Most people who ask us about Shopify have half decided already. A friend opened a store on it in a weekend, or they've read how big Indian brands sell on it, and they want to know if it will work for them. The honest answer depends less on Shopify's features and more on its fees once you're selling in India.
Shopify's Basic plan costs ₹1,499 a month if you pay yearly, or ₹1,994 if you pay monthly. Grow costs ₹5,599 and Advanced ₹22,680, both on yearly billing. Shopify Payments isn't available in India, so you take payments through a gateway like Razorpay and Shopify adds its own fee of 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced. That's on top of the gateway's charge.
I'm Keshav, and I handle performance marketing at GIT Infosys. We build and look after Shopify stores for clients, and I audit how they perform. This guide covers what Shopify does well, where it costs you, what a real monthly bill looks like, and who should pick something else.
What Is Shopify?
Short answerShopify is an online store platform you rent by the month. It runs the hosting, security, checkout and updates, and you choose a theme, add your products and start selling.
You don't install anything or hire a server company. You sign up, pick a design from the Shopify Theme Store, connect a payment gateway and a shipping partner, and the store runs on Shopify's servers. You can try it for 3 days free and then pay ₹20 a month for the first 3 months, which is enough time to build a test store and see if you like working in it.
The Real Benefits of Shopify
These are the benefits that hold up once a store is live, not just on the first day.
You can launch in days
A simple store with a free theme and under 25 products can go live within two weeks when we build it, and many owners do a basic version themselves over a few weekends. A standard custom Shopify store takes us 3 to 5 weeks from planning to launch.
Hosting, security and updates aren't your job
Shopify is certified Level 1 under PCI DSS, the card industry's security standard, and that certification covers every store's checkout and hosting. There's no plugin to patch on a Sunday night. For a small team, that's the single biggest relief compared with running your own WordPress store.
It doesn't fall over on a sale day
Shopify's own case study on Bombay Shaving Company, which moved from Magento to Shopify in 2021, says the store handled traffic spikes of 20 times normal, with more than 10,000 people on the site at once. That's Shopify writing about its own customer, so read it as a fair sign rather than proof.
Your team can run it without a developer
Adding products, changing prices, writing a discount code or swapping the home page banner takes minutes, and staff learn it in an afternoon. The same case study says Bombay Shaving Company's team went from weeks to hours to launch a product page.
It works with how India pays and ships
Razorpay, PayU and Cashfree all plug in, so customers can pay by UPI, card, net banking or wallet. Cash on delivery is a built-in option, and shipping apps connect you to courier partners for labels and tracking.
There's an app for most extra jobs
Reviews, WhatsApp order updates, GST invoices, wishlists, upsells: someone has built an app for it. That's handy and also where costs creep in, which we'll come to.
The Downsides Nobody Puts on the Sales Page
Shopify has real costs and limits in India. None of them is a dealbreaker for most stores, but you should know them before you start.
- An extra fee on every online payment. Because Shopify Payments isn't offered in India, Shopify charges its third-party transaction fee on prepaid orders: 2% on Basic. Cash on delivery orders don't attract it, because Shopify treats COD as a manual payment.
- GST on Shopify's bill. Shopify adds GST to its plan and fees for Indian stores unless you add your GSTIN in Settings, then Billing. It only stops for bills issued after you add it.
- App bills in dollars. Most popular apps charge a monthly fee, usually priced in US dollars. Stores that come to us often spend about ₹6,000 a month on apps, and most leave at around ₹1,500 once we remove the ones doing the same job twice.
- Fixed web addresses. Every product page sits under /products/ and every category under /collections/, and you can't change that. It rarely hurts rankings, but it matters when you move an old site with its own URL pattern, because every old address needs a redirect.
- A weaker blog. Shopify's blog is fine for occasional posts. If you plan to win customers mainly through long articles and guides, WordPress gives you much more control.
- Speed depends on your theme and apps. Every app adds code to your pages. Google's target is for the main content to appear within 2.5 seconds, and many stores miss it on mobile. Our guide to Shopify speed optimization covers the usual fixes.
- You're renting, not owning. If your bill fails or the store is paused, customers see Shopify's "Store unavailable" page instead of your products. Your products and orders stay safe, but the store is offline until it's sorted.
