Retail Fit-Out Cost in Hyderabad: What ₹1,800-6,500 per Sq Ft Actually Buys
A retail fit-out is quoted per square foot, and that single number hides almost everything that decides your final invoice. In Hyderabad an apparel store shell-to-open runs a different rate from a cafe, and a full restaurant with a commercial kitchen runs different again. This guide gives the format-wise bands AlcorOne works to, states plainly what sits outside them, and shows where the money actually goes on a real 6-week restaurant programme.
AlcorOne Solutions is a Hyderabad-based interior execution studio specialising in residential and commercial fit-outs across Gachibowli, Kondapur, Kokapet, and the Financial District. All work is manufactured in-house and assembled on site — no subcontracting, no surprise substitutions mid-project.
How much does a retail fit-out cost in Hyderabad?
All-in fit-out cost in Hyderabad, shell to trading-ready, by format:
| Format | Rate per sq ft | 1,200 sq ft unit | Typical programme |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mall kiosk / counter | ₹2,500–4,000 | — | 2–3 weeks |
| Retail store (apparel, accessories, mobile) | ₹1,800–3,500 | ₹21.6–42 lakh | 4–6 weeks |
| Cafe / bakery / dessert counter | ₹2,500–4,500 | ₹30–54 lakh | 5–7 weeks |
| QSR unit | ₹3,000–5,500 | ₹36–66 lakh | 6–8 weeks |
| Full restaurant with commercial kitchen | ₹3,500–6,500 | ₹42–78 lakh | 6–10 weeks |
Basis: AlcorOne execution rates as of , exclusive of GST. Indicative range for planning; the binding figure comes from an itemised BOQ against the actual site measurements and specification.
These bands are the same ones published on our retail and F&B fit-out page, derived from AlcorOne fit-outs executed across South India, including four F&B programmes in Hyderabad micromarkets. They exclude GST.
The reason the bands are wide rather than precise is that format drives the services load far more than it drives the finishes. An apparel store is largely joinery, flooring, lighting and a shopfront. A restaurant of the same footprint adds a commercial kitchen, exhaust and fresh-air ducting, grease management, a higher electrical load, and often a DG set — services that can be 35–45% of the total on their own.
Why do two contractors quoting the same rate invoice differently?
Same trap as residential quoting, larger numbers. Two contractors quote "₹3,200 per sq ft" on the same 1,200 sq ft cafe. Contractor A measures the carpet area the landlord gave you and includes the shopfront, HVAC and electrical. Contractor B measures the built-up area, and treats HVAC, the shopfront glazing and the kitchen exhaust as client scope.
Both quoted ₹38.4 lakh. Contractor B's final invoice lands nearer ₹46 lakh, because the three excluded items were never in it. Neither contractor lied. Only one gave you a comparable number.
This is why we issue an itemised BOQ rather than a rate. The rate is an output of the scope, not a substitute for it.
What the per-sq-ft rate usually excludes
These are the line items that most often sit outside a headline retail rate in Hyderabad. Budget them separately or confirm in writing that they are included.
| Item | Indicative cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Mall fit-out deposit (refundable) | ₹50,000–3,00,000 | Held against damage to common areas; returned after snag clearance |
| Mall fit-out charges / supervision fee | ₹25,000–1,50,000 | Non-refundable, charged by mall management |
| Fire NOC drawings and liaison | ₹40,000–1,20,000 | Mandatory for F&B and for units above prescribed area thresholds |
| Signage and facade approval | ₹20,000–80,000 | Mall or GHMC, depending on whether the unit fronts a public road |
| DG set / power backup | ₹1.5–6 lakh | Often mandatory for F&B; check whether the landlord provides backup |
| HVAC beyond landlord provision | ₹1,200–2,200 per sq ft of cooled area | Malls often supply chilled water only to the unit boundary |
| Kitchen equipment (restaurant/QSR) | ₹8–35 lakh | Almost always a separate vendor; fit-out covers the civil and services to receive it |
| Grease trap and drainage modification | ₹60,000–2,50,000 | Frequently discovered late; see below |
The four things that actually delay a Hyderabad retail fit-out
Retail runs against a launch date, so a delay is a revenue loss rather than an inconvenience. In our experience these four cause most of it, and three are knowable before work starts.
