How much does a Diwali online store cost in 2026? The store can be ₹0

TL;DR

• • Platform: ₹0 on the SitesPlaced free plan, 0% commission. Starter is ₹199/month.
• • Domain: optional. The free address can take orders.
• • Payment gateway: no setup fee on standard plans; a fee on each online payment. COD and direct UPI have none.
• • Packaging and shipping: the costs you can’t avoid. Put them inside your price or your delivery charge.
• • Photos: a phone and daylight are enough.
• • Ads: optional, and better left until the store has taken some orders.

The full breakdown, in two columns

Both columns are example figures for one seller who gets 40 orders over the season at ₹800 each. We chose round numbers so the sums are easy to follow. Replace each one with your own.

Example figures only, for 40 orders of ₹800. Stock is left out because it depends entirely on what you sell. SitesPlaced prices are the published prices on 28 September 2026.

1. The platform: ₹0

The platform is the service your store runs on. Platforms usually charge in one or more of three ways: a monthly plan, a commission on each sale, or paid add-ons for features such as invoices or popups.

The SitesPlaced free plan is ₹0 with 0% commission. It includes unlimited products and orders, all 16 store templates, cash on delivery, WhatsApp checkout, online payments through your own Razorpay, PhonePe or Cashfree account, coupons, the free-delivery progress bar, invoices, and courier booking through Shiprocket and Shipmozo. The Diwali tools are free too: the build-your-own hamper page, the announcement bar for your last order date, and pause ordering for when you stop shipping.

What you give up on the free plan: your store lives on a free address like yourbrand.sitesplaced.site, and it shows a small SitesPlaced badge. How to set the store up is in how to start an online store before Diwali.

2. A domain: optional

A domain is your own address on the internet, such as yourbrand.com. You rent it by the year from a company called a registrar. As a rough guide, a .com or .in costs about ₹800 to ₹1,500 a year, depending on the registrar and the name. We used ₹1,000 in the example.

On SitesPlaced, connecting your own domain is part of the Starter plan and above, and there is no extra charge for connecting it. You only pay the registrar for the name. You don’t need one to sell this Diwali. It is worth having if you will keep the store open afterwards, print the address on packaging, or run ads. Picking a name is covered in how to choose a name and domain for your online store.

3. Payment gateway charges

A payment gateway is the service that takes a buyer’s UPI, card or net banking payment on your store and sends the money to your bank account. The gateway charges a fee on each payment. SitesPlaced adds nothing on top.

When we compared the three gateways you can connect, standard pricing was about 2% plus GST on most payment methods as of September 2026, with UPI often cheaper, and no setup or monthly fee on standard plans. These figures are indicative. Rates change and negotiated rates differ, so read the current rate card before you connect. The comparison is in Razorpay vs PhonePe vs Cashfree for a small online store.

Two ways of getting paid have no gateway fee at all. With cash on delivery the buyer pays when the parcel arrives. With direct UPI the buyer orders, then pays your UPI ID from their own app. Both are free to switch on. COD has its own cost, though: couriers often charge for handling cash, and a parcel refused at the door costs you delivery both ways. You can add an extra COD charge under Settings → Checkout, and the free COD vs prepaid calculator shows what a refused parcel costs you.

4. Packaging

Packaging is the cost new sellers most often leave out of their price. Count every piece that leaves with the order: the outer box or courier bag, filler so nothing rattles, tape, a label, and for Diwali a card or a ribbon.

In the example, the bare minimum is a plain courier bag or box at ₹15 a parcel, and the comfortable column is a gift box at ₹40. Ask a local packaging wholesaler for real prices, and buy early. Running out of boxes in the last week costs you days.

You can also let the buyer pay for nicer packing. On a SitesPlaced product, Personalisation & extras lets you add a paid extra such as “Gift wrapping +₹80” that buyers tick in the cart. It is on the free plan. More ideas are in Diwali packaging and gift wrapping ideas.

5. Shipping

Your courier charges you for every parcel, by weight and distance. You decide how much of that the buyer pays. There are three common choices:

• • Charge a flat delivery fee that matches your average parcel. Your shipping cost is then close to zero.
• • Free delivery above an order value. You pay the courier on larger orders, in return for bigger baskets.
• • Free delivery on everything, with the courier cost built into your prices.

