The costs nobody itemises
Most “Shopify costs in India” answers quote the subscription and stop. The subscription is usually the smallest line. Here is the whole thing.
Recurring monthly costs
| Item | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Shopify Basic subscription | ~₹1,500–₹2,000 |
| GST on subscription (18%) | ~₹270–₹360 |
| Apps (3–4 essential) | ₹500–₹2,500 |
| Domain (amortised annually) | ~₹100 |
| Payment gateway fees | ~2% of revenue |
| Shipping aggregator | Per-shipment, varies |
A small Basic-plan store typically runs ₹3,500–₹8,000 a month all-in, before shipping and before ad spend. The range is wide because app choices vary enormously between stores.
Transaction fees, which are easy to miss
Two separate things get confused here:
- Payment gateway charges — roughly 2% of order value in India, charged by Razorpay, Cashfree, PayU or whoever processes the card
- Shopify’s third-party transaction fee — an additional charge Shopify levies if you use an external gateway rather than Shopify Payments, around 2% on the Basic plan
If you are on an external gateway you may be paying both. At ₹5,00,000 monthly revenue, a 2% differential is ₹10,000 a month, which is more than the entire rest of your platform stack. Worth checking carefully before you commit to a gateway.
One-time build cost
This is where quotes vary wildly, and the variation is real rather than arbitrary.
| Approach | Range | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself | ₹0 | A free theme, your own time, a functional store |
| Freelancer | ₹8,000–₹25,000 | Theme setup, catalogue loaded, basic integrations |
| Agency build | ₹10,000–₹50,000 | The above plus brand pass, checkout testing, SEO basics, handoff |
| Custom development | ₹1,00,000+ | Bespoke design and functionality |
Orcas Prime charges ₹10,000–₹20,000 for a store build, depending on scope. That covers theme setup and brand pass, your first fifty SKUs loaded, payment and shipping integration tested end to end, checkout and cart, on-page SEO basics, and a walkthrough of the admin so you can run it yourself if you want to.
What actually deserves your money
If your budget is limited, spend it in this order:
- Product photography. It affects conversion more than everything else on this page combined. A great store with poor images converts badly; a plain store with excellent images converts fine.
- Payment and shipping integration done properly. A checkout that fails silently costs you every order it touches, and most sellers do not find out for weeks.
- The build. Getting the structure right early saves rebuilding later.
- A paid theme. Last. Often never.
The cost that dwarfs all of this
None of the above is the real number. Traffic is the real number. A Shopify store with no visitors generates nothing regardless of how well it is built, and in India the realistic starting ad budget is ₹1,000–₹2,000 a day.
Over a month that is ₹30,000–₹60,000 — several times the entire platform and build cost combined. Any plan that budgets for the store but not for traffic has budgeted for the wrong thing.
Sources
Shopify India subscription and transaction fee figures from published 2026 pricing breakdowns including Avada and Sociolabs. Build cost ranges reflect our own quoted pricing and observed market rates.