What a portfolio website costs in India, route by route
A portfolio website in India costs ₹300 a month on self-hosted WordPress, ₹2,900 to ₹9,900 a year on a builder package, ₹8,000 to ₹40,000 from a freelancer and ₹50,000 upward from an agency. Hosting and renewals recur every year; design is paid once.
Those bands come from pages read on 30 October 2026: SitesPlaced quotes Indian freelancers at ₹8,000 to ₹40,000 and agencies from about ₹50,000, while GoDaddy lists shared hosting at ₹200 to ₹500 a month and a static site at ₹5,000 to ₹8,000. Treat them as framing, not quotes.
| Route | One-time cost | Yearly cost | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted WordPress | ₹0, you build it | Hosting from ₹300 a month, before 18% GST | A student or freelancer with time |
| Hosted builder package | ₹0 | ₹2,900 to ₹9,900 a year, before 18% GST | Someone who wants it live this week |
| Freelancer build | ₹8,000 to ₹40,000 commonly quoted | Hosting and edits billed separately | A portfolio that has to look custom |
| Agency build | About ₹50,000 upward | Care plan and hosting usually extra | A studio brand with copy and art direction |
Freelancer and agency bands read from sitesplaced.com on 30 October 2026; hosting rows from billing.webji.in, before 18% GST.
The yearly bill is separate from the build price
Every portfolio has two bills, and quotes usually show only one. The build is a one-time fee. Hosting, the domain renewal, the SSL certificate and any paid theme or plugin come back every year whether or not you change a line of the site.
| Line item | Typical Indian range | Recurs |
|---|---|---|
| Shared hosting | ₹200 to ₹500 a month in the market, ₹300 a month on WebJi® L-Basic before 18% GST | Monthly or yearly |
| Domain | ₹100 to ₹6,000 a year depending on the extension | Yearly, forever |
| SSL certificate | Free with most hosts; ₹5,000 a year for a paid certificate | Yearly if paid |
| Paid theme or plugin | ₹1,000 to ₹10,000 a year | Yearly, or a one-time licence |
| Edits after handover | The real cost of a freelancer build | Per change |
Market bands read from godaddy.com on 30 October 2026, INR. WebJi® rows are before 18% GST.
A ₹15,000 site that needs ₹2,000 of edits twice a year costs more by year three than a ₹3,000-a-year hosted plan you can edit yourself. Work out the three-year total before you compare the headline number.
A student portfolio for about ₹3,000 a year
This is the cheapest route that still gives you your own domain and a site you control. It needs one weekend and no design budget.
- Take one shared hosting plan. WebJi® L-Basic is ₹300 a month or ₹3,000 for the year, before 18% GST, and it holds a portfolio of a few hundred optimised images.
- Register the domain separately and connect it with the nameservers from the welcome email. A .in is usually the cheapest extension that still looks local.
- Install WordPress and a free block theme. Skip the premium theme until you have 20 images you are happy to show.
- Export images at a 2,000-pixel long edge in WebP, write the five pages yourself, and test the contact form on a phone.
- Skip the paid plugin stack. A form, a gallery and a backup plugin cover a portfolio; page builders add weight you do not need.
The total is hosting plus the domain, and that is the whole bill. What it costs you instead is the weekend, which is why this route fails for people who will not sit down and cull 300 images to 20.
What a freelancer build at ₹8,000 to ₹40,000 includes
A freelancer quote in that band usually covers a custom layout for five pages, the contact form, basic on-page SEO and a handover. The spread inside the band is mostly about who does the copy and how many revision rounds you get.
- Under ₹15,000: a theme adapted to your images, your copy, two revision rounds.
- ₹15,000 to ₹25,000: a custom home page, gallery templates, form and analytics setup.
- Above ₹25,000: copywriting, image retouching, a booking or payment flow, more rounds.
- Almost never included: hosting, the domain, later edits, or a care plan.
