India remains the largest offshore software market, and the range in quality is correspondingly wide. If you are buying from the UK, US, UAE, Germany or Malaysia, these are the checks that matter more than the hourly rate.
Verify the company exists as it claims
- Ask for the CIN (company registration number) and check it on the MCA portal — it is public and free
- Ask for the GSTIN and verify it on the GST portal
- Confirm the registered address matches the office in the proposal
- Ask how many people are on payroll versus contracted per project
A significant share of "companies" are individuals subcontracting work onward. That is not automatically bad, but you should know before you sign, because it changes who is accountable.
Intellectual property
Indian law follows the contract. Get written assignment of IP on payment, covering source code, designs and documentation. Specify that third-party components must be permissively licensed and listed. Without a clause, a dispute becomes expensive and slow.
Payment and invoicing
Services exported from India are zero-rated, so you should receive an export invoice with no Indian GST on it. Payment is normally by international bank transfer; expect to supply purpose codes for the remittance. Milestone-based payment protects both sides better than monthly retainers on a fixed-scope build.
Timezone reality
India is GMT+5:30. That gives a full working overlap with the UAE and a comfortable morning overlap with the UK and Europe. With the US, expect a genuine overlap of two to three hours — insist on a named contact with a committed response window rather than assuming availability.
Red flags
- A quote produced in under an hour for a complex brief
- Reluctance to name the people who will do the work
- Portfolio sites that are offline or that they cannot name
- No written scope, only a proposal deck
- Pressure to pay a large upfront percentage before any scoping