In this paper we obtain bounds on a very general class of distance-based topological indices of graphs, which includes the Wiener index, defined as the sum of the distances between all pairs of vertices of the graph, and most generalisations of the Wiener index, including the Harary index and the hyper-Wiener index. Our results imply several new bounds on well-studied topological indices, among those sharp lower bounds on the Harary index and sharp upper bounds on the hyper-Wiener index for (i) graphs of given order and size (which resolves a problem in the monograph [The Harary index of a graph, Xu, Das, Trinajstić, Springer (2015)], (ii) for $κ$-connected graphs, where $κ$ is even, (iii) for maximal outerplanar graphs and for Apollonian networks (a subclass of maximal planar graphs), and (iv) for trees in which all vertices have odd degree.