Ask three questions before you pay: how many revision rounds, who owns the files and the hosting account at the end, and what an edit costs six months later. The answers separate a ₹40,000 quote from a ₹12,000 one more reliably than the portfolio samples do.
When an agency build earns its price
An agency earns ₹50,000 and up when the portfolio is a sales asset rather than a personal page: a studio brand, a written positioning, art direction for the images and a launch plan behind them. You are buying a team's time across strategy, design and copy, not a bigger theme.
It is the wrong spend for a first portfolio with no clients yet. The work has to exist and be culled before a brand system is worth designing around it. Most photographers and designers are better off shipping the ₹3,000 route, learning what clients actually open, and paying for the custom build in year two.
What pushes a portfolio quote up, and what to cut first
Four line items account for most of the spread between quotes. Only two of them change whether the site works.
- Copywriting: ₹1 to ₹3 a word in the Indian market. Worth paying for on the About page.
- Custom illustration or a bespoke layout: expensive, and rarely what wins the booking.
- Paid plugins and page builders: add weight and a yearly licence for features a free theme already has.
- Stock photography: cut it. Borrowed images on a portfolio undercut the work you are selling.
Cut animation, sliders and stock imagery first. Keep the money for image retouching and one clear page of copy, because those are the two things a client judges in the first ten seconds.
WebJi® hosting and builder prices for a portfolio
WebJi® publishes hosting and builder prices in INR, before 18% GST. Design and build work is quoted by email before payment, because the figure depends on the number of galleries and whether copy is included.
| What you buy | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| L-Basic shared hosting | ₹300 a month or ₹3,000 a year | A WordPress portfolio with a few hundred images |
| L-Unlimited shared hosting | ₹400 a month | The portfolio plus a blog and a booking form |
| Builder — Basic | ₹2,900 a year | A site published without installing WordPress |
| Builder — Start | ₹3,900 a year | More pages and a custom domain |
| Builder — Pro | ₹9,900 a year | A studio site with several galleries |
Prices before 18% GST, read from billing.webji.in on 29 October 2026.
Hosting includes cPanel, email on your domain and a free SSL certificate. A domain is billed separately at registration. Domain transfer in is free of charge as a service, and moving an existing site to WebJi® is free subject to terms and approval. The website design services team quotes a portfolio build by email, and the full price list carries every plan. If you have not chosen the host yet, the hosting notes for a portfolio site cover the limits that matter.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a portfolio website cost in India?
Self-hosted WordPress is ₹300 a month plus a domain, a builder package is ₹2,900 to ₹9,900 a year, a freelancer build is commonly quoted at ₹8,000 to ₹40,000, and an agency starts around ₹50,000. The first two figures are WebJi® prices before 18% GST; the last two are market bands read on 30 October 2026.
Can I build a portfolio website for free?
You can publish on a free subdomain, but a free plan usually carries a badge, no custom domain and no email. A domain plus the cheapest shared hosting costs less than one paid shoot and removes those limits. Treat free as a trial, not as the plan you show clients.
Is a ₹5,000 portfolio site worth it?
At that price you are buying a theme adapted to your images and your copy, usually with two revision rounds. It is worth it when the images are already culled and the copy is written. It is wasted money when you hand over 300 unedited files and expect the freelancer to decide what the portfolio is.
What are the yearly running costs?
Hosting, the domain renewal and any paid theme or plugin. On WebJi® that is ₹3,000 a year for L-Basic before 18% GST, plus the domain at registration. A freelancer-built site adds the cost of edits, which is the line most people forget when they compare a cheap quote with a yearly plan.
Should I pay a freelancer or an agency?
Pay a freelancer for a custom-looking site with your images and your copy. Pay an agency when you also need positioning, art direction and a launch plan, which is a different job from building five pages. For a first portfolio with no clients yet, neither is urgent.
Do these prices include GST?
No. Every WebJi® figure on this page is before 18% GST, and the invoice adds it. A ₹3,000 yearly plan bills at ₹3,540 with GST. Ask any freelancer or agency whether their quote is inclusive, because a quote without that line is not comparable.