Gold Scheme Software Price in India: 2026 Guide

Two quotes lie on your counter. Both say they will run your gold saving scheme. One is about half the price of the other. Your accountant says take the cheaper one. Your son says the costlier one has a nicer app. Neither of them can tell you what the difference in price is buying.

Here is the short answer on gold scheme software price in India. There is no single rate. Every price is made of two parts: what you pay once to get started, and what you pay every month the scheme runs. To compare two vendors, put both parts on one sheet and add them up for the full term of your scheme.

One thing to know first. We make GoldKitty, which is gold scheme software. We will not print the prices of other vendors, because we cannot verify them. What we can show you is how to read any quote, including ours.

Why is there no single price for gold scheme software?

There is no single price because no two schemes are the same size. The price of gold scheme software usually depends on five things: how many members, schemes and branches you have, whether customers get an app in your shop's name, how payments are matched, whether a running scheme must be moved in, and how much support you need.

Think of it like making charges. Two bangles of the same weight can carry different making charges, because the work in them is different. Software is the same. The screen you see in a demo is the gold. The work behind it is the making.

• Size. One scheme at one counter needs less than a brand with many branches.
• The customer app. An app in your name takes more work than a shared app in the vendor's name.
• Payments. Matching digital payments and counter cash in one list is the hardest part to build well. It is also the part that protects your money.
• Moving a running scheme. Someone has to bring your members, payments and past winners across and check them.
• Support. A vendor who picks up the phone on a festival day costs more than one who replies by email next week.

If you are still deciding whether to move at all, start with why jewellers are moving the kitty to software.

What do you pay once and what do you pay every month?

You pay once for setup, your branding, moving your running scheme, staff training and putting the app on the app stores. You pay every month for the software fee, hosting and backup, support and updates, message charges and payment gateway fees. The one time side ends after go live. The monthly side runs as long as the scheme does.

The picture below puts the two sides next to each other.

What you pay once

• Setup of your scheme and its rules. Your instalment, due date and grace period are entered into the system.
• Your name, logo and colours on the app. This is called white label. It means the software is sold to you without the maker's brand on it.
• Moving your running scheme across. Members, payments so far and past winners are loaded and checked.
• Training for your counter staff. The people who take payments learn the system first.
• Putting the app on the app stores. App stores charge the account holder for listing apps, so ask whose account is used and who pays.

What you pay every month

• The software fee itself. Billed monthly or yearly.
• Hosting and daily backup. Hosting is the rented computer on the internet where your records are kept. Often it is inside the fee. Ask.
• Support, updates and fixes. An app that is never updated slowly stops working well on new phones.
• Message charges, by how many you send. Reminders and receipts sent through software are usually billed by use.
• Payment gateway fees, by payments taken. A payment gateway is the service that accepts digital payments for you. It usually takes a fee on payments it handles.

Notice the last two lines. They are not fixed. They move with how many members you have and how they pay. Launching is a small part of the journey. The running cost and the upkeep are where the real price sits.

You can estimate message charges yourself. Count your members. Count how many messages each one gets in a month, which depends on how many payment reminders you plan to send, plus one receipt for each payment. Multiply the two. Give that number to each vendor and ask what it would cost.

What is the fee counted on?

The monthly fee is counted in one of five ways: per member, per scheme, per branch, per staff login, or as a flat fee. This one detail decides how your bill behaves when the scheme grows. Two quotes with the same monthly figure today can be far apart next year if they are counted differently.

• Per member. Small to start. Rises every time you enrol someone.
• Per scheme. The fee stays the same as members join. It rises when you open a second scheme.
• Per branch. Suits a single shop. Ask what happens when you open another location.
• Per staff login. Cheap if two people use it. Watch out if it tempts staff to share one login, because then you cannot see who entered what.
• Flat fee. Simple to plan. Check whether there is a limit on members hidden in the terms.

None of these is wrong. Ask each vendor one plain question: "If my members double, what will I pay?" Get the answer in writing.

Also fix the period you are pricing. A scheme is a promise that runs for many months, from joining to redemption. If those stages are new to you, our guide to how a gold saving scheme works from start to finish explains them. You cannot change software in the middle of that promise without effort, so price the whole term.

What should be included in the price?

Eight things should be included in the price: setup on your rules, your brand on the app, moving your running scheme, staff training, one list for all payments, backup and export, support after go live, and updates and fixes. If a quote leaves one out, it is not cheaper. It is incomplete.

1. Setup on your rules. Instalment, due date and grace period, shown to you before go live.
2. Your brand on the app. Name, logo and colours.
3. Moving your running scheme. Members, payments and past winners. Our guide on moving a running scheme from paper to software shows how much work this is. Never assume it is free.
4. Staff training. On your own scheme, at your counter, not on a sample.
5. One list for all payments. Cash, counter UPI and app payments together. If they sit in separate lists, your staff will still match them by hand every evening.
6. Backup and export. Daily backup, and a full export whenever you ask.
7. Support after go live. Who answers, and on which days. Ask about festival days.
8. Updates and fixes. Included, not billed each time.

This list is about price only. For what the software should be able to do, use the ten checks to run before you buy.

How do you compare two quotes fairly?

