What a Website Costs in US Dollars When You Hire a Developer From India

The first thing clients abroad ask is: what does it cost in dollars? This is my answer, with what is included and what moves the number.

I am a web developer in Aligarh, India, and these are my real starting prices.

The starting prices#

These are starting prices, not a menu. A custom build is quoted after a short conversation and the written quote is the number you pay. Payments, real-time features and admin dashboards on a mobile app are quoted separately.

What a website includes#

A responsive site built in React and Next.js, with:

• on-page SEO: titles, headings, metadata, structured data and a sitemap
• performance tuning, so pages load quickly on a phone
• the source code
• a short handover, so small text changes do not need a developer

One person designs the layout and builds it. That is where most of the saving comes from: no handoff between a designer, a developer and a project manager.

The five things that move the price#

I wrote a longer rupee breakdown in How Much Does a Business Website Cost in India?, and the same five factors apply in dollars.

1. Type of site. A landing page, a business site and a web app are very different amounts of work.
2. Design depth. A clean, simple design costs less than custom illustration or heavy animation.
3. Functionality. Forms are cheap. Logins, payments, bookings and dashboards add real work.
4. Content. Whether the copy and images are ready, or need writing and sourcing.
5. Ongoing costs. Domain, hosting and any maintenance sit outside the build price.

What I can't tell you#

I will not quote what a US, UK or Australian agency charges, because I do not have a source I would stand behind, and a made-up comparison helps nobody. My advice is simple: get two quotes that list the same deliverables and compare those, not the headline numbers.

I also do not have a named client in the USA, UK, Australia, UAE or Singapore yet. My overseas work so far is for Concept Dash, a Canada-based engineering firm, where I built the website and the ContentCal platform. If a reference matters to you, that is the one I can point to.

How a project starts#

1. Brief. Use the project form, pick web development, and get an indicative estimate in a few clicks.
2. Written scope. A scope, price and timeline in writing.
3. Milestones. Preview links as it goes, not one surprise at the deadline.
4. Handover. Source code, deployment and a walkthrough.

For your country's overlap and how we would work together across the time difference, see the working-hour overlap guide or go straight to the page for the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia, the UAE or Singapore.