One-time payment online store builders in India: lifetime deals vs free forever.

The real pay-once offers in India

Competitor numbers below are as listed on their pricing pages in August 2026; plans change, so confirm before you buy.

WSTORES “3 YEARS”: ₹5,999 one-time. WSTORES normally charges ₹399/month for Basic and ₹499/month for Pro, both including GST, with no free plan and a 7-day trial that requires a UPI AutoPay mandate. The three-year plan is the escape from that: ₹5,999 paid once works out to roughly ₹167/month, well under either monthly price. Check which tier’s features the three-year plan carries, because on WSTORES a custom domain, Shiprocket and Delhivery shipping, invoices, product badges and SEO tools are Pro-only.

StoreMaker prepaid terms: ₹999 for 6 months, ₹1,799 for 1 year, ₹2,999 for 2 years. These are prepaid versions of the ₹222/month Starter plan, which allows 30 products and 5 categories, takes UPI through GPay and PhonePe plus cash on delivery, and includes a Google Maps pin and basic SEO. Two years for ₹2,999 is about ₹125/month. It does not list a card payment gateway, Shiprocket, or a custom domain; those need the ₹499/month Growth plan, which has no prepaid term listed.

Neither is a true lifetime deal. Both are multi-year prepays that end, and then you renew at whatever the price is by then. That distinction matters when you do the maths.

What a prepay actually buys

When a builder has no free plan, the prepay is buying the right to exist: the store, the catalogue, the checkout. You are paying so that your shop does not get switched off. That is the case with WSTORES and StoreMaker, and it is why a three-year payment feels like relief.

SitesPlaced is priced the other way round. The store is not the product you pay for. Build it, add unlimited products, connect Razorpay for UPI, cards, net banking and wallets, switch on cash on delivery with an optional COD charge, enable WhatsApp checkout, connect Shiprocket or Shipmozo and get AWB numbers with live tracking, issue PDF invoices, run coupons and Buy-X-Get-Y offers, pick any of the 17 themes, publish on a sitesplaced.com URL, and pay ₹0. Not for a trial. Not against a mandate. The only things you give up are a small “Made using SitesPlaced” badge, a 500 MB storage cap and a limit of five sites.

So the ₹499/month Ecommerce plan (early-bird, ₹999 after the first 30 stores) is buying extras, not existence: a custom domain with one-click DNS for Indian registrars, branding removal, AI-written copy, store analytics, custom head code, Meta Pixel plus Conversions API, and WhatsApp Business API order alerts from your own number. If you do not need those this month, you do not pay this month.

Three years, side by side

The maths, honestly

Seller A never needs a custom domain. They sell from Instagram and WhatsApp, the link in bio is fine, and they want UPI, COD and shipping that works. On SitesPlaced that seller pays ₹0 over three years. On the WSTORES three-year plan they pay ₹5,999. On StoreMaker they pay ₹2,999 for two years and then renew for the third. The free store is not a compromise here: it has unlimited products where StoreMaker’s Starter stops at 30, and it has Shiprocket and invoices where WSTORES puts them on Pro.

Seller B wants their own domain for all three years. On SitesPlaced that is ₹499 × 36 = ₹17,964 at the early-bird price, and ₹35,964 if you join after the first 30 stores at ₹999/month. Against ₹5,999 for the WSTORES three-year plan, the prepay is cheaper in pure rupees, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Two caveats: confirm the three-year plan includes the Pro-tier custom domain, and remember that WSTORES Pro paid monthly is also ₹499, so ₹17,964 over three years is what its own monthly customers pay too.

What Seller B’s extra rupees buy on SitesPlaced. Server-side Meta Conversions API with deduplicated Purchase events, so Instagram ads optimise on real orders instead of browser pixels that get blocked. WhatsApp Business API alerts sent from your own number through Meta’s Cloud API: an owner alert and a customer confirmation per order, not a pre-formatted message the customer has to tap. AI copy for product pages. 17 themes with every heading, hero image, footer column and menu editable. A free importer that rebuilds a catalogue from Instagram, a PDF, a website or a Shopexer store. An MCP server so ChatGPT or Claude can edit the store. And continuous updates: new themes and section variants land on the free plan, not behind a paywall. None of those are listed on either prepaid plan.

Seller C wants a domain for the festive season only. Two months of ₹499 is ₹998. Then downgrade; the store, products, orders and integrations stay live on the free plan. That is the option a prepay cannot offer.

The lock-in risk nobody prices in

A three-year prepay is a bet that the product you see today is the product you will need in 2029. Sellers change. You start with COD and UPI, then you want card payments; you run your first Instagram ad and discover you need the Conversions API; you get tired of typing order confirmations and want them sent automatically from your WhatsApp Business number. If the builder you prepaid does not ship those, the money is spent either way. Moving means writing off the balance.

Monthly billing on top of a free base removes that bet. Pay ₹499 in the months the extras earn their keep; pay ₹0 in the months they do not. If a better tool appears, there is no balance to lose. Keep a copy of your catalogue outside any platform regardless, including ours.

SitesPlaced’s own one-time payment (portfolios only)

There is one place SitesPlaced sells a pay-once option: student portfolios. A ₹99 one-time payment removes SitesPlaced branding from a portfolio site permanently. It exists because a student’s portfolio is a finished object that does not need a domain, ad tracking or WhatsApp alerts. It does not apply to online stores, which keep the free-plus-₹499 model described above. If you came here looking for a lifetime deal on a store, this is not it, and we would rather say so than let you buy the wrong thing.

Who should take the prepaid deal

• Take WSTORES’ three-year plan if you have already used it, the features you need are on the tier the plan carries, you want a custom domain for the whole term, and ₹5,999 today is easier for your business than ₹499 a month. In rupees alone it is the cheapest way to hold a custom domain on a store builder for three years.
• Take StoreMaker’s two-year plan if you are a local business with under 30 products, your customers pay by UPI or cash, you want a Google Maps pin, and ₹125 a month is the whole budget.
• Skip both if you have more than 30 products, expect to run Meta ads, want shipping with tracking on day one, or simply are not sure you will still be selling the same way in three years. The free store costs nothing to find out.

How to start without paying anything

1. Open the pricing page and confirm for yourself that the free column has no expiry.
2. Choose one of the 17 store themes, or paste your Instagram handle or existing store into the importer and let it rebuild the catalogue.
3. Connect Razorpay, switch on COD and WhatsApp checkout, connect Shiprocket or Shipmozo.
4. Publish. Share the link. Take orders with custom order IDs, invoices and tracking.
5. Upgrade for ₹499/month only in the months you want your own domain, ad tracking or WhatsApp API alerts.

Frequently asked questions