The best ecommerce platform in India for most small and mid-sized businesses building their own store is Shopify if you want to launch fast without a developer, and WooCommerce if you want the lowest running cost and full control. If you sell mostly in India and want GST invoices, COD rules and Indian couriers built in, an India-first builder such as Shopaccino or Zoho Commerce is worth a look, because neither charges a platform fee on each sale.
That answer assumes you want your own website. Amazon, Flipkart and Meesho are marketplaces, a different thing, and many search results mix the two up. This guide separates them, compares eight ways to build your own store on price in rupees, per-sale fees, GST and cash on delivery, and ends with a pick for each type of business. We checked every price and rule linked below on 15 October 2026.
Marketplace or your own store: decide this first
A marketplace lends you its customers. Your own store makes you find them, but every customer, email and phone number stays yours. Most Indian brands that grow end up doing both.
What you are comparing | Marketplace (Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho) | Your own store (Shopify, WooCommerce and others) |
|---|---|---|
Where customers come from | The marketplace's own traffic | Your SEO, ads, social media and repeat buyers |
Main cost | Commission or referral fee, plus shipping and other selling fees | Monthly plan or hosting, payment gateway fee, marketing |
Customer data | Held by the marketplace | Yours |
Brand control | Listing next to competitors, marketplace rules on pricing and returns | Your design, your prices, your return policy |
Time to first sale | Usually faster | Slower until you build traffic |
Marketplace fees have dropped sharply in 2026, which changes the maths for low-priced products:
Amazon India removed referral fees on products under ₹1,000 across more than 1,800 categories from 16 March 2026, according to Amazon's announcement. Other selling fees still apply; its own example shows a ₹299 t-shirt on Easy Ship paying ₹56 in total fees.
Flipkart extended zero commission to all fashion products at every price point on 8 July 2026.
Meesho says it takes "ZERO commissions from suppliers to list products".
So a marketplace is often the cheapest way to get your first orders. Your own store is how you keep the customer for the second and third order without paying for them again. One rule to check with your CA: selling through a marketplace generally needs a GSTIN, with only a limited exemption for small sellers supplying goods within their own state, as Razorpay's GST explainer sets out.
The rest of this guide is about the second path: building your own store.
Best ecommerce platform in India: 8 options compared (2026)
Prices below are the lowest published plan suitable for a real store, before GST, as listed on each platform's own page today. "Per-sale fee" means what the platform takes on top of your payment gateway.
Platform | Type | Entry price | Platform fee per online sale | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Shopify | Hosted builder | ₹1,499/month (yearly billing) | 2%, 1% or 0.6% by plan | Fast launch, D2C brands, no developer |
WooCommerce | Open-source plugin for WordPress | ₹0 plugin; you pay for hosting | None | Control, content-led SEO, growing prepaid sales |
Zoho Commerce | Hosted builder (Indian company) | From ₹99/month billed yearly (Starter, 25 products) | 0% on paid plans | Businesses already on Zoho Books or Inventory |
Shopaccino | Hosted builder (India-first) | ₹1,582/month billed yearly (StartUp) | 0% | GST invoices, COD rules, multi-warehouse |
Instamojo | Store plus built-in payments | ₹0 (Lite) to ₹14,999/year (Growth) | 5% + ₹3 (Lite, Starter) or 2% + ₹3 (Growth), covering payment processing | Very small sellers, testing a product |
StoreHippo | Hosted platform for larger stores | ₹15,000/month (Business) | 1% (Business), 0.5% (Enterprise) | Multi-vendor, B2B, larger catalogues |
Dukaan | Hosted builder (Indian, now global) | Not shown on its pricing page when we checked | "Minimal" per its homepage, no figure given | Mobile-first sellers; confirm price first |
Custom build | Coded for you (for example Laravel, Node or headless) | One-time build cost plus hosting | None | Unusual workflows, high volume, ERP integration |
Sources are linked in each platform section below. Payment gateway fees, such as Razorpay's standard 2% plus GST, are paid on top on every option except Instamojo, where the fee shown already includes payment processing.
Platform-by-platform review
1. Shopify: easiest way to launch
Shopify is a hosted store builder. It runs the servers, security, checkout and updates, and you add features through apps. For a first store with no developer, nothing else in this list gets you selling as quickly.
Shopify India pricing today:
Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | Fee on third-party payments |
|---|---|---|---|
Basic | ₹1,499/month | ₹1,994/month | 2% |
Grow | ₹5,599/month | ₹7,447/month | 1% |
Advanced | ₹22,680/month | ₹30,164/month | 0.6% |
Plus | Not offered | From ₹1,75,000/month | 0.2% |
The catch for Indian stores is that Shopify Payments, Shopify's own gateway, is not available in India, as Razorpay's September 2026 Shopify guide confirms. So you pay Shopify's fee from the table above on every online payment, plus your gateway's fee. Cash on delivery escapes this: Shopify says you aren't charged third-party transaction fees for manual payments, and COD counts as one.