1. Possession is later than the lease says
The programme starts at handover, not at signature. Landlord works — flooring screed, unit demarcation, bringing power to the boundary, sprinkler drops — routinely run past the date in the agreement. We plan the off-site fabrication window against actual possession and keep the joinery in the factory until the shell is genuinely ready, because storing finished millwork in a wet shell damages it.
2. Mall trading hours restrict when you can work
In an operating mall, noisy and hot work is usually confined to non-trading hours, and material movement is restricted to a service corridor and a booked goods lift. That is not a small adjustment. A programme that assumes daytime access will slip by weeks. It also changes cost: night-shift working carries a labour premium of roughly 15–25%.
A high-street or standalone unit does not carry this constraint, which is one reason the same format can sit at different ends of the band.
3. Fire NOC sequencing, not fire NOC cost
The cost of a fire NOC is modest. The sequencing risk is not. Sprinkler and detector layouts have to be designed against your final ceiling and partition plan, submitted, and approved before the ceiling closes. Get the ceiling built first and you will open it again. For F&B in Telangana this interacts with the kitchen exhaust route, so the fire drawings and the kitchen layout need to be settled together.
4. Drainage and grease, discovered after demolition
The single most common late surprise in F&B. The existing floor drainage rarely sits where your kitchen layout wants it, and a grease trap needs a fall to the building's drainage point. In an upper-floor mall unit that fall may not exist without a raised plinth, which then changes the kitchen floor level, the door thresholds and the ramp. Establishing the invert level at survey — before the kitchen is laid out — is a half-day of work that prevents a fortnight of rework.
Where the money goes: a real 6-week restaurant programme
AlcorOne delivered the Tai Tai F&B fit-out in Jubilee Hills on a 6-week programme, and three La Pino'z Pizza outlets across Kokapet, Mokila and Q City Gachibowli. Indicative package split for a mid-band restaurant fit-out of roughly 1,200 sq ft:
| Package | Share of cost | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Civil, waterproofing, flooring | 12–16% | Screed correction, wet-area waterproofing, tiling, plinths |
| Joinery and millwork | 18–24% | Counters, seating bases, back-bar, service stations, cladding |
| Electrical and lighting | 12–18% | DB, circuits, conduiting, track and feature lighting |
| HVAC and ventilation | 14–20% | Cooling, kitchen exhaust, fresh-air makeup, ducting |
| Plumbing, drainage, grease | 6–10% | Supply, waste, grease trap, floor gullies |
| Ceiling, partitions, finishes | 10–14% | Grid and gypsum, glazing, paint, feature walls |
| Shopfront and signage | 6–10% | Glazing, entrance, illuminated signage |
| Fire, statutory, snagging | 4–8% | Sprinkler and detection alterations, NOC liaison, punch-list closure |
One observation worth drawing out: services — electrical, HVAC, plumbing and fire — total 36–56%, comfortably more than the joinery everyone focuses on when comparing quotes. Moving the millwork off site is what lets a 6-week programme like Tai Tai absorb a late possession, because fabrication runs in parallel with the landlord finishing the shell rather than after it.
Retail fit-out versus tenant improvement: which are you buying?
The terms get used interchangeably and they are not the same commercial thing.
A fit-out takes a bare or warm shell to trading-ready against your brand standard: your layout, your finishes, your shopfront. A tenant improvement modifies an already-fitted unit — often a previous tenant's — and its cost is driven by what you must strip out before you can build. Taking over an ex-restaurant to open a retail store means removing a commercial kitchen, capping services and levelling a raised floor, and demolition plus disposal can be ₹150–350 per sq ft before anything new is built.
The counterintuitive part: inheriting a fitted unit in the same format as yours is usually cheaper than a bare shell, because the services are already sized and routed. Inheriting a different format is usually more expensive than a bare shell. Judge the unit on its services, not its floor area.
Reducing cost without reducing the brand
Four levers that work, in order of how much they save relative to what they cost you:
Take the services as-found where you can. Keeping the landlord's sprinkler layout and working your ceiling around it is far cheaper than re-designing the layout to suit a ceiling detail. Same for the electrical entry position.
Concentrate spend at eye level and at the entrance. Customers read the shopfront, the counter and the first three metres. Premium finishes on a back-of-house partition return nothing.
Move joinery off site. Factory-built millwork costs about the same as good site carpentry and takes weeks out of the programme, which in retail is the saving that matters, because it converts to trading days.
