How to create a website in 2027: 3 routes, costs and a 10-step plan

Summary. To create a website, pick one of three routes: a website builder (Wix, Squarespace, Shopify or WordPress.com), WordPress on your own hosting, or a custom build. Then register a domain, switch on HTTPS, add your pages and publish. A simple business site costs a few thousand rupees a year; custom work is quoted per project. On 11 November 2026, Hostinger India listed shared hosting at ₹69 a month on a 48-month term (₹3,312 upfront, renewing at ₹289 a month, GST extra). Shopify Basic in India was ₹1,499 a month billed yearly, WordPress.com Personal ₹200 a month billed yearly (₹160 in the first year), and Squarespace Basic ₹630 a month billed annually for visitors in India. A .in domain is open to anyone worldwide; GoDaddy India listed it at ₹1 for the first year of a 3-year purchase, then ₹899 a year. Three basics are no longer optional: HTTPS, because Chrome now asks before opening public HTTP pages (on desktop from Chrome 154); WCAG 2.2 Level AA for accessibility; and a sitemap plus Search Console. Choose a builder for speed, WordPress for control, and a custom build when the site is really an application.

About this article. For small business owners, marketing leads and IT teams in India choosing how to build a website. On 11 November 2026 we checked every price, plan and limit against the vendors' pricing pages as shown in India, and the standards and browser claims against W3C, Google, Chrome and Indian gazette documents. Squarespace's US prices and GoDaddy India's .in page were read from archived copies dated 2 November 2026. Prices are often promotional or set by location, so confirm at checkout. General information, not legal or tax advice; no vendor paid for inclusion. Researched with AI assistance and reviewed by our editorial team.

The three routes at a glance

The right route depends on how much control you need and who will maintain the site after launch.

Entry prices are from the vendors' pricing pages on 11 November 2026.

Route 1: a website builder

A builder bundles hosting, the editor and security patches into one subscription. You drag and drop or prompt an AI tool; the platform runs the rest.

Wix. Creating a site is free, with no credit card. A Premium plan lets you connect your own domain and remove Wix branding. Most yearly or multi-year Premium plans include a one-year voucher for a new domain bought from Wix, on the first Premium purchase only, redeemable within 60 days. Prices and currency vary by location, so check from your own country. The first upgrade carries a 14-day money-back guarantee.

Squarespace. Every site starts with a 14-day free trial and no credit card. Visitors in India see three plans: Basic at ₹630 a month billed annually or ₹810 monthly, Core at ₹720 or ₹1,080, and Advanced at ₹1,100 or ₹1,530. The US page lists Basic at $19 billed annually ($25 monthly) and Core at $29 ($39), with two higher tiers, Plus and Advanced. Basic charges a 2% fee on online store sales; Core and above charge none.

Shopify. For online stores. On Shopify's India page, Basic is ₹1,499 a month billed yearly or ₹1,994 monthly, and Grow is ₹5,599 yearly or ₹7,447 monthly. New stores get a 3-day free trial, then ₹20 a month for 3 months. Basic charges 2% on sales through third-party payment providers, and domains you add get a free TLS/SSL certificate.

WordPress.com. Hosted WordPress from Automattic. The free plan shows WordPress.com ads to visitors. Personal is $9 a month or $4 a month billed yearly, Premium is $18 or $8, Business is $40 or $25, and Commerce is $70 or $45, all excluding taxes. Those are the US dollar prices; a browser in India sees rupee prices instead, such as Personal at ₹2,400 a year (₹1,920 in the first year) and Business at ₹9,600 a year (₹7,680 in the first year), excluding taxes.

Choose a builder when you need a site this week without managing servers. The cost is portability: moving away usually means rebuilding the design.

Route 2: WordPress on your own hosting

Self-hosted WordPress gives you the files and database, any theme or plugin, and the freedom to change host. WordPress itself is open source under the GPLv2 licence, so there is no software fee; you pay for hosting, the domain and any premium themes or plugins.

Hostinger's India pricing page, during its Sale Season offer on 11 November 2026, listed these 48-month terms:

• Single: ₹69 a month (₹3,312 upfront), renewing at ₹289 a month. One website, a free domain, 10 GB SSD storage and weekly backups.

• Premium: ₹139 a month (₹6,672 upfront), renewing at ₹449 a month. Three websites, a domain free for one year and 20 GB SSD storage.

• Unlimited: ₹199 a month (₹9,552 upfront), renewing at ₹649 a month, with unlimited websites, daily backups and 50 GB NVMe storage.

Hostinger states that prices exclude GST, all plans are paid upfront, and the SSL certificate is set up automatically. Read the renewal line before you choose: Single renews at more than four times its introductory rate (₹289 against ₹69).

