We worked out what it costs to sell one ₹1,499 kurta in three places: on Amazon, on Flipkart and on the brand’s own Shopify store.
On Amazon, the fees came to ₹326 before delivery. Flipkart took no commission, because it charges none on fashion. On the brand’s own store, the fees were about ₹60.
Numbers like these are why brands look at Shopify. But the kurta is only part of the story. A store has costs that don’t appear on Shopify’s pricing page, and one of them can cancel out the whole saving. Here is every cost, fee by fee, using the prices Shopify, Amazon and Flipkart publish as of 14 October 2026.
What Shopify charges every month
Shopify has three main plans in India. You pay less a month if you pay for a year at once. These are the prices on Shopify’s Indian pricing page:
| Plan | Paid monthly | Paid for a year, per month | Fee on each online order |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | ₹1,994 | ₹1,499 | 2% |
| Grow | ₹7,447 | ₹5,599 | 1% |
| Advanced | ₹30,164 | ₹22,680 | 0.6% |
There is also Shopify Plus, for very large stores, from ₹1,75,000 a month. To start, Shopify currently offers 3 days free, then ₹20 a month for 3 months. A store that an agency builds in its own Shopify account and then transfers to you doesn’t get these starting offers.
Most new brands start on Basic. Moving to Grow cuts the fee on each order from 2% to 1%, but the plan costs ₹4,100 more a month when paid yearly. So Grow starts paying for itself when your online payments cross about ₹4.1 lakh a month.
The fees on every online order
In many countries, Shopify runs its own payment service, called Shopify Payments, and charges no extra fee for orders paid through it. Shopify Payments isn’t available in India. So an Indian store uses a payment gateway such as Razorpay, PayU or Cashfree, and Shopify charges its fee on every order paid through that gateway: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced.
Shopify works out this fee on the whole order, including tax and shipping. If you refund an order, you don’t get the fee back. Cash-on-delivery orders don’t pay it at all.
The payment gateway takes its own fee as well. Razorpay’s standard rate is 2% of each payment, and other gateways charge about the same. GST at 18% is added to the gateway’s fee. Gateways often offer new businesses a free period, so ask before you sign up.
Put the two together, and a prepaid order on the Basic plan pays about 4% in fees, plus GST on them. On the ₹1,499 kurta, that is the ₹60.
Cash on delivery and shipping
Many Indian shoppers still want to pay on delivery. You can switch cash on delivery on in Shopify for free, but your courier charges a fee for collecting the cash. Cash-on-delivery orders are also refused at the door more often, and you pay for that parcel to come back.
On your own store, you choose the courier and pay for each parcel, either directly or through a shipping service such as Shiprocket. The price depends on the weight and how far the parcel goes. On Amazon’s Easy Ship, delivery is part of Amazon’s fees instead: ₹55 for a parcel up to 500 g, at Amazon’s Standard level.
GST: the cost of selling across India
On a marketplace, a small seller can sell within their own state without registering for GST. That exemption has applied since October 2023, and our guide to selling online without GST explains how it works.
Your own website is different. If you ship to customers in other states, GST law asks you to register, however small your sales are. If you sell only within your own state and stay under the turnover limit, which is ₹40 lakh a year for goods in most states, you don’t have to register. Most brands want to sell across India, so most need GST before they launch. Ask your CA what applies to you.
Building the store
You can build a Shopify store yourself, hire a freelancer, or work with an agency. What decides the cost is the same in every case: how many products you have, whether you use a ready-made theme or a custom design, which apps and couriers need connecting, who writes the product pages and makes the photos, and whether someone looks after the store once it’s live.
A free Shopify theme is enough to start, and a paid theme is a one-time purchase. Apps are where the monthly costs add up: reviews, WhatsApp, GST invoices and loyalty apps often charge every month, and each one also slows the store down a little. Install only the apps you need. You will also pay a yearly fee for your domain name.
One kurta, three places
Here is the kurta again, worked out in full. It is a ₹1,499 women’s kurta, under 500 g, paid for online.
On Amazon, kurtas fall in Ethnic wear. Since March 2026, Amazon has charged no referral fee on products under ₹1,000 in more than 1,800 categories, but this kurta is above ₹1,000, so the referral fee of 16.5% applies. That is ₹247. Amazon’s closing fee for an Easy Ship order above ₹1,000 is ₹79, which brings the fees to ₹326. Delivery adds ₹55, and Amazon adds 18% GST to all its fees, so the total comes to about ₹450. All of these rates are on Amazon’s fee page.
On Flipkart, the commission is zero, because Flipkart stopped charging commission on fashion at every price in July 2026. You still pay a fixed fee on each order, which depends on your seller tier, and shipping. Flipkart shows these to sellers in its seller dashboard.
On your own Shopify store, there is no commission. The fees are Shopify’s 2% and the gateway’s 2%, about ₹60, plus GST on them, plus what your courier charges.
Below ₹1,000, the gap almost disappears. On a ₹699 T-shirt, Amazon charges no referral fee, only its ₹48 closing fee plus ₹55 for delivery, and Flipkart charges no commission. Your own store’s payment fees on the same T-shirt come to about ₹28. That is a saving of about ₹20 an order before delivery.
The cost the pricing pages don’t show
On Amazon and Flipkart, the shoppers are already there, searching. On your own store, you have to bring in every visitor yourself, usually with Instagram and Google ads.
Say it costs you ₹300 in ads to win one kurta order on your own store. The ₹266 you saved on Amazon’s fees is gone, and you have lost money on the order. For many brands, this is the biggest cost of running a store, and it doesn’t appear on any pricing page.
Where your own store really pays is the second order. A customer who bought from your store can come back when you send a WhatsApp message or an email, and that order costs you almost nothing to win. On a marketplace, you pay the fees again on every order, and the marketplace keeps the customer’s details.
What we would do
We would keep selling on Amazon and Flipkart, because that’s where new customers find you. We would start the store lean: the Basic plan, a good free theme and only the apps you really need. We would reuse the photos, videos and product content you already have for your marketplaces. Then we would put the effort into bringing your store’s customers back, with offers they can only get there, and move up to Grow once your online payments cross about ₹4.1 lakh a month.
We build Shopify stores for brands that also sell on Amazon and Flipkart, connect the payments, cash on delivery, couriers and GST invoices, and can run the store day to day. Our Shopify websites page shows two of the stores we’ve built. If you’d like to know what your store would cost, tell us what you sell.
