How to Read a Website Quote in India, Line by Line

Two quotes, ₹2,800 apart

Two quotes arrive for the same eight-page website. One says “₹60,000 + GST”. The other says “₹68,000 all inclusive”. The second number is bigger and the second quote is cheaper, because ₹60,000 plus 18 per cent GST comes to ₹70,800, which is ₹2,800 more than ₹68,000. Neither vendor hid anything. The buyer was never shown the same arithmetic twice.

A gap of ₹2,800 is the small version of the problem. The larger versions sit further down the page: a line reading “maintenance: as per requirement” with no amount beside it, or “hosting ₹6,000 / 1 year” with nothing about year two. This article is a method for reading an Indian website or app quote line by line. Put every number on the same GST basis, sort each cost by who receives the money, price the second year, and only then compare. Facts about tax and platforms are linked to their sources and stand as of October 2026. Facts about Dwize come from its published pricing and Care Year terms.

GST first: every number on one basis

Website design and development is a taxable service. The classification annexure to the GST rate notification lists IT design and development services as code 998314 and hosting as 998315, both inside heading 9983. The rate notification sets central tax for that heading at 9 per cent, and with the matching state tax the total is 18 per cent. That is also the standard rate under the two-rate structure the GST Council announced on 3 September 2025. Your invoice states the rate actually applied. If a vendor shows a different one, ask your accountant before you pay.

Two conversions cover every quote you will see.

• A quote that adds GST: multiply by 1.18. ₹60,000 becomes ₹70,800.
• A quote that includes GST: divide by 1.18 to find the base. ₹68,000 is ₹57,627 plus ₹10,373 of tax.

Dwize’s published product prices are GST inclusive. If the whole amount carries 18 per cent, each yearly price splits like this:

The split is arithmetic, not an invoice. Dwize’s own wording for its Go custom-domain add-on is that final GST treatment is confirmed in the written quote, and that is the right habit with any vendor: ask what the invoice will look like before you pay.

Whether the 18 per cent is a real cost depends on you. A registered business that uses the service to make taxable sales can claim the tax back as input credit, so for that buyer the base amount is the true price. An unregistered buyer, or one whose own sales are exempt, bears the full inclusive figure. Section 16 of the CGST Act sets four conditions for the credit: you hold a tax invoice from a registered supplier, you have received the service, the supplier has actually paid the tax to the government, and you have filed your own return. A proviso adds that if you do not pay the supplier within 180 days of the invoice date, the credit has to be added back with interest. Section 17 limits credit to the part of a service used for taxable sales.

Three practical points follow from that.

• Give the vendor your GSTIN with the order. Rule 46 lists what a tax invoice must carry, including the buyer’s GSTIN where the buyer is registered, so supply yours before the invoice is raised and not after.
• Do not treat a missing GSTIN as proof of bad faith. The GST Council’s registration flyer says suppliers of services under ₹20 lakh of turnover need not register in most states. A small freelancer may be perfectly honest. Their bill simply carries no GST and gives you no credit.
• Count the 180 days from the invoice date, not from the day the website goes live.

Who actually receives each rupee

The word “pass-through” gets used loosely, so use it narrowly. A pass-through is money the vendor collects from you only to hand to a third party at the same amount. Everything else is the vendor’s revenue, however it is labelled. The difference matters because a true pass-through can be shown to the rupee and should sit in your name, while revenue lines are the ones you are free to negotiate.

GST draws the same line. Rule 33 of the CGST Rules lets a supplier leave a cost out of its taxable value only when it acts as your “pure agent”. There has to be a contract saying so. The vendor pays the third party on your authorisation, shows the amount separately on the invoice, holds no title to what it buys, and recovers only the actual amount. A vendor that bills “domain: ₹1,200” with none of that is selling you a domain at whatever margin it chooses. That can be fair. It is just not a pass-through, and the quote should not call it one.

Here are the usual non-labour lines in an Indian website or app quote, with Dwize’s published figures where they exist.

Two of those figures can be checked at the source. Apple lists the annual Developer Program fee at US$99, in local currency where available, and says an organisation’s legal entity name is shown as the seller on the App Store. Google lists a one-time US$25 registration fee for Play Console.