The trade-off is maintenance: plugins and themes need regular updates, and neglected WordPress sites are common targets. Our WordPress development company guide covers plugin risk and the checks to ask of any WordPress partner.

Route 3: a custom build

A custom build makes sense when the site is really an application: customer logins, bookings tied to your ERP, dealer portals, multilingual catalogues with thousands of products, or strict performance and security needs. A team designs and codes it, usually on a modern framework with a headless CMS so marketing can still edit pages.

Custom work is quoted after discovery, because a five-page site and a portal with single sign-on are too far apart for a price list. Insist on three things in the contract: the code and design are assigned to you, you hold the domain and hosting accounts, and the handover includes documentation.

Website builder vs custom: the quick test. If your needs fit a template plus a few apps, use a builder or WordPress. If your brief keeps saying the site must connect to another system, budget for a custom build.

Domain and hosting, explained

Four pieces make a website reachable:

• Domain name: your address, such as yourcompany.in, rented from a registrar by the year.

• DNS: the records that point the domain at your host and your email provider.

• Hosting: the server that serves your site. Builders include it; self-hosted WordPress needs a host.

• SSL/TLS certificate: enables HTTPS. Hostinger sets one up automatically, and Shopify provides a free one for domains you add.

.in or .com? The .IN Registry says .in, co.in and most other .in zones are open to all parties worldwide with no local-presence requirement; only zones such as gov.in, ac.in and edu.in are reserved. A .in address signals an Indian audience. GoDaddy India listed .in at ₹1 for the first year with a 3-year purchase required, then ₹899 for each additional year, so three years cost ₹1 + ₹899 + ₹899 = ₹1,799. Hostinger India offered .in at ₹1 for the first year on a 3-year term. Many businesses register both .in and .com and redirect one to the other.

Watch renewals, not launch prices. Introductory offers are discounts; budget for the renewal price.

How to create a website: the 10-step plan

1. Define the goal and the pages. Decide what the site must achieve (calls, enquiries, bookings or sales) and list the pages. Many small businesses start with Home, Services, About, Contact and a Privacy Policy.

2. Choose your route. Use the table above. If unsure, start with a builder or WordPress; you can move to custom later.

3. Register the domain. Keep it short, avoid hyphens, and register it in your company's name with a company email you control. Turn on the registrar lock and two-factor authentication.

4. Set up hosting or a builder plan. Pick the term with renewals in mind, then point the domain's DNS as the host instructs.

5. Switch on HTTPS everywhere. Confirm the certificate covers both the bare domain and www, and redirect every HTTP address to HTTPS. Google announced in October 2025 that Chrome 154 would ask permission before the first visit to any public site without HTTPS. Chrome 154 reached stable on 22 September 2026, Google said on 21 October 2026 that the change covers all users by default, and Chrome Status lists desktop in 154 and Android in 155. Every step in a redirect chain must support HTTPS, not just the final page. Our Chrome HTTP warning and HTTPS audit has the full checklist.

6. Pick a template and structure. Choose a fast, accessible theme. Set up the menu, the header and footer, and a consistent layout for service pages.

7. Write the content. One clear headline per page, plain language, real photos where you can, and alt text on every meaningful image. Match your address and phone number to your Google Business Profile listing.

8. Add forms, analytics and consent. Send form entries to a monitored inbox. If you collect personal data or use tracking pixels, show a clear notice and record consent; for Indian businesses this matters under the DPDP Act and Rules.

9. Check SEO, accessibility and speed before launch. Give every page a unique title and description, create an XML sitemap, verify the site in Google Search Console, test with a keyboard and a contrast checker, and run a mobile speed test.

10. Launch, back up and maintain. Submit the sitemap, set up uptime alerts and automatic backups, and put renewal dates in a shared calendar. Review plugins and content monthly.

What a website costs in INR and USD

Official list prices on 11 November 2026 (GoDaddy from its 2 November 2026 archive), from the pages cited above. Indian hosting prices exclude GST.

Worked example: budgeting a five-page services site

Take a Gurugram consultancy that needs five pages, a contact form and a professional address. We assume 18% GST where an Indian price excludes it.

Option A: WordPress on Hostinger Single. ₹3,312 for 48 months plus 18% GST (₹3,312 × 0.18 = ₹596.16) gives ₹3,908.16, about ₹977 a year. The plan lists a free domain, which Hostinger's FAQ says covers the first 12 months on annual plans. At renewal, 48 months at ₹289 is ₹13,872 before GST (₹16,368.96 with it), so set money aside for year five.

Option B: Squarespace Core billed annually. At India prices, ₹720 × 12 = ₹8,640 a year before any tax shown at checkout; at US prices, $29 × 12 = $348. Hosting, SSL and the editor are included, with no online store fee.

