"How much will this cost us?" is always the first question leadership asks once a GCC moves from idea to proposal. And honestly, there's no clean one-line answer anyone who gives you a single number without asking about your team composition is guessing.
What actually drives the cost is your talent mix, your city, your office model, and how senior a bench you're building. A 25-seat engineering pod and a 100-seat center with AI specialists, cybersecurity leads, and product leadership sitting alongside them are two completely different budgets, even if the headcount math looks similar on paper.
Salary and workforce costs will always be the biggest line item that 's consistent across almost every GCC we've seen. Office, IT, legal, and recruitment round out the rest. And increasingly, India centers aren't just cost-arbitrage plays; companies are building product engineering, AI, data, and cybersecurity capability there, which changes what "budget" even means.
This guide breaks the numbers down properly into what's one-time, what's recurring, and realistic planning ranges for 25, 50, and 100 seats.
What's Actually in a GCC Budget
Split your spend into two buckets before you build anything else.
One-time setup costs
- Entity and legal setup
- Advisory and professional fees
- Office deposit and fit-out
- Workstations and furniture
- IT infrastructure, networking, security setup
- Initial recruitment and employer branding
- Starting technology licenses
Recurring operating costs
- Salaries
- Statutory employer costs
- Benefits and insurance
- Office rent
- Technology subscriptions
- Ongoing recruitment
- HR and payroll
- Security and professional services
- Training, travel, and employee engagement
This split matters more than people think. Setup costs can look manageable on a slide; it's the recurring workforce line that quietly becomes the real number by month six.
So, what's the Actual Cost?
There's no universal price tag here
every center is genuinely different. But for planning purposes, here's a realistic Year 1 range:
| GCC Size | Indicative Year 1 Budget |
| 25 Seats | ₹5-9 crore |
| 50 Seats | ₹9-16 crore |
| 100 Seats | ₹17-30 crore |
Treat these as planning ranges, not quotes. A team heavy on AI, cybersecurity, or senior engineering leadership will push past the top end. A leaner team in a lower-cost location or managed office can land closer to the bottom.
The variable that moves the needle most isn't desk count. It's who you're hiring.
Breaking Down Where the Money Goes
Legal entity and compliance
Before anyone starts working, you need the right legal and operating structure — incorporation, tax registration, payroll setup, employment documentation, transfer pricing advisory, ongoing compliance and audit.
Requirements shift depending on your home jurisdiction and how the center will operate, so this isn't a fixed government fee — it's advisory-driven. For budgeting, smaller GCCs typically set aside somewhere around ₹10–30 lakh for legal, compliance, and setup work; larger or more complex structures need more.
Office space and workplace setup
You've got options here: traditional lease, managed office, flexible workspace, serviced office, or build-to-suit. A traditional lease brings deposit, fit-out, workstations, meeting rooms, power backup, and networking costs upfront.
A managed office is worth a real look if you're starting at 25 or 50 seats — it folds a lot of that capex into a predictable operating cost, which is useful while you're still validating the model.
IT infrastructure and security
Laptops, monitors, networking, firewall, VPN, identity management, endpoint security, cloud infrastructure, collaboration tools the basics add up fast, and they add up faster for engineering-heavy teams that need higher-spec machines and development environments. A 100-seat engineering center's IT budget looks nothing like a 100-seat operations team's.
Talent acquisition and recruitment
Here's the part that catches people off guard: hiring 25 people isn't 25× the cost of hiring one person. You're recruiting across very different roles at once a GCC Head, engineering managers, software engineers, QA, DevOps, data and AI specialists, cybersecurity, product managers and leadership and specialist roles simply take longer and cost more to fill well.
This is exactly the kind of thing SquadXP's GCC Building service is built around strategy, workforce planning, talent intelligence, location advisory, compensation benchmarking, and leadership plus specialist hiring, all under one plan.
Employee compensation
For most GCCs, this is the single biggest recurring expense, and it depends on role, experience, city, specialization, and market demand. A team of 50 software engineers has a very different comp curve than a 50-person mix across engineering, AI, product, and cybersecurity leadership.
Specialist roles command real premiums right now demand for AI-ready talent isn't cooling off. Benchmark compensation before you finalize the hiring plan, not after you've already made offers.
Statutory costs and benefits
Salary is never the whole story. Provident Fund, gratuity, insurance, statutory contributions, bonuses, and leave-related costs sit on top of base pay and can add a meaningful percentage to your workforce number. Build your financial model on fully loaded cost per employee not average salary times headcount, which will underestimate your real spend every time.
Leadership hiring
Don't fold leadership into your general delivery-role budget; it deserves its own line. A GCC Head, engineering and product heads, and functional leaders set the direction, culture, and hiring bar for everyone who joins after them. Get this bench in place early; it's the highest-leverage money you'll spend in year one.
The 25-Seat Budget
A 25-seat GCC is a focused starting point, typically built around a site leader, engineering manager, 15–17 engineers, QA and DevOps professionals, a product resource, and HR or operations support.
