Web Development
2026-09-30 · 9 min read
Sapun Lamichhane
Founder & CEO of Arcetis
Website prices in Nepal span a wide range because "a website" describes anything from a five-page brochure to a multi-tenant platform. In 2026 NPR terms, the market sorts into three honest bands: a basic business or brochure site runs roughly Rs 30,000 to Rs 1,20,000; a custom, dynamic site with a CMS, integrations and a considered design runs roughly Rs 1,50,000 to Rs 5,00,000 and up; and an e-commerce store runs roughly Rs 1,00,000 for a simple catalogue to Rs 5,00,000 and beyond for anything with real inventory, payments and logistics.
A freelancer or a template shop will usually sit at the bottom of each band. An agency that does discovery, custom design, real engineering and post-launch support will sit higher — a business site that costs Rs 40,000 from a freelancer is commonly Rs 1,00,000 to Rs 3,00,000 built as a proper engagement. Neither is "the right price" in the abstract; the right price is the one that matches what the site actually has to do.
The number that matters is not the build quote. It is the build plus the recurring cost of hosting, maintenance and content over the two or three years the site is actually in service — and, more than either, the cost of getting the scope wrong and rebuilding.
“The most expensive website in Nepal is the cheap one you pay for twice — once to build it, and again to rebuild it properly a year later when it cannot do what the business grew into needing.”
Five things move a website quote far more than the number of pages, which is what most buyers anchor on. First, custom design versus a template: a bought theme configured to your content is fast and cheap; a design drawn for your brand, with its own layout system, is neither, and the gap is often half the quote.
Second, whether the site is static or dynamic. A set of fixed pages that rarely change is inexpensive to build and nearly free to host. The moment the client needs to log in and edit content, or the site has to show data that changes — a product catalogue, a booking calendar, a member area — it needs a CMS or an application behind it, and the cost steps up.
Third, integrations. A contact form is trivial. Wiring the site into a payment gateway (eSewa, Khalti, a card processor), a CRM, an inventory system, or an SMS/email provider is real engineering, and each integration is a line item because each one can break independently and has to be tested and maintained.
Fourth, content. A quote that assumes you will supply finished copy, photography and product data is cheaper than one where the team has to write, shoot and structure it — and a site launched with placeholder content never performs, so this cost is real whether or not it appears on the invoice.
Fifth, who builds it and what happens after launch. A quote that ends at "delivered" is cheaper than one that includes testing across devices, performance work, analytics, a handover you can actually use, and someone to call when something breaks. The difference is not padding; it is the part of the work that decides whether the site earns anything.
A static business site — a handful of pages that present the company and capture enquiries — is the right call for most small businesses, and in Nepal it lands around Rs 30,000 to Rs 1,20,000 depending on design and content. Built well on a modern static stack, it is fast, cheap to host, and hard to break, which is exactly what a brochure site should be.
A dynamic site earns its higher cost only when something genuinely has to change without a developer: staff editing content, listings that update, a portal, logic that responds to the visitor. That capability is worth paying for when you will use it, and pure overhead when you will not — plenty of Nepali businesses pay for a CMS-driven build and then never log in, having bought complexity they did not need.
E-commerce is its own decision. A ready platform (a hosted store or a WooCommerce build) gets a catalogue online quickly and sits from about Rs 1,00,000; a custom store makes sense once inventory, multi-vendor logic, custom checkout or tight integration with your operations justify it, and that is where budgets run to Rs 5,00,000 and past it. The mistake is buying a custom store for a catalogue that a ready platform would have handled for a fifth of the cost.
A domain is small (around Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,500 a year for a .com, more for a .com.np through the local registrar). Hosting is the recurring line most quotes understate: shared hosting suitable for a small site runs roughly Rs 2,500 to Rs 6,000 a year, while a dynamic app or a busy store needs a real server or managed hosting that costs meaningfully more.
Maintenance is the cost buyers most often forget. Updates, backups, security patches and small content changes run roughly Rs 5,000 to Rs 20,000 a year for a straightforward site, and more for anything with a live application behind it. A site with no maintenance budget does not stay still; it quietly rots — plugins go out of date, forms stop delivering, and the first anyone notices is when it breaks.
Then there is the cost that dwarfs all of these: rebuilding. A site bought purely on lowest price, with no discovery and no room to grow, frequently gets thrown away inside eighteen months because it cannot do what the business grew into needing — and the second build starts from zero, having paid for the first one anyway.
Start from the job, not the price. Write down what the site has to do in its first year — capture leads, sell ten products, let two staff post updates, book appointments — and buy exactly that, with a little room to extend. A scope defined this way makes quotes comparable; a scope defined as "a website" makes every quote a different thing wearing the same word, which is why a Rs 30,000 quote and a Rs 3,00,000 quote can both be honest.
Ask any prospective builder three questions: what exactly is delivered and what is explicitly not; what it costs to run and maintain after launch; and what happens when you outgrow it. A builder who answers those clearly is quoting a system; one who only quotes a number is quoting a file you will own the consequences of.
Arcetis builds at the considered end of this market — discovery, custom engineering, real post-launch support — because that is where a website stops being a cost and starts being infrastructure that earns. That is the right choice for a business that needs the site to do a job, and the wrong one for a business that genuinely needs five brochure pages, which we will tell you plainly rather than sell you a platform you will not use.
A basic, professional business or brochure site in Nepal typically costs around Rs 30,000 to Rs 1,20,000 in 2026. A freelancer or template shop sits at the lower end; a full agency engagement with custom design and post-launch support sits higher. The range depends far more on custom design, content and support than on page count.
For a very small, static brochure site it can be fine. The risk is what the price usually excludes: no discovery, a bought template, placeholder content, and no maintenance or room to grow. That is workable for a genuine five-page brochure and a false economy for anything the business needs to run on — where it commonly gets rebuilt within a year or two, paid for twice.
Domain (about Rs 1,500–2,500/year), hosting (about Rs 2,500–6,000/year for a small site, more for a dynamic app or store), and maintenance — updates, backups, security and small changes — at roughly Rs 5,000–20,000/year for a straightforward site. Budget for maintenance from the start; a site with none quietly degrades.
Roughly Rs 1,00,000 for a simple catalogue on a ready platform, rising to Rs 5,00,000 and beyond for a custom store with real inventory, payment-gateway integration (eSewa, Khalti, cards), and tight links to your operations. Match the platform to the catalogue — a custom store for a small catalogue is the most common way to overspend.