The gateway row deserves a date. A Ministry of Finance release of 15 September 2026 describes a new UPI framework. Merchant payments up to ₹2,000 stay free of merchant discount rate, small merchants receiving up to ₹1 lakh a month on UPI QR codes keep zero MDR, and specified merchant payments above ₹2,000 carry 0.4 per cent, capped at ₹300 from ₹75,000. The release says the charge falls on the merchant, not the customer. SCC Online’s summary of the NPCI FAQs reports a start date of 15 October 2026. At that rate, a ₹5,000 UPI order carries ₹20 of MDR, a cost that belongs to the store owner and not to whoever built the store. Ask your gateway how it will apply the framework before you build a margin model on “UPI is free”.

Price year two before you sign year one

A website is bought once and paid for every year. The second invoice is where quotes differ most, because the first-year price is what wins the comparison and the renewal tends to be written later.

Three lines recur: hosting, domain and maintenance. Ask for each as a rupee figure with a billing date and the name of whoever will be invoiced. The domain carries one more detail. The .IN registry’s own FAQ advises checking that you or an authorised representative of your organisation is named as the registrant, keeping the registrar’s email address current, and registering for longer if you want fewer renewals; its stated maximum is ten years. For .com and other generic domains, ICANN’s guidance for registrants says renewal reminders go to the registrant email address in the domain’s contact record. If that address is the vendor’s and the vendor has gone quiet, the reminder never reaches you.

Dwize’s approach is to sell the year as one number. Hosting, maintenance, security patches, OS-update compatibility for native apps, 12 content updates, managed continuity and monthly check-ins sit inside the annual price. Renewal price, scope and terms are written before the next Care Year decision, which is covenant 01 of the Care Year. That makes year two visible before you commit to year one. It also means the price is for a year of operation. A build-only quote and a yearly operating price are different products, and comparing them without adding year two to the first is how the cheaper-looking quote turns out dearer.

Dwize also publishes a quarterly rate. Four quarters cost more than one year, and the gap is worth knowing before you choose.

That is a fair price for paying in smaller pieces, and some owners will rightly pay it. The point is to choose it with the number in front of you. Any vendor offering easy instalments should be able to state the same figure.

One quote, read line by line (illustrative)

The quote below is invented for this article. It describes no real vendor and no real client. Imagine a GST-registered textile trader in Surat who receives it as a PDF on WhatsApp.

Read it again as a buyer who wants to compare. The firm number is ₹1,93,756 for year one, or ₹1,64,200 if credit is available. Year two has at least four blanks: hosting, domain, maintenance and whatever the app needs as the stores change their rules. A quote is complete when you can fill in year two without phoning the vendor.

Before comparing anything, ask each vendor for one written reply with six lines.

1. Total for year one including GST, in rupees.
2. The same total without GST, and the GSTIN the invoice will carry.
3. Year-two prices for hosting, domain and maintenance, with billing dates.
4. Every account that will be in your name: domain, hosting, app stores, payment gateway, analytics.
5. Which lines are third-party costs at actuals, and a copy of the invoice that will be attached.
6. What is excluded, in a list.

Dwize settles the package, pages, language, copy, revisions, SEO foundations, analytics, business profile and pass-throughs in a written scope before payment, which covers most of those six lines. Any vendor can do the same.

Where a yearly number is the wrong shape

One inclusive yearly price is easy to compare, and it suits an owner who wants a site operated, patched and updated without managing vendors. It is the wrong shape in two cases. If you already have a developer and only want a one-off build, a build-only quote with a capped maintenance line may cost less. If your site changes daily, 12 content updates a year is a ceiling and not a feed, and you should price ongoing changes separately before you sign. In either case the method above still works: convert, sort, price year two, then compare.

The full grid, with quarterly rates and the Go add-on, is on the pricing page. Dwize’s legal name and GSTIN are on the trust page, and the point of the GST portal is that you do not have to take our word for either. If you would like a quote you already hold to be read this way, send it to Dwize and ask for the six lines back.