DPDPA Compliance: Build or Buy? A Strategic Guide for Indian Businesses

Introduction

With India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA), 2023 now live and the DPDP Rules, 2025 officially notified, every Indian business that collects or processes personal data must comply. Whether it’s a cookie banner or a breach log, the compliance checklist isn’t just long, it’s legally binding.

This raises a critical question:
Should your business build its own compliance stack or buy a ready-made solution?

In this guide, we break down the pros, cons, costs, and risk exposure of both approaches so you can make an informed, cost-effective, and compliant decision.

What Does DPDPA Compliance Involve?

Under the Act and Rules, businesses must implement:

• Verifiable, purpose-specific consent collection

• Equal visibility of Accept and Reject options for non-essential cookies

• Age-gated parental consent verification for children

• Clear, layered privacy notices

• Grievance redressal and consent withdrawal mechanisms

• Consent logs and timestamped audit trails

• Mandatory breach reporting within 72 hours

Failure to comply with can lead to penalties up to ₹250 crore per violation under Section 33 of the DPDP Act.

Option 1: Build Your Own Compliance Stack

Benefits:

• Full control and flexibility over your systems

• Seamless integration with in-house architecture

• Custom logic tailored to your product needs

Challenges:

• High development time (typically 4–6 months)

• Cost-intensive: developers, QA, legal teams, product managers

• Frequent updates as the rules evolve

• Higher chances of missing a key rule (e.g., Rule 10 on child data)

Cost Estimate: ₹15–₹40 lakh upfront, plus ongoing legal and tech maintenance

Option 2: Buy a DPDP-Ready Consent & Compliance Solution

Solutions like Blutic offer a plug-and-play stack for:

• Cookie scanning and auto-tagging

• Customisable, DPDP-compliant banners

• Real-time consent capture and withdrawal flows

• Audit-ready breach documentation and alerts

• Hosted logs and parental verification tokens

Benefits:

• Fast implementation (as little as 3–10 days)

• Pre-tested for DPDP compliance

• Lower cost of ownership

• Regular updates as laws evolve

• Scalable across web, mobile, and cross-domain setups

Challenges:

• Less control initially, though highly configurable

• Ongoing monthly subscription

Cost Estimate: ₹3,000–₹50,000/month depending on features and scale

What Should Startups and Enterprises Consider?

Startups:

• Need speed and accuracy without legal overhead

• Should prioritise buying tools like Blutic to avoid hefty fines

Enterprises:

• Can adopt a hybrid model handle privacy notice in-house and outsource consent infrastructure

• Need to balance control with compliance speed

When Should You Build, and When Should You Buy?

Choose to Build if:

• You have a dedicated legal, engineering, and privacy team

• Your workflows require highly customised logic (e.g., fintech, healthtech)

• You’re prepared to invest in long-term internal maintenance

Choose to Buy if:

• You need to go live fast with minimum risk

• You want automatic updates as the rules evolve

• You prefer lower upfront cost and guaranteed alignment

Why Blutic?

Blutic is built ground-up for India’s DPDP Act. Whether you’re a D2C website, finance app, SaaS platform, or social media startup, Blutic enables you to:

• Stay compliant across every user touchpoint

• Avoid fines through verifiable audit logs

• Scale your privacy stack as your product evolves

No legal firefighting. No extra hires. Just future-proof compliance, on autopilot.

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