Standardise across outlets. The multi-outlet operators we work with reuse a fixed counter module and a fixed lighting specification across sites. Outlet two onward gets cheaper because the drawings, the vendor and the sequence are already proven — the main reason the three La Pino'z outlets ran to comparable schedules.
Sources & references
- Rate bands: AlcorOne executed retail and F&B fit-outs across South India, 2022–2026, including four Hyderabad F&B programmes — Tai Tai plus three La Pino'z outlets. Same figures as /services/retail-fitouts/.
- Plywood grades referenced for back-of-house joinery: IS 710:2010 (BWP marine plywood) and IS 303:1989 (commercial plywood).
- Statutory and landlord cost ranges reflect Hyderabad mall and high-street practice as encountered on AlcorOne projects; confirm current figures with your specific landlord, as mall charges are not standardised.
Written by Gogineni Kalyaan Kumar
Kalyaan is Principal at AlcorOne Solutions, the interior contracting firm he co-founded in 2022. He has overseen 80+ turnkey residential, villa, and commercial fit-outs across Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Vizag, with a focus on itemised BOQs, heavy-duty modular execution, and durable interior systems built for South India’s climate.
Sources & references.
Standards, regulatory registries, and manufacturer references that back the material grades, pricing framework, and compliance points in this guide:
Frequently asked questions.
How much does a retail fit-out cost per square foot in Hyderabad?
All-in, shell to trading-ready, excluding GST: ₹1,800–3,500 per sq ft for a retail store, ₹2,500–4,500 for a cafe or bakery, ₹3,000–5,500 for a QSR unit, ₹3,500–6,500 for a full restaurant with a commercial kitchen, and ₹2,500–4,000 for a mall kiosk or counter. Format matters more than finish level because it drives the services load — services are 36–56% of a restaurant fit-out.
How long does a retail fit-out take in Hyderabad?
2–3 weeks for a mall kiosk, 4–6 for a retail store, 5–7 for a cafe, 6–8 for a QSR and 6–10 for a full restaurant, measured from possession rather than from signature. AlcorOne delivered the Tai Tai F&B fit-out in Jubilee Hills on a 6-week programme, plus three La Pino'z outlets across Kokapet, Mokila and Q City Gachibowli. In an operating mall, restriction of noisy work to non-trading hours is the most common cause of a programme running longer than these figures.
What is not included in a retail fit-out quote?
Commonly excluded: mall fit-out deposit and supervision charges, fire NOC drawings and liaison, signage and facade approvals, DG or power backup, HVAC beyond the landlord's provision to the unit boundary, kitchen equipment for F&B, and grease trap or drainage modification. Together these can add 10–20% to a headline per-sq-ft number, so confirm in writing which are in scope before comparing quotes.
Is it cheaper to take over an already-fitted unit?
Only if it was the same format. Inheriting a fitted unit in your format is usually cheaper than a bare shell because the services are already sized and routed. Inheriting a different format is usually more expensive, because strip-out and disposal run ₹150–350 per sq ft before you build anything new, and you may still have to re-route services. Judge a unit on its existing services rather than its floor area.
Do I need a fire NOC for a retail fit-out in Hyderabad?
For F&B and for units above prescribed area thresholds, yes. The cost is modest but the sequencing is critical: sprinkler and detector layouts must be designed against your final ceiling and partition plan and approved before the ceiling closes, otherwise it has to be reopened. For restaurants the fire drawings and the kitchen exhaust route need to be settled together.
Can you work while the mall is trading?
Partly. Quiet, non-dust work can usually continue in trading hours, but cutting, core-drilling, hot work and material movement are typically confined to a non-trading window with a booked service lift. We plan the programme around the mall's actual permitted hours and budget the night-shift premium of roughly 15–25% explicitly rather than discovering it mid-project.
A retail fit-out quoted as a single per-sq-ft rate is not comparable to another one, because the rate says nothing about which services, statutory items and landlord charges sit inside it. The number that matters is the itemised one.
AlcorOne works scope-first: send the landlord drawing and your brand finish board, and you get a line-item BOQ naming the services scope, the exclusions and the programme against your launch date — so the number you approve is the number you build to.
Fitting out a store or restaurant in Hyderabad?
Send the landlord drawing and your brand finish board — we will come back with an itemised BOQ, not a per-sq-ft guess.
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