Software priced in dollars costs more every month when you earn in rupees. At about ₹95 to the dollar, the late-October 2026 rate, a modest stack of five tools costs ₹7,220 a month, or about ₹8,520 once 18% GST is added. This guide prices that stack from each vendor's own page, shows what moves the number, and covers five ways to bring it down.
We make YoTrackr, a subscription and renewal tracker, so we have a stake in the last section. Prices were read on each vendor's pricing page on 1 November 2026, and the notes at the end say what we could not confirm.
What a typical stack costs in rupees
This is a realistic set of tools for a freelance developer or a one-person studio. Rupee amounts use ₹95 per dollar, and the last column adds 18% GST, which applies in some cases (see strategy 4).
| Tool and plan | Price in USD | In rupees at ₹95 | With 18% GST |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Team, per user | $4 a month | ₹380 | ₹448 |
| Vercel Pro | $20 a month, plus usage beyond the included credit | ₹1,900 | ₹2,242 |
| Figma Professional, full seat | $16 a month | ₹1,520 | ₹1,794 |
| Notion Plus, per member | $10 a month | ₹950 | ₹1,121 |
| Sentry Team | $26 a month on annual billing, $29 monthly | ₹2,470 | ₹2,915 |
| Total | $76 a month | ₹7,220 | ₹8,520 |
Against a monthly income of ₹50,000 to ₹80,000, that is roughly 9% to 14% of revenue before GST and 11% to 17% after it. Hosting and cloud bills come on top, and we left them out because they depend on how much you use.
Why the exchange rate matters
The rupee moved a lot in 2026. It traded between about ₹90 to the dollar in January and about ₹97 in July, and was near ₹95 in late October. On a single $29 tool, that is ₹2,606 a month at the January rate and ₹2,755 at today's. The difference is ₹149 a month on one tool, before your card issuer adds its own foreign-currency markup.
This is why a yearly dollar charge can surprise you. A $99 plan is about ₹9,400 at today's rate, taken from your account in one go, and the amount changes with the rate on the day.
Strategy 1: Look for rupee pricing
Some vendors price in rupees for India. Google Workspace's India page says "All prices ₹INR" and lists its Starter plan at ₹270 per user per month, excluding tax. That removes the exchange-rate guesswork, because the amount stays fixed in rupees.
Not every tool does this. The Figma and Notion pages we read showed dollar prices only, but we read them from outside India, and some sites show different prices by location. Open each pricing page from an Indian connection without a VPN, and if you see no rupee price, ask the vendor's sales or support team whether one exists.
Strategy 2: Self-host where the gap is small
For some paid tools there is an open-source or self-hostable alternative:
- Figma: Penpot describes itself as an open-source design platform and offers a self-host install.
- Sentry: GlitchTip is open source, can run on your own server, and says it works with Sentry client SDKs.
- Mailchimp-style newsletters: listmonk is a free, open-source, self-hosted newsletter and mailing-list manager.
- Jira or Linear: Plane says it can run self-hosted in Docker and offers migration from Jira and Linear.
- Notion-style notes: Obsidian says it is free without limits, including for work. Its pricing page does not call it open source, so treat it as a free tool rather than a self-hosted one.
Self-hosting is not free. You pay for a server and for your time on setup, updates and backups. It makes sense when the tool is small and the commercial version adds little for you. It rarely makes sense for something your clients depend on.
Strategy 3: Switch stable tools to annual billing
Annual billing is usually cheaper. Sentry Team is $26 a month billed annually against $29 monthly, a saving of about 10%. Notion says yearly billing saves up to 20%.
Switch only for tools you have used for six months or more and do not plan to drop. Keep new tools and trials on monthly billing. Remember that an annual charge is one large dollar payment, so the exchange rate on that day matters more.
Strategy 4: Understand GST on foreign software
India taxes online software sold from abroad at 18%, under its rules for online information and database access or retrieval services. In practice, as described on tax-advice sites:
- If you buy without a GSTIN, the vendor adds 18% IGST to the price.
- If you give a GSTIN, the sale is usually treated as business to business. The vendor does not charge GST, and you pay the 18% yourself under reverse charge. You may then claim it back as input tax credit, if you are eligible.
We read this from tax-advice sites, not from the law itself, and the details differ by case. Ask a chartered accountant how it applies to you, and keep the invoices.
Strategy 5: See the total in one place
The exchange rate is only part of the problem. The bigger one is that these costs are invisible until you add them up. Five or ten dollar charges a month, some monthly, some yearly, are easy to ignore one at a time.
List every tool once, with its price in the currency you pay and its renewal date, and the total becomes visible. YoTrackr stores each item in its own currency (it supports USD, INR, EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD, SGD and JPY) and converts the totals into your default, so you can see a monthly figure in rupees. See how currencies and rates work. It is free to start with 10 subscriptions and 3 domains, and the lifetime plans launch through AppSumo, with a waitlist on the AppSumo page. Plans and prices are on the pricing page.
What we could not verify
- GitHub Pro. GitHub's pages we could read list Team at $4 per user and did not show a Pro price, so the table uses Team.
- Linear. Its pricing page needs JavaScript to load and we could not read it, so Linear is not in the table.
- Rupee pricing for Figma and Notion. We read their pages from outside India. Check from India.
- GST. The explanation comes from tax-advice sites. It is not tax advice.
- Exchange rates. Rates differ by source and by day. ₹95 is a round figure for late October 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Do software tools charge less in India? Some do, and some show prices in rupees, such as Google Workspace on its India page. Many show dollars only. Check each pricing page from India.
Is GST charged on foreign software? India applies 18% to online software sold from abroad. Without a GSTIN the vendor usually adds it. With a GSTIN it is usually paid by you under reverse charge. Confirm with a chartered accountant.
Can I claim software subscriptions as a business expense? That depends on your tax status and the rules for your income, so ask your accountant. Keep invoices and a record of what each tool cost in rupees.
Is annual billing worth it? For tools you will keep, usually yes: Sentry is about 10% cheaper annually and Notion says up to 20%. Check the dollar amount and your card's exchange rate, since you pay it in one go.
How do I track dollar charges? Record the original currency and the amount in rupees actually charged, so your totals match your statement. A tracker that converts for you saves doing this by hand.
Are open-source alternatives really free? The software is, but a server, setup and maintenance are not. Count your own time before you switch.
Keep reading. For a system to cut costs across all your tools, read managing 20+ SaaS subscriptions as an indie dev and how much are you spending on SaaS.