DEV Community: krishna kumar

A ₹6,999 Template Site and a ₹2 Lakh Custom Build Are Not Competing Quotes

krishna kumar — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 05:58:54 +0000

A ₹6,999 Template Site and a ₹2 Lakh Custom Build Are Not Competing Quotes

I keep seeing Indian founders put three website quotes in a spreadsheet and try to pick a winner: a builder at ₹139 a month, a 5-page package at ₹6,999, and a custom proposal at ₹2 lakh.

The spreadsheet is the wrong tool. Those are four different products that happen to share one English phrase.

The public numbers, lined up

These are not our prices. They are from public pages, checked in November 2026. Open them if you want to verify.

Type	Public example	Source
DIY website builder	₹139/month Premium, 48-month intro, renews at ₹449/month; ₹199/month Unlimited, renews at ₹649/month	Hostinger India Website Builder
Template shop	₹3,999 (3-page static) to ₹29,999 (25-page with admin panel)	Hyper Software
Template shop	₹6,999 (5-page starter), ₹12,999 (CMS), ₹24,999+ (ecommerce)	EasyQuickWeb
Custom / agency	Simple site ₹50,000–₹1,00,000; small business ₹80,000–₹1,50,000; custom features ₹2,00,000–₹6,00,000	RepIndia FAQ
Custom / agency	Basic responsive ₹50,000–₹75,000; advanced ecommerce or CRM ₹2–10 lakh+	GBIM
Maintenance retainer	₹5,000, ₹10,000 or ₹20,000/month incl. GST	Codingclave
Maintenance retainer	₹4,999 to ₹29,999/month + 18% GST	Support Guru Digital

The gap between a template package and a custom build is not 2x. It is closer to 20x, because you are not buying a more expensive version of the same site. A template shop sells a fixed number of pages on a ready theme. A custom team plans, designs and develops around a business goal — payments, bookings, dashboards, integrations.

A simple way to choose

Answer in this order. Stop at the first yes, working from the top:

Will the site need new pages, campaigns or fixes every month? You want a retainer, not a one-off project. Published maintenance retainers start around ₹5,000 a month; anything that adds SEO or new features should have hours and deliverables in writing.
Does it need payments, bookings, logins, a dashboard or a CRM/billing integration? You want a custom build.
Do you need 3–10 standard pages live within a week? A template shop is the fastest path.
Are you happy to spend your own evenings on design and text, on a budget under ₹10,000? A DIY builder is enough.

If you do hire a custom team

Do not skip ownership. The domain should be in your name. Ask what you get if you stop working together. We keep a separate 15-minute test for a web development firm in India for that part — GST, site history, handover, and reading the quote line by line.

The sourced comparison of website building companies in india, including when not to hire anyone yet, is here. I work at MGTech Labs in Ranchi. We do custom and retainer work, not ₹6,999 packages. If the decision tree says you need a builder or a template shop, use one.

How to Vet an Indian Web Agency in 15 Minutes (No Sales Call Needed)

krishna kumar — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 05:00:32 +0000

How to Vet an Indian Web Agency in 15 Minutes (No Sales Call Needed)

If you have ever compared Indian web agency websites late at night, you already know the pattern. Everyone is premier. Everyone is award-winning. A few even write a "Top 10" list and put themselves at number one.

That is advertising, not diligence. You can do a better check yourself, for free, in about 15 minutes. I use this when we are on the other side of the table too. You should run it on us.

Set a timer. Pick the firm you are most tempted by. Work in this order.

Minutes 1–3: Test their own website

Paste the firm's homepage into PageSpeed Insights, then test two sites from the portfolio, on mobile.

A team that sells fast, SEO-ready websites should be able to live with its own result. A poor score is not an automatic rejection. The useful part is the explanation. "We have not had time" tells you something. "Here is why, and here is the fix we would apply to yours" tells you something else.

Minutes 4–6: Confirm they exist on paper

Ask for a GSTIN and look it up on the GST taxpayer search. Legal name and state should match the proposal. If they are a private limited company, search the same name on the MCA portal.

A freelancer with no GST can still be the right hire for a small brochure site. You should just know that is who you are hiring, and agree ownership of the domain and files in writing.

Minutes 7–9: Check the age of the story

Paste the firm's site into the Wayback Machine and look at the oldest snapshot. "15 years of experience" should leave a trail of old versions. A young site is not a crime. A history that contradicts the homepage is a question you should ask before you ask for a quote.

Minutes 10–12: Ask the ownership question

Send this in writing:

If we stop working together after launch, what exactly do I get, and how?

You want: domain in your name, hosting in your account, admin logins, code or theme files, and a handover call. "We'll handle everything" is the answer that should worry you.

Minutes 13–15: Read the quote line by line

Ignore the big number at the bottom until the line items make sense. A fair quote names pages, who writes the content, ownership, milestone payments, revision rounds, SEO and testing tasks, maintenance, and GST. "Complete website, 50% now" is not a scope. It is a hope.

When two quotes are miles apart, the gap is usually in what one of them left out, not in the hourly rate.

A simple scoring rule

We score firms out of 20 across proof, ownership, process and growth, and only shortlist 16 or above. The full table, the red-flag list and the quote decoder are in our web development firm india guide. Use them on any firm, including MGTech Labs in Ranchi.

If a team flinches at a public GST search or a written handover question, you just saved yourself a much longer 15 minutes later.