GST needs an app. Shopify's India tax page states, "Shopify doesn't create a GST-compliant bill."
Choose Shopify if you want a polished store this month and are happy to pay for convenience. We compare it in detail in Shopify vs WooCommerce for Indian businesses.
2. WooCommerce: lowest running cost and full control
WooCommerce is a free plugin that turns a WordPress site into a store. Its pricing page lists it as free with 0% revenue share, with optional extensions at $29 to $299 a year each.
You pay for hosting, a domain, any paid extensions, and someone to keep WordPress and plugins updated. In return there is no platform fee on sales, you own the code and database, and you control URLs, schema and the blog, which matters if Google search is your main source of customers. Razorpay, Shiprocket and GST invoice plugins are available free.
The risk is upkeep. A WooCommerce store on cheap hosting with dozens of plugins, never updated, will be slow and insecure. Budget for maintenance, and see our website security checklist before launch.
3. Zoho Commerce: best if you already use Zoho
Zoho Commerce is a hosted builder from Zoho, the Indian software company. Its pricing page shows a Starter plan at ₹99 a month billed annually, limited to 25 products and one user, with a 14-day trial on all plans. It states, "We do not charge any transaction fee on any of our paid plans." The page did not display the prices of the higher plans when we checked, so get a live quote for Standard and above.
Its real advantage is the link to Zoho Books and Zoho Inventory. If your accounts and stock already sit in Zoho, orders, invoices and inventory stay in one system without connector apps.
4. Shopaccino: India-first features without a per-sale fee
Shopaccino is built for Indian sellers. Its platform page lists these plans, excluding 18% GST:
Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing (per month) | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|
StartUp | ₹1,899 | ₹1,582 | 1,000 products, 2 staff logins |
Scale | ₹4,999 | ₹4,165 | 5,000 products, 5 staff logins |
ProCommerce | ₹9,999 | ₹8,332 | 20,000 products, 10 staff logins, up to 5 warehouses |
It lists a 0% platform transaction fee on every plan, GST invoices with HSN codes and per-warehouse GSTIN, COD that you can restrict by pincode, order value or product, and couriers including Shiprocket. On Shopify, GST invoices need an app.
The trade-off is a smaller ecosystem. There are fewer themes, fewer third-party apps and fewer developers who know it than Shopify or WordPress, so check that every integration you need is already listed.
5. Instamojo: cheapest way to start very small
Instamojo combines a simple store with its own payment processing. Its pricing page lists a free Lite plan and a Starter plan at ₹6,999 a year, both charging 5% + ₹3 per physical-product sale, and a Growth plan at ₹14,999 a year (or ₹2,999 a month) charging 2% + ₹3. GST is added to these.
Because the fee covers payments, there is no separate gateway bill. That makes the free plan a sensible way to test whether a product sells. Once sales are steady, 5% is expensive, and the store features are basic compared with the platforms above.
6. StoreHippo: for larger and multi-vendor stores
StoreHippo targets bigger businesses, B2B sellers and marketplaces with many vendors. Its pricing page lists Business at ₹15,000 a month with a 1% fee per order, Enterprise at ₹30,000 with 0.5%, and Platinum from ₹1,20,000 a month on a one-year minimum. It is not a fit for a first store, but worth shortlisting if you are building a multi-seller marketplace or a large B2B catalogue.
7. Dukaan: check the current price before you commit
Dukaan started as a quick store app for Indian small businesses. Its homepage now calls it an "Enterprise Ecommerce Platform" and "Your Global Commerce Partner", offers its own pan-India shipping service, and promises "minimal transaction fees" without giving a figure. Its pricing page did not display plan prices when we checked, and the software directory Capterra lists a Basic plan at $14.99 a month. Ask Dukaan for the rupee price and the exact transaction fee in writing before you choose it.
8. Custom build: when off-the-shelf stops fitting
A custom store is coded for your business. You pay a one-time build cost and hosting, with no platform fee on sales and no limits on features. It makes sense for B2B price lists, product configurators, subscription logic, deep ERP or Tally integration, or very high order volumes where a percentage fee becomes a large monthly bill.
It is the wrong choice for a first store with unproven demand. Our ecommerce website development cost guide covers build prices for Shopify, WooCommerce and custom stores in India.
What platform fees really cost: a worked example
Plan prices hide the bigger cost for many stores, which is the fee on each sale. Here is an illustrative month for a store with ₹2 lakh in prepaid online sales (200 orders of ₹1,000), using today's published prices and Razorpay's standard 2% + 18% GST as the gateway. Subscription prices are before GST, and yearly billing is assumed.