Compare two quotes by writing both on one sheet with the same fourteen lines, from setup fee to total for the full scheme. Fill every line for every vendor. Where a vendor has no figure, write "not stated" and ask. The quote with the lowest last line, and no empty lines, is the cheaper one.

Here is the sheet. The two quote columns are blank on purpose. Copy it and fill it in during each meeting.

A worked example, without the amounts

Take a shop with one scheme that runs for twelve months. The twelve is only an example. Use your own term.

Quote A has the lower monthly fee. Quote B is higher. On that one line, A wins.

Now fill the other lines. Quote A counts its fee per member, and the shop plans to enrol more members before Dhanteras. Quote A charges separately for moving the running scheme and for the shop's brand on the app. A change to scheme rules is billed each time. Message charges are "as per use", with no rate given. Quote B is counted per scheme. It includes branding, moving and training, and it states a rate for messages.

Then do the sum on the last line:

1. Write the setup fee.
2. Add the fee for every month of the scheme, using the member count you expect, not the one you have today.
3. Add your estimate of message charges and payment gateway fees.
4. Add every extra that was not included.
5. Check whether tax is inside each figure or added on top. Your accountant can confirm how tax applies to your shop.

Sometimes A is still cheaper. Sometimes it is not. Either way, you now know what you are buying.

Two lines deserve extra care. Price at renewal: a low first year can be followed by a rise, so ask for the rule in writing. Leaving: if you cannot take a full export of your members and payments without a fee, the low price is a lock on your own records.

What mistakes do jewellers make when judging price?

The common mistakes are comparing only the monthly fee, pricing for today's members and not next year's, forgetting charges by use, accepting promises that are spoken and not written, and paying in full before testing a single payment. Each of these makes a quote look cheaper in the meeting than it turns out to be at the counter.

• Pricing for today. Price the scheme you want, not the one you have.
• Forgetting charges by use. Messages and gateway fees rarely appear in the headline price.
• Trusting spoken promises. If it is not written in the quote, it is not in the price.
• Paying before testing. Before you pay in full, run mock collections from start to finish. Enter a cash payment, a counter UPI payment and an app payment, and check that all three land in one list with correct receipts. Payments are the trust core of your business.

What does it cost to not buy software?

Running a scheme by hand has a price as well, but it never arrives as a bill. It is paid in staff hours spent chasing and matching, in instalments that come late, and in customers who move to a jeweller with an app. Measure it in your own shop before you decide that software is expensive.

Any number we gave you here would be invented. You can find your own in one week:

• Ask your staff to note the minutes spent on reminder calls and on matching payments each day.
• Count the instalments that were due last month and came after the due date.
• Count the members who stopped paying this year without telling you.

Put those three figures next to the last line of your quote sheet. For the full list of leaks, see where a manual scheme loses money. If late instalments are your main problem, some of the fixes cost nothing, and we cover them in how to stop late payments in a gold scheme.

Is it cheaper to build your own app?

Usually not at the start. In a custom build you pay for every screen to be designed, built and tested for you alone. Ready software already exists, so your setup is branding, data and training, not development. Build your own only if no ready product can be set up to fit your scheme.

For a custom build we can only speak for our own rates. appico's published starting prices are a mobile app from $12,000 and an MVP from $10,000. An MVP is a first working version with only the main features. Larger builds can go up to about $150,000 depending on depth, and maintenance is a separate monthly plan. The appico pricing page has the details.

When is software not worth the price?

Software is not worth the price yet if your scheme is small, one trusted person takes every payment, and your register agrees with your cash every month without a struggle. A well kept register or Excel sheet will serve you. Buying early adds a monthly cost and training without fixing a real problem.

If you use Excel today, first make the file safer. Our post on whether Excel is safe for a gold scheme lists steps that cost nothing. And if you are unsure which of the three tools fits your shop, compare paper, Excel and software side by side.

Look again when you add a second scheme or a second counter, when customers ask for an app because a jeweller nearby has one, or when only one person understands the register. A scheme that lives in one person's memory cannot grow past that person.

There are limits on what any price can buy. Software will not fix unclear rules, and it will not make a scheme legal. Rules for saving schemes differ by country and by state, so confirm yours with your own adviser. The software is then set up to match.

How GoldKitty is priced

This section is about our own product. Put our quote on the same sheet as everyone else's.

GoldKitty has no published price. Pricing depends on how many kitties you run, and it is given after a demo on your own scheme, with a clear quote. A price given before we have seen your scheme would be a guess.

GoldKitty is modular. It is set up for each shop according to its country and its offer, and payments use local payment gateways, integrated according to the banking guidelines of that market. It is white label, a running paper kitty can be brought in with its slots, payments and past winners, and cash, counter UPI and in app payments land in one list. Backups run daily and a full export is available at any time. The full list is on the GoldKitty product page. Ask us to fill all fourteen lines.

Our take

The software does not run the scheme, trust does. So the right question is never "which one is cheapest?". It is "which one gives the correct receipt to a customer paying cash on a busy Saturday, and still agrees with my books at month end, for a price I can carry for the whole scheme?"

Take the sheet to every vendor and fill every line. If you would like our figures on it, you can book a GoldKitty demo on your own scheme's numbers. Bring your register and your hardest questions.

Frequently asked questions