In the example we used ₹80 a parcel. Ask your courier, or Shiprocket or Shipmozo if you book through them, for your real rate, and ask about festive surcharges while you are at it. On SitesPlaced the delivery charge and the free-delivery amount are under Settings → Shipping. Hand delivery in your own city costs you time and fuel instead. How to choose is in how to set shipping charges.

6. Photos

You don’t need a photographer for a first Diwali. A phone, a window and a plain background are enough. If you want to spend a little, chart paper or a cloth backdrop and two or three festive props cost a few hundred rupees; we used ₹500 in the example. Take one clear photo of the product alone, and one of it packed as a gift. The method is in how to take better product photos.

7. Ads: optional

Ads are the one cost that can grow without limit, so treat them as a test with a fixed budget. For a brand-new store, the first orders come from people who already know you, through WhatsApp status, personal messages and your Instagram page, and none of that costs money. If you test ads after that, link each ad to a single product and stop before your last order date. The free Instagram ads ROAS calculator tells you whether an ad paid for itself. How to get orders without ads is in how a new store gets its first Diwali orders.

One order, worked through

Totals matter less than what is left from each order. Here is one example order, paid online.

Now put a 20% discount on the same order. The buyer pays ₹160 less, and all of it comes out of the ₹342. Work out the discount before you announce it, with the free product pricing calculator and profit margin calculator. Offers that keep your profit are in Diwali sale ideas for a small business.

The costs that are not on any price list

• Stock. Usually the biggest number, and different for every product. Buy for the orders you can reasonably expect from people you can reach, and prefer products that still sell after Diwali.
• Returns and refused parcels. Keep a little money aside for them, and write your returns rule before the rush.
• Your time. Replies, packing and courier handovers fill a part of every day in a busy week. Decide who does them before the orders come.
• Tax and registrations. Rules on GST, and on FSSAI if you sell food, depend on what and how much you sell. Check gst.gov.in and ask a chartered accountant. We don’t quote fees or limits here because they change.

When is a paid plan worth it for Diwali?

You can sell all season on the free plan. A paid plan is worth it when one of these matters to you:

• Starter, ₹199/month or ₹1,990/year. Your own domain, the SitesPlaced badge removed, store analytics, Meta Pixel with the Conversions API for ads, and a dedicated setup person. Store pages also answer about 4× faster than on the free plan: about 75 ms instead of about 330 ms, measured on 28 September 2026 on live paid stores. “Answer” is the moment a page starts arriving on the shopper’s phone, before the photos load. It helps when festive traffic arrives from Instagram and WhatsApp on mobile data.
• Growth, ₹499/month or ₹4,990/year. Everything in Starter, plus Buy X Get Y offers, a slide-out cart with upsells, frequently bought together, a post-purchase offer, popups, product reviews and the loyalty programme.
• AI Co-founder, ₹1,499/month. Everything in Growth, plus promotions that start and end on a timer, a campaign planner, a creative studio and broadcasts.

A yearly plan costs ten months’ price. There is one offer: the code FREE7 gives 7 days free on Starter or Growth when you set up autopay. Cancel before the first charge and you pay nothing. There is no separate Diwali discount.

How this compares with other ways to sell

Instagram DMs and WhatsApp only. No platform cost at all, and a fine way to begin. The cost is your time: every order is a conversation, and orders slip when you are busy.

Marketplaces. They bring shoppers of their own, which is valuable. They charge fees on each sale, and the fee structure differs by marketplace and category, so read the current fee page before you list.

Other store builders such as Shopify, Wix and Dukaan. All can run a good store. Check the monthly plan, whether there is a charge on each sale, and which features need paid add-ons. Prices change, so use their pricing pages, not an old blog post.

Our verdict: for a first Diwali, the SitesPlaced free plan is the lowest-cost way to have a real store with a checkout, because the platform costs ₹0, takes 0% of each sale, and already includes COD, UPI, coupons and couriers. Spend the money you save on packaging and stock.

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