VariantWise Observatory · finding 3
What a sunroof really costs
Every list of sunroof cars in this market prints a car’s opening price beside the promise of one, and on most of those cars the opening trim has no sunroof in it. So here is the number that list is missing. Across the 53 cars where you can actually step up into one, the cheapest variant that brings a sunroof costs a median of ₹1.07L more than the variant below it on the same engine and the same gearbox, 8% of the car. The smallest step anyone asks is ₹12,000, the largest is ₹9.99L, a spread of 83 to one on what every brochure calls the same thing.
But read that as the price of a sunroof and you would be wrong, which is the more useful half of this finding. Nobody sells you a sunroof; they sell you the trim it lives in. Only 7 of those 53 steps buy the sunroof and nothing else. The other 46 hand over other kit at the same time, a median of 5 further features per step, so the figure above is the price of a whole VARIANT, and the sunroof is only what makes you climb to it.
The cheapest step into a sunroof, by brand. The bar runs from that brand’s smallest step to its largest, the orange mark is the median, and the figure beside it is that median. Free to republish with credit to VariantWise.
It is not on the car you think it is on
Of the 126 cars on sale, 82 offer a sunroof somewhere in the range and 44 never offer one at all. Of the ones that do, 28 fit it to every variant, so there is no step to pay: on those cars it is simply part of the car. That leaves the 53 where the choice costs you something, and those are the cars this page is about. The cheapest way into one anywhere in the market is the Hyundai i20 Magna Petrol MT at ₹7.00L.
And what you arrive at is not one thing. Of the 53 steps, 27 arrive on a panoramic unit and 26 on a single-pane unit, which is worth checking on the brochure before you assume the dearer step buys the full glass roof rather than the small pane.
Some badges make you climb further
The median step runs from ₹77,000 at one end to ₹1.27L at the other. Part of that is the cars, since a range of large SUVs prices every variant higher. The bars say something the medians cannot: a short one means that brand asks about the same step whichever of its cars you are standing in front of, and a long one means it does not.
| Brand | Median step | Share of the car | Cheapest to dearest | Cars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maruti Suzuki | ₹1.27L | 10% | ₹12,000 to ₹3.44L | 6 |
| Mahindra | ₹1.10L | 7% | ₹64,000 to ₹3.00L | 6 |
| Tata | ₹1.00L | 7% | ₹30,000 to ₹1.50L | 9 |
| Kia | ₹90,000 | 7% | ₹43,000 to ₹1.96L | 6 |
| Hyundai | ₹77,000 | 6% | ₹26,000 to ₹1.27L | 7 |
Money says one thing, share of the car says another
In money, the longest climb is in the MPV class at ₹1.96L, against ₹1.05L in the SUV class. As a share of the car the order changes: there the Sedan class asks the most, at 12% of the price against 8% in the SUV class. Which of those matters is your call. If you are choosing between two cars the money is the number; if you are deciding how far to stretch on one, the share is.
| Body style | Median step | Share of the car | Cheapest to dearest | Cars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MPV | ₹1.96L | 8% | ₹51,000 to ₹9.99L | 5 |
| Sedan | ₹1.27L | 12% | ₹29,000 to ₹3.34L | 5 |
| SUV | ₹1.05L | 8% | ₹12,000 to ₹5.64L | 41 |
The two ends, and the one that should worry you
The cheapest step in the catalogue is the Maruti Suzuki Victoris Petrol Mild Hybrid, where ₹12,000 moves you from ₹13.57L to ₹13.69L and buys a panoramic roof and nothing else at all. The largest is the Toyota Vellfire Hybrid at ₹9.99L, though on a car of that price it is 8% of the bill.
The one to watch is neither. It is the Skoda Slavia Turbo Petrol, where the cheapest route to a single-pane roof costs ₹3.34L, or 33% of the car you were standing in front of. That step does hand over 18 other features, rear parking camera, headlamps, wheel size, wheel type among them, which is the point: at that size it is not a sunroof decision any more, it is a trim decision with a sunroof on the poster.
Method, in full
For every car on sale, both halves of a step share an engine AND a gearbox, so nothing in the figure is you changing engine or losing a clutch pedal on the way up. The step is the cheapest variant on that powertrain carrying a sunroof, minus the dearest one below it that does not. Where a car offers several routes in, the SMALLEST is published, so every figure here is the least that car can charge you rather than a flattering pick.
What this cannot do is isolate the sunroof itself, and it does not pretend to. In this catalogue the equipment list belongs to the TRIM, so a sunroof arrives with whatever else that trim carries: 7 of the 53 steps bring it alone, and the rest hand over a median of 5 further features each. Every step is counted both ways, so the bundling is a number on this page rather than a disclaimer. Prices are ex-showroom, from the same catalogue that prices this site’s own pages.
Nothing is dropped quietly. Of 126 cars, 44 have none on any variant, 28 have one on every variant and 1 has one but never above a variant without it on the same powertrain; the remaining 53 are the steps above, and those counts add back to the whole. Underneath them sit 349 engine-and-gearbox combinations, of which 124 could be paired. Medians rather than averages, because a handful of very expensive cars would drag a mean away from what most buyers are quoted. A brand or body style needs 5 cars before its median is published, and 10 were held back for falling short; every row carries its count so you can see how thin the thin ones are. This page recomputed 2026-09-06, and it recomputes with every data update, so it does not rot the way a published table does.
The variant-by-variant prices and equipment behind it are free to download and reuse with attribution on the open data page. Earlier findings price the second pedal and the same car across every state, and the scoring behind the site is on how we rank.