How to choose a web designer in India
You cannot judge a web designer from a pitch. Everyone shows their best work, quotes a confident number and promises Google rankings. Here is what actually separates them, written by someone who competes for this work.
Written by Shaikh Salim, who runs Webgyre. It includes advice that costs us work, because a guide that only sells is not a guide.
Start with the honest question: do you need one at all?
If you need a single page with your services, a phone number and a map, and you are comfortable with software, a builder like Wix, Squarespace or WordPress with a theme will get you there for the price of the subscription. You will spend a weekend on it and it will be adequate. Plenty of small businesses need nothing more.
Paying a designer makes sense when one of these is true:
- Your customers compare two or three businesses before calling, and you are losing that comparison.
- You need the site to rank for searches in your city, which is a different job from having a site.
- You have no time, and the weekend you would spend is worth more than the fee.
- The work is genuinely complex: a catalogue, bookings, payments, multiple locations or languages.
If none of those apply, a builder is the better answer and you can stop reading. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling.
The five questions that separate them
These are not trick questions. They are the ones where a careful designer and a careless one give visibly different answers.
1. Can I see the work before I pay?
Not a portfolio. A page built for your business, with your name and your services on it, before money changes hands. Portfolios show the best day of a designer's year. A demo shows what they will do for you, this month, at your budget.
Many designers will not do this, and that is a fair commercial position when the work is large. But for a small business site it is a reasonable ask, and how they respond tells you something either way. A flat refusal with no alternative is worth noting. An offer of a paid discovery session is a legitimate answer.
2. Who owns the domain, the hosting and the files when we are done?
This is the question that costs people the most and gets asked the least. The answer you want is: you do, in your own name, on your own account.
A common arrangement is that the designer registers the domain on their own account and hosts the site on their server. It feels convenient. It means that when the relationship ends, or the designer stops replying, your website and your business address on the internet are held by someone else. Getting them back ranges from tedious to impossible.
Ask plainly: is the domain registered in my name, and do I get the files? Then ask for it in writing.
3. What exactly is in the price, and what recurs?
Two quotes of ₹15,000 are rarely the same thing. One may include five pages of written copy, the other five empty templates you fill yourself. One may include a year of small edits, the other charge per change from day one.
The recurring costs are where people get caught. A website needs a domain (roughly ₹900 to ₹1,200 a year) and hosting (roughly ₹1,500 to ₹4,000 a year for a small business site). Those are paid to a provider, every year, forever. A quote that does not mention them is not cheaper; it is less complete.
We publish our full pricing and what recurs for exactly this reason, so you can hold any other quote against it.
4. Who writes the words?
Most website projects stall here. The designer finishes the layout, sends it over with "lorem ipsum" or placeholder text, and waits for content that never comes because the owner is busy running a business.
Ask who is writing it. If the answer is you, be honest with yourself about whether you will. If the answer is them, ask to see writing they have done for a business like yours — not design, writing. The quality varies far more than the design does.
5. What happens after launch?
Ask three specific things: how long are small edits free, what does a change cost afterwards, and how fast do you reply. Vague warmth here turns into silence in month three.
There is no single right answer. A month of free edits then paid changes is fair. A monthly retainer is fair if you actually need monthly work. What is not fair is finding out the terms after you have paid.
Red flags worth walking away from
| What you hear | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| "Guaranteed first page on Google" | Nobody can guarantee a ranking. Google's own guidelines say to treat this as a warning sign. A designer who promises it is either misinformed or counting on you not checking. |
| "Unlimited pages, unlimited revisions" | Unlimited anything means the work is templated and the revisions are cosmetic. Real scope has edges, and a good designer will tell you where they are. |
| "We will keep the domain on our account, it is easier" | It is easier for them. See question two. |
| A quote with no page count and no list | You cannot compare it, and neither can you dispute it later. Ask for the scope as a list before you ask about price. |
| ₹999 for a complete website | Achievable only with a stock template and your name swapped in. That can be fine as a placeholder, but it will not rank and it will not convert. The cost usually appears later as renewal or edit charges. |
| No written scope at all | Every dispute in this industry starts here. A one-page written scope protects both sides, and a designer who resists one is telling you something. |
What a fair price actually looks like
Prices in India vary enormously by who is doing the work, not by how good the result is. As a rough map:
- ₹999 to ₹4,000 — a stock template with your details in it. A placeholder.
- ₹5,000 to ₹12,000 — a single custom page. Fine for a shop, a salon or one doctor.
- ₹7,000 to ₹40,000 — a five-page business site. The range is this wide because "five pages" means very different amounts of writing and design.
- ₹25,000 to ₹80,000 — ten to fifteen pages built to rank for several searches.
- ₹25,000 to ₹1,50,000 — an ecommerce store, depending on catalogue and payment complexity.
A large agency charges more for the same output because it is carrying salaries and an office. That is not dishonest, it is overhead, and for a large project the team may be worth it. For a small business site it usually is not.
Get these six lines in writing
Not a contract. Six lines in a message, agreed before work starts, prevent almost every argument that happens later.
- The page count, and what each page contains.
- Who writes the copy, and who supplies the photographs.
- The total price, and what is specifically not included.
- Whose name the domain is registered in, and who holds the hosting account.
- The number of revision rounds, and what a change costs after those.
- The delivery date, and what happens if content arrives late.
If a designer will not put those six lines in a message, that is your answer.
Where Webgyre sits in this
We build a working demo of your site before you pay anything, our prices are on the pricing page rather than quoted privately, and the domain, the hosting and the files stay in your name because we do not sell any of them. You can see live sample sites and the trade we build for before speaking to anyone.
We are also a one-person studio, which means a limited number of projects at a time and no account manager. For some businesses that is exactly right, and for others it is not. That is a fair thing for you to weigh.
Asked by almost every first-time buyer
How long should a small business website take?
A single page is usually three to five working days once the content is ready. A five-page site is normally seven to ten. Most delays are caused by content arriving late, not by design, which is why the writing question matters so much.
Should I choose a freelancer or an agency?
For a small business site, a freelancer or a small studio is usually better value, because you are not paying for an office. An agency is worth it when the project is large enough to need several people working at once, or when you need guaranteed cover if one person is unavailable.
Do I need to buy hosting myself?
You should, in your own name. It costs the same whether you buy it or your designer buys it on your behalf, and buying it yourself means the account is yours if the relationship ends. A good designer will tell you exactly what to buy and set it up for you.
Is WordPress better than a hand-coded site?
Neither is better in general. WordPress suits teams that publish often or want a familiar editor. A hand-coded site is faster and has fewer moving parts, which suits a focused site that rarely changes. The wrong question is which is better; the right one is which matches how often you will update it.
What if I already have a website that is not working?
Have someone check whether it is a content problem or a technical one before paying for a rebuild. Often a site ranks badly because it says nothing specific, not because it was built wrong, and that is cheaper to fix. We cover this on the redesign page.
Judge us the same way
Send what your business does and where you work. You will get a real page to open and read before any money is discussed.