What Shopify Really Costs Each Month in India
Short answerFor a small store doing ₹2,00,000 a month in prepaid orders on the Basic plan, expect Shopify, Razorpay and a lean set of apps to cost about ₹11,700 a month, or roughly 6% of sales.
Here's that bill, line by line. It assumes yearly billing, Razorpay as the gateway at its standard 2%, and a GSTIN added to your Shopify account.
Monthly bill · ₹2,00,000 prepaid sales
Shopify Basic plan₹1,499
Shopify fee for using Razorpay (2%)₹4,000
Razorpay fee (2%)₹4,000
GST on Razorpay fee (18%)₹720
Apps, lean setup₹1,500
Total₹11,719
Without a GSTIN, Shopify adds 18% GST to its plan and fee, about ₹990 more, so the total is ₹12,709 (6.4% of sales). COD orders skip both 2% lines.
The plan price is the smallest real cost. Once your prepaid sales pass about ₹75,000 a month, the 2% Shopify charges for using an outside gateway costs you more than the Basic plan itself.
That's why the plan you pick should follow your prepaid sales, not your product count:
Basic · ₹1,499
Cheapest overall until your prepaid sales reach about ₹4.1 lakh a month.
Grow · ₹5,599
Halves Shopify's fee to 1%, so it becomes the cheaper plan from about ₹4.1 lakh up to roughly ₹42.7 lakh a month.
Advanced · ₹22,680
Only cheaper on fees beyond about ₹42.7 lakh a month, though bigger teams sometimes move earlier for the extra staff accounts and reports.
These are fee comparisons only, worked out from Shopify's India prices in October 2026. For the build itself, a Shopify store with us costs ₹15,000 to ₹40,000 depending on the design and number of products. Our guide to ecommerce website cost in India compares that with other ways of building a store.
Shopify vs WooCommerce vs a Custom Store
Short answerShopify is the easiest to run, WooCommerce is the best for content and control, and a custom build only makes sense when neither can do what your business needs.
| What you're comparing | Shopify | WooCommerce | Custom build |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build cost with us | ₹15,000 to ₹40,000 | ₹15,000 to ₹50,000 | ₹50,000 upwards |
| Monthly platform fee | From ₹1,499 (Basic, yearly) | None, but you pay for hosting | None, but you pay for hosting |
| Extra fee on online payments | 0.6% to 2% by plan | None | None |
| Server and security updates | Shopify handles them | You or your developer | You or your developer |
| Blogging and content | Basic | Excellent | As good as you build it |
| Best for | Selling fast with a small team | Stores that grow through content and SEO | Unusual pricing, logins or workflows |
WooCommerce looks free, but someone has to update it. If nobody on your team will log in every week to update plugins, the "free" option ends up costing a developer's monthly retainer.
WooCommerce runs on WordPress, so if content is how you win customers, good WordPress development is usually the better long-term choice. If you need dealer logins, made-to-order pricing or a booking flow, look at custom ecommerce website development instead. And whichever platform you pick, decide early whether you want a template or a custom design, because that changes the price more than the platform does.
From Our Client Work
Dekulture · Jaipur · September 2026
Dekulture sells handmade decor, jewellery and stationery through five Shopify retail stores: Gardenalia, Feltora, Jemfyrd, Notera and Lume Loam. We built their custom Shopify setup, and their own Google review puts it plainly:
"Got our custom Shopify website done by Git Infosys in three months. It was a complex project, but the team understood our requirements, communicated well and handled every challenge professionally."
When I audited the five stores on 29 September 2026, checkout worked on four of them, taking cards and Razorpay payments in rupees. The fifth, Jemfyrd, showed Shopify's "Store unavailable" page on every URL that day. It was back online when I checked again on 6 October. Nothing was lost, but for those days there was no store.
The same audit showed what a real store looks like on a phone. The main content took 4.7 to 14.5 seconds to appear on mobile, against Google's 2.5-second target, and the pages carried 420 to 615 KB of HTML each. Honestly, that's slower than we want from our own builds, and it's the first thing we're working on with them.
Is Shopify Worth It in India?
Short answerYes, for most small and mid-sized product brands that want to sell quickly without managing servers. It's a poorer fit when content drives your sales or your margins are too thin to carry an extra 2%.
Shopify suits you if
- You sell physical products and want to be live this month.
- Your team is small and nobody wants to manage a server.