Estimated one-time setup: ₹1–2.5 crore
Annual workforce cost: ₹3–5 crore
Annual office and infrastructure: ₹50 lakh–₹1 crore
Recruitment and operating costs: ₹50 lakh–₹1 crore
Estimated Year 1 total: ₹5–9 crore
The final cost can vary significantly based on location and seniority. A GCC focused on AI, cybersecurity, or other specialized capabilities will generally cost more than a conventional engineering team of the same size.
The 50-Seat Budget
A 50-seat GCC provides enough scale to establish a meaningful technology capability. The workforce can include GCC leadership, 30–35 engineers, QA professionals, DevOps and cloud specialists, data and AI talent, product management, and HR or finance support.
Estimated one-time setup: ₹2–4 crore
Annual workforce cost: ₹6–9 crore
Annual office and infrastructure: ₹1–2 crore
Recruitment and other operating costs: ₹1–2 crore
Estimated Year 1 total: ₹9–16 crore
For many companies, this can be a practical middle ground large enough to build meaningful capabilities without immediately committing to a 100+ person GCC.
The 100-Seat Budget
A 100-seat GCC can operate as a mature capability center with multiple functional teams, including engineering, QA, platform engineering, AI/ML, data, cloud, cybersecurity, product, program management, HR, finance, and leadership.
Estimated one-time setup: ₹3–6 crore
Annual workforce cost: ₹12–18 crore
Annual office and infrastructure: ₹2–3 crore
Recruitment and other operating costs: ₹1–3 crore
Estimated Year 1 total: ₹17–30 crore
At this scale, Year 1 investment can reach several million dollars depending on the talent mix and operating model. The final GCC setup cost in India will ultimately depend on factors such as employee seniority, specialist skills, city, office model, technology infrastructure, and recruitment requirements.
25 vs. 50 vs. 100: What Actually Changes
It's not just more people, it's more complex.
At 25 seats, you're establishing leadership, building the first real team, and validating the operating model.
At 50 seats, the focus moves to multiple engineering teams, specialist capability, and a management structure that can actually scale.
At 100 seats, you're running a genuine strategic capability, multiple functions, centers of excellence, product ownership, and a leadership bench that doesn't need constant hand-holding from HQ.
Plan your roadmap around capability maturity, not just the number of desks you're filling.
What Pushes the Budget Higher
- Senior-heavy hiring: a leadership-loaded team costs meaningfully more than a mid-level-heavy one
- AI, cybersecurity, and other advanced skills: premium roles, premium comp
- Tier-1 cities: Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Gurugram, Mumbai bring stronger competition for talent and higher workplace costs
- Premium office space: large private offices and high-end fit-outs aren't cheap
- Urgent timelines: hiring fast usually means paying for specialist recruitment support
- Multiple cities: every additional location adds its own hiring, infrastructure, and coordination costs
How to Bring the Cost Down Without Cutting Corners
Cutting cost shouldn't mean cutting comp below market that just shows up later as attrition.
- Pick the city for talent, not rent. Cheap real estate in a city with thin talent supply costs you more in the long run.
- Start focused. Build the core team first; expand as demand justifies it, not on a fixed headcount schedule.
- Consider a managed office. It reduces the upfront capex hit while you're still proving out the model.
- Use real workforce data. Salary and talent-market intelligence stops you from overpaying for roles or underpaying and losing candidates you actually wanted.
- Hire leadership early. Good leaders improve hiring quality and retention enough to pay for themselves.
Consider a dedicated team first. A dedicated team gets you engineering capacity immediately while your permanent GCC structure takes shape no need to choose one or the other.
Which Size Should You Actually Build?
- Go with 25 seats if you're testing the India market or want one focused capability up and running before committing further.
- Go with 50 seats if you already know exactly which function needs a dedicated India team.
- Go with 100 seats if India is meant to become a genuine strategic hub not a satellite office.
The important thing: you don't need to land at 100 on day one. A GCC can be built to launch, scale, and optimize over time which is exactly how SquadXP's GCC Building approach is structured: foundation first, leadership and hiring roadmap next, then specialist capability and scale as priorities evolve.
Where SquadXP Comes In
Working out the budget is the easy part; executing it well is where most companies get stuck. SquadXP supports GCC strategy, workforce planning, talent intelligence, location advisory, compensation benchmarking, founding and engineering leadership hiring, and specialist technology recruiting across AI/ML, cloud, DevOps, data, and cybersecurity structured across Launch, Scale, and Optimize.
If you'd rather not build your GCC through trial and error, that's exactly the gap this fills.
Conclusion
Don't walk into this expecting one clean number. As a 2026 planning baseline:
- 25 seats: ₹5–9 crore
- 50 seats: ₹9–16 crore
- 100 seats: ₹17–30 crore
Adjust for city, seniority, talent mix, office model, and tech requirements because those are what actually move your real spend.
People's costs will always be your biggest line. The smartest way to control that isn't slashing salaries or squeezing office space; it's building a sharper workforce strategy: the right city, benchmarked comp, strong leadership, and a scale that matches where your business actually is.
The goal was never the cheapest GCC. It's the one that pays for itself.
If you're planning a GCC in India, talk to SquadXP about the workforce strategy and hiring roadmap that fits your budget.