Most people asking this question get one of two answers. Either a number so low it can't be real, or "it depends" with no explanation. Both are useless.
So here is the honest version: what changes the price, what you should expect to pay, and where people get quietly overcharged.
The website is not the only cost
Before any design work, there are two running costs that belong to you, not to your designer.
Domain
Your address on the internet, like yourbusiness.com. Roughly ₹700–1,200 a year, depending on the extension you pick.
Hosting
The space your site actually lives in. For a small business site, roughly ₹300–800 a year on shared hosting.
Together, about ₹1,000–1,500 a year. This is separate from the build, and it repeats every year. Anyone who doesn't mention it upfront is setting you up for an awkward conversation later.
One rule matters more than the price: both should be registered in your name, not your designer's. If they sit in someone else's account and you later want to work with a different person, you are stuck negotiating for something you already paid for.
What actually drives the build cost
Number of pages
A single-page site — who you are, what you sell, photos, contact — is the cheapest thing that still works properly. Five pages costs more because each page needs its own writing, layout and testing. It is not a straight multiplication, but it is not free either.
Whether your content is ready
This is the biggest hidden factor, and almost nobody mentions it. If you hand over photos, a menu or service list, and your business details on day one, the work moves fast. If the designer has to chase you for three weeks, or write your content from scratch, that time goes somewhere — usually into the price, or into the delay.
Logo and identity
If you already have a logo you're happy with, that's one less thing. If you need one designed, it's a separate piece of work with its own rounds of revisions.
Being found on Google
A site that exists and a site that shows up are two different products. Sitemaps, structured data, Search Console, a properly filled business profile — these take real time. Some quotes include them. Many don't, and you only find out months later when nobody has visited.
What happens after launch
A website is not a painting you hang up and forget. Menus change, offers change, photos get old. Ask what happens in month three — and whether it costs anything.
Real numbers
I can only be specific about my own prices, so here they are:
- ₹4,999 — one-page site, ready in about three days. Mobile-fit, WhatsApp and call buttons, photo gallery, Maps location.
- ₹9,999 — four to five pages, about seven days. Menu or service list, gallery, Maps, Google Business Profile setup, contact form, fifteen days of free changes.
- ₹18,999 — eight or more pages, ten to fourteen days. Adds logo design, full SEO setup, Search Console, social posters, a month of support.
- ₹39,999 — everything above, plus analytics, a blog section, migration from an old site if you have one, and a year of maintenance and updates.
Half before work starts, half before it goes live. You see the whole site on a preview link before the final payment.
I'm not going to tell you what agencies charge, because I'd be guessing. What I can say is that when a quote is much higher, ask what specifically is different — more pages, custom features, a team, ongoing work? Sometimes there's a real answer. Sometimes there isn't.
Where people get quietly overcharged
Monthly fees with nothing behind them
A small business site does not need a monthly retainer to stay online. Hosting costs what hosting costs. If there's a monthly fee, ask exactly what work it buys.
The domain held hostage
Covered above, and it's the single most common way people get trapped. Check whose name it's in before you pay anything.
"We'll get you to number one on Google"
Nobody can promise this. Not me, not anyone. Rankings depend on competition, your category and your location. What a designer can promise is doing the setup properly and submitting the site. The rest is honest effort, not a guarantee.
Paying for pages nobody reads
A ten-page site isn't better than a four-page site if six of those pages are filler. More pages means more to maintain, and more places for information to go stale.
A sensible way to decide
Work out what the site has to do first. Take bookings? Show a menu? Get phone calls? Come up in "near me" searches?
Then ask for a quote against that job, not against a page count. And ask for the price in writing before anything starts — including domain and hosting, including what changes cost later.
If someone won't put it in writing, that's your answer.
Written by Sudam Chavan
I design, build and host websites for businesses from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Maharashtra. The two sites in my portfolio run on my own server — I handle the design, the code and the hosting myself.
Want a straight quote? Tell me what your business does and what you need, and I'll give you the price and the timeline in that conversation.
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