A surprisingly common way to buy a website is:
“How many pages do I get?”
That is a little like evaluating a restaurant by asking how many plates they own.
Pages are part of the output, they are not necessarily where the value sits.
Imagine two ₹2 lakh proposals.
Proposal A
10 pages.
WordPress.
Mobile responsive.
Contact form.
Three revisions.
Proposal B
8 pages.
But before designing anything, somebody sits with you and asks:
- Who visits the site?
- Why do they come?
- What do they currently misunderstand?
- Which service makes you money?
- What proof do customers need before contacting you?
- What does the sales team repeatedly have to explain?
When there are honest answers to these questions, the solution starts taking shape,
- The designers build the site framework around those answers.
- They write or restructure the content.
- They prototype important journeys.
- They design mobile first.
- They build the CMS so that somebody inside your business can actually update it.
- They test the forms.
- They check performance.
- They teach your team how to use the site.
- They empower YOU!
Same budget, VERY different website.
The redesign of Air India’s digital experience is a useful larger-scale example of this principle. The airline didn’t describe its new website simply in terms of a visual refresh; its rollout specifically highlighted faster performance, streamlined booking flows, new functionality and a more intuitive online experience.
That is the distinction.
A website is not just what the visitor sees, it is also:
information architecture
content hierarchy
interaction
performance
mobile behaviour
forms
analytics
CMS
handover
ownership
So when someone asks us whether ₹2 lakh is expensive for a website, the irritating but accurate answer is:
It depends on what you’re actually buying.
A ₹2 lakh template with content pasted into it can be expensive.
A ₹2 lakh website that solves a business problem can be very inexpensive.