Pick one of four models and start the cheapest version this week: sell products (yours or someone else's) on a marketplace or your own store, sell a service such as design, coding or tutoring, sell knowledge through courses or paid content, or build software people subscribe to. For products, a marketplace like Amazon brings buyers from day one and your own Shopify store, Basic at Rs 1,499 a month after a Rs 20-a-month trial period, brings margin and the customer relationship. Take payments through Razorpay at 2% a transaction, or UPI links if you sell on WhatsApp. Register as a sole proprietor to begin, add free Udyam registration, and get GST before you cross Rs 40 lakh turnover for goods or Rs 20 lakh for services, or from the start if you sell goods to other states. What kills most online businesses is traffic: know how your first customers will find you before you spend on the store.
GST is the single compliance item a solo founder most often gets wrong, either registering too late or not knowing the threshold differs for goods (40 lakh) versus services (20 lakh). ClearTax is the canonical Indian reference on this: it walks the exact portal steps (TRN, Aadhaar authentication, document upload), the documents you need, and the penalty math for skipping it (minimum 10,000 rupees, up to 100% of tax evaded), so you register at the right moment and not a filing cycle late.
The threshold is not one number: roughly 40 lakh turnover for goods and 20 lakh for services (lower in special-category states), computed on aggregate all-India turnover under one PAN
You often need GST anyway to invoice business clients who want to claim input credit, regardless of your turnover
Skipping registration when required carries a penalty of at least 10,000 rupees or the tax evaded, so treat the threshold as a hard trigger, not a suggestion
This is the plain-language answer to "do I have to register yet." It lays out the 40 lakh goods / 20 lakh services limits, the lower special-category-state limits, and a state-by-state table so you can check your own state instead of guessing. It also lists the 11 categories (interstate supply, e-commerce sellers, casual and non-resident taxable persons) where registration is mandatory from rupee one, which is the trap most first-time founders miss.
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ClearTaxby ClearTax Editorial Team12 min read
Standard limits are 40 lakh turnover for goods and 20 lakh for services, dropping to 20/10 lakh in special category states, computed on aggregate turnover across the same PAN.
Interstate supply and selling on marketplaces like Amazon or Flipkart force registration regardless of turnover, so "I'm still small" does not exempt you.
Aggregate turnover counts taxable, exempt, export and interstate supplies together, so businesses often cross the line sooner than they expect.
The FSSAI's current table of which food business needs which licence and what it costs a year, revised from 1 April 2026: most businesses up to Rs 1.5 crore turnover need only a Registration at Rs 100, a State Licence costs Rs 5,000 up to Rs 50 crore, and a Central Licence Rs 7,500 above that. Importers, merchant exporters and businesses registered as e-commerce need a Central Licence whatever their size, and hawkers pay nothing.
Shopify's India price list for an online store. Basic is Rs 1,499 a month for a solo seller, with a 3-day free trial and then Rs 20 a month for the first 3 months, and a 2% fee when you use a third-party payment provider.
India's most used payment gateway for small businesses, taking UPI, cards and netbanking. The pricing page lists a standard fee of 2% plus GST per transaction, with no gateway fee for the first 90 days on its current offer and custom pricing above ₹5 lakh a month.
Amazon's own page for registering as a seller in India, with its fee calculator, Fulfillment by Amazon and the seller university. Useful to see what selling on a marketplace costs before you build your own store.
The government's only portal for registering a micro, small or medium enterprise. It states registration is free and lists the revised limits: a micro enterprise has investment up to ₹2.5 crore and turnover up to ₹10 crore, a small one up to ₹25 crore and ₹100 crore.