- Most of your sales come from Instagram, WhatsApp or Google Ads rather than blog posts.
- You expect sale days with big traffic spikes.
Look elsewhere if
- Long articles and guides are how customers find you.
- Your margin is so thin that 2% on every prepaid order hurts.
- You run a marketplace with many sellers, or B2B pricing that changes per customer.
NoteSelling to the UK too? Shopify Payments does work there, so the extra gateway fee doesn't apply to a UK store. Our team handles Shopify development in London for UK brands.
Should You Build It Yourself or Hire a Shopify Developer?
Building it yourself is a fair choice for a first store. A free theme, 10 to 30 products, Razorpay and a shipping app is a few weekends of work, and the ₹20 trial months make it cheap to try. Plenty of good stores start that way.
Paying for help makes sense when:
- You're moving from WooCommerce, Magento or an old site and need every old URL redirected so you keep your Google rankings.
- You want a design that doesn't look like every other store on the same theme.
- The store is slow on mobile and you're spending on ads to send people to it.
- You need it connected to your billing software, courier panel or GST invoicing.
- You'd rather spend those weekends on stock and marketing.
If you hire, ask who will own the store account, the domain and the theme files, and whether the quote includes speed and SEO setup. Our Shopify development team works with stores across India, and if you're nearby we also do Shopify store development in Jaipur with face-to-face meetings.
Common Mistakes on Shopify
- Installing an app for every small idea. Each one adds monthly cost and page weight. Check whether your theme already does the job.
- Not adding your GSTIN on day one. GST charged before you add it can't be refunded.
- Picking a theme from its demo. The demo uses studio photos. Try it with your own product photos before you buy.
- Turning on COD with no rules. Unlimited COD on every order leads to returns and refused parcels. Many stores set a minimum order value or ask for a small advance on high-value items.
- Leaving SEO until after launch. Product titles, descriptions and image alt text are far easier to get right while you're adding products. If you're planning a budget for it, see what SEO costs in India.
- Launching with no marketing budget. A new store gets almost no visitors on its own, so plan a small ad budget from the first month. Our guide to Google Ads cost in India shows what a realistic first month looks like.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the benefits of Shopify (Shopify ke fayde)?
Shopify gives you hosting, security, checkout and updates in one monthly plan from ₹1,499, so you can launch a store in days without managing a server. It also handles traffic spikes on sale days and lets staff update products without a developer.
How much does Shopify cost per month in India?
Basic costs ₹1,499 a month on yearly billing or ₹1,994 monthly, Grow ₹5,599 and Advanced ₹22,680 on yearly billing. Add your payment gateway's fee, Shopify's 0.6% to 2% third-party fee on prepaid orders, and any paid apps.
Is Shopify Payments available in India?
No. India isn't on Shopify's list of supported countries, so Indian stores use gateways like Razorpay, PayU or Cashfree. That's why Shopify charges its extra 2% fee on the Basic plan.
Does Shopify charge a transaction fee on COD orders?
No. Cash on delivery is a manual payment method, and Shopify doesn't charge its third-party transaction fee on manual payments. The 0.6% to 2% fee applies only to orders paid online through an outside gateway.
Is Shopify good for small businesses in India?
Usually, yes. A small store on Basic with ₹2 lakh a month in prepaid sales pays about ₹11,700 a month in platform, gateway and app costs, and gets hosting and security handled for that price.
Is Shopify better than WooCommerce?
Shopify is easier to run and needs no server, while WooCommerce has no monthly platform fee and better blogging. With us, both cost about ₹15,000 to ₹50,000 to build, so the choice comes down to who will maintain the store.
Does Shopify charge GST in India?
Yes. Shopify adds 18% GST to its plan and fees for Indian stores unless you add your GSTIN in your billing settings. The exemption applies only to bills issued after you add it.
How long does it take to build a Shopify store?
A simple store with under 25 products can go live in about two weeks. A custom design with migration from an old site usually takes 3 to 5 weeks, and larger projects 8 to 12 weeks.
Sources: Shopify India pricing; Shopify Payments supported countries; Shopify third-party transaction fees; Shopify billing taxes in India; Shopify PCI compliance; Shopify case study, Bombay Shaving Company; Razorpay pricing; Google Search Central on Core Web Vitals. Prices checked 6 October 2026. Client data from our audit of 29 September 2026 and a recheck on 6 October 2026.
