Most Shopify vs custom comparisons stop at the starting price. That is the wrong number — a Shopify store’s real cost in India shows up months later, in fees you did not see on day one.
Shopify’s plans in India start from ₹1,499/month for Basic, going up to ₹1,75,000/month for Plus — plus 18% GST on every charge. But the bigger cost is one most people miss entirely: Shopify Payments is not available in India, so every store here uses a third-party gateway like Razorpay or PayU, and pays that gateway’s fee and Shopify’s own transaction fee on top of it.
That stacking adds up fast. A store doing ₹5,00,000/month in sales on the Basic plan pays roughly ₹10,000/month extra to Shopify alone — before the gateway’s own cut, before apps, before the theme.
• Apps: most active Shopify stores run 3–6 paid apps for reviews, upsells, or inventory sync — often ₹15,000–30,000/month combined
• Premium themes: ₹10,000–25,000 one-time if the free themes do not fit your brand
• Transaction fees: stack with every single sale, forever, as long as you are on the platform
Over three years, a growing store on Shopify can easily cross ₹4–5 lakh in platform costs alone — subscription, apps, and transaction fees combined.
A custom-built e-commerce site has a different cost shape entirely: one build cost, then just hosting, domain, and optional maintenance. No monthly platform rent. No per-sale cut.
Over the same three years, most of our clients land somewhere between ₹70,000–1,00,000 total — a fraction of the Shopify number, especially as sales grow.
Shopify wins on speed — you can be live in days with zero developer involvement, and it handles PCI-DSS security compliance for you automatically. If you need to launch this week with no technical help, that is real value.
But if you are building a brand you plan to grow for years, the monthly rent and per-sale cut compound in a way that is easy to underestimate at the start. That is the calculation worth doing before you pick a platform — not just what it costs to launch, but what it costs to still be selling on it three years from now.
See the full cost breakdown → Shopify vs Custom Comparison