Prices in India 🇮🇳
What 7 everyday items cost in India, shown in US dollars, in INR, and as roughly how long someone earning the average local wage works to buy one.
India has the cheapest Big Mac in the Economist's index — though the Indian sandwich is a Maharaja Mac, since McDonald's does not sell beef there, which is the one place the index's like-for-like premise breaks down. Local staples are inexpensive; imported and branded goods are not.
What things cost
| Item | USD | Local | Work time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Mac | $2.51 | 227 INR | 60 min |
| Coca-Cola (330ml can) | $0.82 | 70 INR | 20 min |
| Cappuccino | $1.70 | 162.34 INR | 41 min |
| Milk (1 litre) | $0.64 | 61.12 INR | 15 min |
| Eggs (dozen) | $0.91 | 86.9 INR | 22 min |
| Apples (1 kg) | $1.94 | 185.26 INR | 47 min |
| Gasoline (1 litre) | $1.09 | 104.09 INR | 26 min |
Local-currency figures are converted from US dollars at recent exchange rates, except the Big Mac, which is published in local currency by The Economist and converted the other way. Work time divides the dollar price by an estimated average hourly wage — the roughest number on this page. See methodology.
How India compares
Relative to the rest of the game, India is most expensive for coca-cola, where it ranks 24th out of 33 countries at $0.82 — against a global median of $1.37.
It is relatively cheapest for big mac at $2.51, which is 33rd of 33 — only 0 countries in the game are cheaper.
Measured against local earnings rather than dollars, the item that takes the longest to afford here is big mac, at roughly 60 minutes of the average wage. Dollar prices and work-time prices often rank countries very differently — that gap is usually the more interesting number.
Play a puzzle
India comes up in the daily puzzle roughly once every 33 days, paired with a different item each time. Play today's puzzle or browse the archive of past rounds.