In short
- Indian software firms bill ₹2,400–₹4,700 an hour — a band above app and web work
- Most reviewed projects land between ₹9.6 lakh and ₹48 lakh
- The average is far higher, dragged up by very large builds
- Thirteen months is the typical timeline — longer than apps or websites
This completes a set. We have looked at app development cost in India and at website design and development cost using figures counted by somebody other than the seller. Software development cost in India is the third, and it behaves differently from the other two.
Figures below come from Clutch's software development pricing data, compiled from verified client reviews and updated 21 September 2026. Rupee amounts are converted at roughly ₹96.45 to the dollar in October 2026 — the dollar figures are the sourced ones. Disclosure: Aureus Words has a Clutch profile; we are citing their data, not their opinion of us.
How much does software development cost in India?
Indian software firms bill at ₹2,400–₹4,700 an hour ($25–$49). Most projects reviewed on Clutch fall between roughly ₹9.6 lakh and ₹48 lakh ($10,000–$49,999), and the typical build runs about thirteen months. The average project is far higher at around ₹1.28 crore, pulled up by a small number of very large engagements.
The detail that matters: India is not in the cheapest band here
For app and website work, Clutch places Indian providers in its lowest rate band, under ₹2,400 an hour. For custom software, India sits one band higher at ₹2,400–₹4,700 — level with the Philippines, Ukraine, Spain and Mexico, and in the same band the United States occupies for this category.
| Average billing rate | Countries (software development) |
|---|---|
| ₹2,400–₹4,700 / hour | India, Philippines, Ukraine, Spain, Mexico |
| ₹4,800–₹9,500 / hour | United States, Poland |
| ₹9,600–₹14,400 / hour | Canada, Australia |
Read that carefully, because it is the most useful thing on this page. The offshore discount that is dramatic for websites is modest for custom software. The reason is that custom software is where the hard engineering sits — data modelling, integrations, security, the things that cannot be done by someone following a template — and that skill is priced closer to globally wherever it lives.
If a quote for genuine custom software comes in at website rates, that is information. Either the work is simpler than described, or the team is.
The numbers side by side
| Software development | Web development | App development | |
|---|---|---|---|
| India hourly band | ₹2,400–₹4,700 | Under ₹2,400 | Under ₹2,400 |
| Typical project | ₹9.6–48 lakh | Under ₹9.6 lakh | ₹9.6–48 lakh |
| Average project | ₹1.28 crore | ₹64.1 lakh | ₹87.6 lakh |
| Typical timeline | 13 months | 9 months | 11 months |
Three patterns. Software costs more per hour, takes longer, and has the widest gap between the typical project and the average — which is what you would expect from a category that contains both a modest internal tool and a multi-year enterprise platform.
The thirteen-month problem
A thirteen-month average timeline is the figure most likely to break your plan. It is long enough that your requirements will change during the build, your staff may change, and the business reason for the project may weaken.
The practical response is not to try to go faster. It is to insist on something usable early — a first version that does the single most valuable thing, in production, within a few months. Everything after that is improvement with feedback rather than construction on faith. An agency that proposes thirteen months of building before anything is usable is proposing thirteen months of risk.
What the figures do not include
- Hosting and infrastructure. Monthly, and it scales with use.
- Third-party services. Payment gateways, SMS, email, mapping, identity — each with its own billing.
- Maintenance. Dependencies age, and security patches are not optional.
- Data migration. Routinely underestimated, especially from spreadsheets, where the cleanup is the project.
- Training and change. Software nobody is taught to use does not get used.
Clutch puts the average monthly spend on a software project at about ₹9.8 lakh across those thirteen months. Whatever your build costs, assume a meaningful fraction again in the year after it ships, and get the maintenance figure in writing before year one starts.
Before you commission anything
- Write down the one process this software must improve, and how you will know it did.
- Ask what the smallest useful first version looks like, and when it would be in real use.
- Ask for the quote split by role and phase, not as a single figure.
- Ask what happens to the code, the data and the hosting accounts if you part ways.
- Ask who maintains it in year two, and what that costs.
If you are still deciding whether to build at all, custom software versus off the shelf is the question to settle first, and the spreadsheet piece covers the commonest trigger. Our own work is on the software development page.