Option C: WordPress.com Business billed yearly. $25 × 12 = $300 a year, excluding taxes, with Automattic managing the servers.

Add a premium theme, stock photos and, above all, time for content: writing clear pages is the real work.

SEO, accessibility and security basics

SEO

Google's SEO Starter Guide covers the essentials: help Google find your pages through sitemaps and links, write unique content people want, use descriptive titles and descriptions, and monitor results in Search Console. It notes that changes can take from a few hours to several months to show. Give each page one clear topic, use real headings, and link related pages together. Our guide to ranking a website on Google's first page goes further.

Accessibility (WCAG)

The W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the reference standard. Version 2.2 was published on 5 October 2023 and updated on 12 December 2024. It has 13 guidelines under 4 principles (content must be perceivable, operable, understandable and work reliably with assistive technology), with success criteria at levels A, AA and AAA. The October 2023 text is also ISO/IEC 40500:2025, and W3C notes that most organisations addressing the European Accessibility Act use WCAG with EN 301 549, whose 2026 version uses WCAG 2.2. Level AA is the usual business target. Quick wins: alt text, colour contrast that passes a checker, full keyboard use, labelled form fields, captions on videos, and no information conveyed by colour alone.

Security

• HTTPS on every host and redirect, with automatic certificate renewal.

• Updates: keep the CMS, themes and plugins current; remove what you do not use.

• Accounts: two-factor authentication everywhere; one admin login per person; remove leavers the same day.

• Backups: automatic, stored off the server, with a restore tested each quarter.

• Forms: spam protection, and send data only over HTTPS.

India notes: GST invoices, payments and data protection

GST invoicing. Hostinger states that its prices exclude GST. If your business is GST-registered, add your GSTIN to the account before you pay so the invoice carries it, and ask your accountant whether input tax credit applies. Foreign providers differ. DigitalOcean's India tax page says it charges 18% GST to customers with an Indian tax location; once you add a valid GSTIN it stops charging GST and you pay under the reverse charge mechanism. GST paid before you added the GSTIN cannot be claimed as credit, and invoices need not be in INR to be GST compliant.

Payments. Hostinger's India pricing page shows UPI and RuPay alongside Visa among its payment options.

Data protection. If your forms collect names, phone numbers or emails, plan for a clear notice, consent where needed, and a way to handle deletion requests. India's Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 were published on 13 November 2025; the rules on notice, security safeguards, breach reporting and data principal rights start eighteen months later, on 13 May 2027. Our DPDP Rules compliance checklist maps what each rule asks of a website.

For businesses and IT teams: an ownership checklist

Most website failures are access problems. Before launch, confirm:

• The domain is registered to the company, with a shared company email and two named admins.

• Registrar lock and two-factor authentication are on for the registrar, DNS, host and CMS.

• DNS records, including email records, are documented in one place.

• Hosting, CMS and analytics accounts are owned by the company, with the agency added as a user rather than the owner.

• The contract assigns code, design files and content to you.

• Renewal dates for domain, hosting and certificates sit in a shared calendar, with auto-renew on.

• An accessibility statement and privacy policy are published and reviewed once a year.

How eCorpIT can help

eCorpIT is a Gurugram-based technology organisation, founded in 2021, assessed at CMMI Level 5 and MSME certified, with senior-led engineering teams working across AWS, Microsoft and Google platforms. When a builder or WordPress is not enough, our custom web application development service designs and builds portals, booking systems and integrated business sites. Talk to us at /contact-us/.

Last updated: 11 November 2026.

References

1. Hostinger India: Plans and pricing — Hostinger

1. Shopify India pricing — Shopify

1. WordPress.com plans and pricing — Automattic

1. Squarespace pricing, as shown to a visitor in India — Squarespace

1. .IN Registry policies — .IN Registry

1. .in Domain Names, archived copy of 2 November 2026 — GoDaddy India

1. Chrome 154 release notes — Chrome for Developers

1. WCAG 2 Overview, updated 17 September 2026 — W3C Web Accessibility Initiative

1. SEO Starter Guide — Google Search Central

1. Wix plans and pricing — Wix

1. Squarespace pricing, archived copy of 2 November 2026 — Squarespace

1. About WordPress — WordPress.org

1. Hostinger India: Domain pricing — Hostinger

1. HTTPS by default, 28 October 2025 — Google Online Security Blog

1. Chrome 154 milestone schedule — Chromium Dash

1. Chrome now warns before insecure HTTP connections, 21 October 2026 — Google

1. Ask-before-HTTP warning on by default — Chrome Platform Status

1. Ask-before-HTTP adoption guide — Chromium

1. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, W3C Recommendation 12 December 2024 — W3C

1. India Tax Information — DigitalOcean Docs

1. Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025, G.S.R. 846(E), 13 November 2025 — Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology