Which payment gateway should my online store use and what does it add to the cost?
For most Indian online stores, Razorpay or PayU are the practical choices, since both support cards, UPI and netbanking and settle to an Indian bank account without complicated setup. Which one suits you better usually comes down to their transaction fees and how quickly they settle payments, so we compare current rates at the time of building rather than assuming one is always cheaper. Integrating a payment gateway adds meaningfully to the cost of a basic website, because it needs real testing with live transactions, proper handling of failed or pending payments, and secure storage of order data, not just a payment button that looks correct. It is also not optional for a genuine online store: without it you are really running a catalogue website with manual payment collection, which works for a small volume of orders but does not scale.