How much does a website cost in Nepal in 2026?

A business website in Nepal costs between NPR 25,000 and NPR 300,000, and most small businesses land between NPR 35,000 and NPR 80,000. The range is wide because "a website" describes anything from a single page with your phone number to an ecommerce store with payment integration and inventory.

Most agencies in Nepal will not publish these numbers. We will, because the alternative is that you spend three weeks collecting quotes that vary by a factor of ten with no explanation of why.

What each budget actually buys

NPR 25,000 to 40,000. A small brochure site. Four or five pages, mobile responsive, a contact form, basic search setup. Built on WordPress with an existing theme, or as a static site. This is enough for a café, a clinic, or a consultancy that mainly needs to look legitimate and be findable. It is not enough for anything with a catalogue.

NPR 50,000 to 100,000. A proper business site. Custom design rather than a stock theme, eight to fifteen pages, a content management system you can update yourself, proper search setup, and analytics wired in. Most established businesses should be here.

NPR 100,000 to 200,000. Ecommerce, or a site with real complexity. Product catalogue, cart, payment gateway integration with Fonepay, eSewa or Khalti, order management, and delivery logic. Also where custom-built sites land when a template genuinely will not do.

NPR 200,000 and above. Multi-language, booking systems, customer accounts, inventory that syncs with something else, or a bespoke application rather than a website.

Why do quotes vary so much for the same brief?

Because most quotes are not describing the same thing, even when the brief is identical.

A NPR 30,000 quote and a NPR 90,000 quote for the same eight-page site usually differ on: whether the design is original or a purchased theme with your logo dropped in, whether someone writes the content or you are expected to supply it, whether search setup is included, whether you can edit the site afterwards without calling the developer, and whether anyone is responsible for it after launch.

Ask what is included rather than what it costs. The number becomes explicable immediately.

What changes the price most?

Content. This is the biggest hidden variable. If you supply finished text and photographs, a site is far cheaper and faster. If the developer has to write your service descriptions and source images, that is real work and it will be priced, or worse, it will not be priced and the site will launch with placeholder content that never gets replaced.

We recently reviewed a site for a client where the live products were the sample furniture that came with the theme. Chairs and clocks, on a site belonging to a business that sells packaging and machinery. It had been live for years. Google had indexed one page.

Number of unique page templates. Fifty products using one template is cheap. Five pages that each look different is expensive. Price tracks templates, not page count.

Payments. Integrating Fonepay, eSewa or Khalti adds real work, and each gateway has its own approval process.

Whether you can edit it yourself. A site with a content management system costs more upfront and far less over two years. Without one, every text change is an email and an invoice.

What is not usually included in the quote?

Four things, and all of them are recurring rather than one-off.

Domain. NPR 1,500 to 2,500 a year for a .com. A .com.np is free if your business is registered.

Hosting. NPR 3,000 to 15,000 a year for shared hosting in Nepal. Some modern sites host free on platforms like Vercel, which is worth asking about.

Maintenance. WordPress sites need plugin and core updates or they get hacked. Budget NPR 2,000 to 5,000 a month, or learn to do it yourself.

Content updates. If you cannot edit the site, every change costs money. This is the cost that quietly exceeds the build price over three years.

Should you use WordPress or something custom?

For most businesses in Nepal, WordPress is the right answer, and anyone who tells you otherwise should explain why.

It is cheap to build on, easy to hand over, and any developer in Kathmandu can maintain it. That last point matters more than people realise. A custom site built by one person becomes a liability the moment that person is unavailable.

Custom builds make sense when you need performance that WordPress struggles with, when your site is really an application, or when search visibility is central to the business model. Our own site is custom built for that last reason, because we sell search visibility and a slow site would undermine the pitch.

Is a cheap website worth it?

Sometimes. A NPR 25,000 site that is live, findable, and has your correct phone number on it beats no site at all.

The problem is the version that costs NPR 25,000 and never gets finished. Demo content left in place, no search setup, no way for you to edit it, and no one responsible after launch. That site is not cheap, it is money spent on something that does not work.

The question to ask a cheap quote is not "why so cheap" but "what happens after launch." If the answer is nothing, price that in.

How long should it take?

A small brochure site should take two to three weeks. A proper business site, four to six. Ecommerce, six to ten.

The delay is almost never the development. It is content. Sites sit unfinished for months waiting for the client to send product photos and service descriptions. If you want your site launched on time, have your content ready before the build starts.

What to ask before you pay a deposit

Five questions, and the answers will tell you more than the price will.

Can I edit the text and images myself after launch, without calling you?

Who owns the domain and hosting account, in whose name will they be registered?

Is search setup included, and will you submit the site to Google Search Console?

What happens after launch, and what does support cost?

Can I see two sites you built that are still live and being used?

That last one matters most. Anyone can show a portfolio screenshot. Ask for live URLs and check whether the businesses still use them.

The short answer

Most businesses in Nepal should budget NPR 35,000 to 80,000 for a website that actually works, plus roughly NPR 5,000 to 20,000 a year for domain, hosting, and maintenance.

Spend less and you can still get something useful, as long as you are clear about what you are not getting. Spend more only when there is a specific reason, and make sure someone can tell you what that reason is.

Narrative Machine builds websites for businesses in Nepal and reports on customers and sales, not clicks and impressions. If you have a site already and want to know why it is not bringing you customers, our SEO Audit is NPR 5,000.