Cost item | Shopify Basic | Shopaccino StartUp | Instamojo Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
Plan (per month) | ₹1,499 | ₹1,582 | ₹1,250 (₹14,999 ÷ 12) |
Platform fee on sales | ₹4,000 (2%) | ₹0 | Included below |
Payment processing | ₹4,720 (Razorpay 2% + GST) | ₹4,720 (Razorpay 2% + GST) | ₹5,428 (2% + ₹3 per order, + GST) |
Total for the month | ₹10,219 | ₹6,302 | ₹6,678 |
The maths: Razorpay takes 2% of ₹2,00,000, which is ₹4,000, plus 18% GST of ₹720. Instamojo takes 2% (₹4,000) plus ₹3 on 200 orders (₹600), which is ₹4,600, plus 18% GST of ₹828.
Three things change this picture. Cash on delivery orders carry no Shopify fee, so a store with many COD orders pays less on Shopify than the table shows. Paid Shopify apps, such as a GST invoice app, add to its total, while Shopaccino includes those features. And gateway offers, such as Razorpay's current promotion of a free gateway for the first 90 days, lower everyone's processing cost for a while. Run the same sum with your own order value, COD share and app list.
Which platform should you choose?
Your situation | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
Testing one product, almost no budget | Instamojo Lite or a marketplace | No fixed monthly cost |
First D2C brand, no developer, want to launch quickly | Shopify | Least setup, large theme and app choice |
Mostly prepaid orders, sales growing past ₹2 to 3 lakh a month | WooCommerce or Shopaccino | No platform fee on each sale |
Need GST invoices, pincode COD rules and multiple warehouses | Shopaccino | Built in, no extra apps |
Accounts and inventory already in Zoho | Zoho Commerce | One system for orders, stock and books |
Blog and Google search will drive most sales | WooCommerce | Full control of URLs, schema and content |
Multi-vendor marketplace or large B2B catalogue | StoreHippo or custom | Built for many sellers and complex pricing |
Unusual workflows or ERP integration at scale | Custom build | No feature limits, no per-sale fee |
Checklist: 12 questions to ask before you pick
What will you sell in a month in the first year, and what is your average order value?
What share of orders do you expect to be cash on delivery?
Does the platform take a fee per sale, and is it charged on COD orders too?
Can it produce a GST-compliant invoice with your GSTIN and HSN codes, or do you need an app?
Does it connect to your payment gateway for UPI, cards and netbanking?
Does it integrate with Shiprocket or the courier you plan to use?
Can you restrict COD by pincode or order value to cut return-to-origin losses?
How many staff need logins, and how many are included?
Which paid apps or extensions will you need, and what do they cost for a year?
Can you edit page titles, URLs and product schema for SEO?
Can you export products, customers and orders if you leave?
Who will handle security, backups and updates? This matters more since India's DPDP Rules were notified in November 2025 with an 18-month phased timeline, and every order collects personal data.
Frequently asked questions
Which ecommerce platform is best in India?
For your own store, Shopify is best for a quick launch without a developer, and WooCommerce is best for low running cost and control. Shopaccino and Zoho Commerce suit sellers who want GST and COD features built in with no per-sale platform fee. For selling on someone else's platform, Amazon, Flipkart and Meesho are the largest marketplaces.
What are the top 5 ecommerce platforms for building a store in India?
Based on our comparison: Shopify, WooCommerce, Zoho Commerce, Shopaccino and Instamojo. StoreHippo and custom builds suit larger or more complex stores.
Is Zoho Commerce free?
Not as a free plan. Zoho's pricing page lists no free tier, but every plan has a 14-day free trial with no credit card needed. The Starter plan is listed at ₹99 a month billed annually, for up to 25 products.
Is Zoho Commerce better than Shopify?
It depends on what you already use. Zoho Commerce charges no transaction fee on paid plans and connects directly to Zoho Books and Inventory. Shopify has far more themes, apps and developers, but charges 0.6% to 2% on online payments in India because Shopify Payments is not available here.
Which ecommerce platform is best for beginners in India?
Shopify is the easiest to set up without technical help. If budget is the main concern, Instamojo's free plan lets you start with no monthly fee, at a higher cost per sale.
Should I sell on Amazon or build my own website?
Many brands do both. Marketplaces give faster first sales, and fees on low-priced products fell in 2026. Your own website keeps customer data and repeat orders with you, and avoids competing next to other sellers on the same page.
Need help choosing or building your store?
Webhorse Studio builds ecommerce stores for businesses in Mumbai and across India on Shopify, WooCommerce and custom code, including payment gateway, Shiprocket and GST invoice setup. See our ecommerce website development services, or tell us what you sell and we will recommend the platform that fits your orders and budget.
