of the build cost — the same as any other software.
Do you build e-commerce stores for clients outside India?
Yes. The build is the same; what changes is the payment gateway, the tax handling and the shipping integrations for your market. We work with clients across India and overseas, remotely, with a weekly demo link you can open at any time.
Want this applied to your project?
Send us what you have — even a rough note. You'll get a written scope, a fixed quote and a delivery date within one business day, with no obligation.
