How to Price Your App in India: A Practical Guide

India is one of the largest app markets in the world by install volume, and one of the least profitable by accident, because most indie devs charge the same price there as they do in the US. That single choice prices out the vast majority of the market before anyone even sees the paywall.

The gap, in real terms

A burger costs about $6.12 in the US and the equivalent of roughly $2.51 in India, about 41% of the US price. That ratio is a decent stand-in for the gap in everyday purchasing power between the two countries: it's not that Indian users don't value your app, it's that the same number of dollars represents a much bigger chunk of local income.

Charge $9.99 flat in both countries and you're asking Indian users to make a proportionally much bigger sacrifice than US users for the identical product.

What to actually charge

Here's what a handful of common app prices localize to for India, rounded to real store tiers, on both the conservative and aggressive presets:

The conservative preset caps how far the discount goes, so margins stay predictable; the aggressive preset, closer to what Viktor Seraleev actually ran on his own app, pushes deeper and is meant for devs who'd rather maximize reach than per-user margin. Neither number is arbitrary: both are snapped to real App Store and Play Store price tiers available in India, not a raw calculation you can't actually charge.

It's not just currency conversion

Apple and Google will both auto-convert your price to INR using the day's exchange rate if you don't override it. That's not the same thing as the numbers above: exchange rates track currency value, not what that currency actually buys someone living on a local income. A pure FX conversion of $9.99 lands close to ₹830, more than double the purchasing-power-adjusted ₹350. The difference between the two, and why it matters, is explained here.

Taxes and store mechanics

Both platforms handle India-specific tax obligations (GST) on the backend as part of the transaction, you don't need a separate tax integration to sell there. What you do need to set deliberately is the price itself: leaving it on the store's auto-converted default is the single most common reason apps look artificially expensive in India relative to what local buyers are used to paying.

The upside nobody plans for

India isn't just a market to make "less unprofitable", it's genuinely large: hundreds of millions of Android and a fast-growing base of iOS users, most of whom have simply never seen a price they could justify paying for a subscription app. That's exactly the pattern behind indie devs who start seeing purchases from countries where they'd never had a single paying user before, India chief among them.

Get your exact number

The prices above are for four common base prices. Run your own through the calculator to get India's exact recommended price for whatever you actually charge, plus the same calculation for 72 other countries in one pass. For the full country-level detail (burger price, exchange rate, purchasing-power ratio), see the India pricing page.