Website Development Cost in Dubai
What website projects cost in Dubai — from landing pages to full marketing sites — and how to budget without surprises.
What a Website Costs in Dubai
The honest answer is that Dubai website quotes range from AED 1,500 to well past AED 500,000 for things that are all called "a website", and the price difference is almost entirely about scope, not about quality of taste.
Here is what sits inside each band.
These are market observations, not our rate card. We scope after understanding the site.
The bands
| Range (AED) | What it is | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| 1,500 - 6,000 | Template, populated, usually offshore. 3-8 pages | You own nothing, nobody can edit it, no SEO foundation |
| 6,000 - 20,000 | Decent small-business site. Custom-ish design on a platform, mobile-tested | Ask who writes the content — usually not included |
| 20,000 - 60,000 | Properly designed and built. Custom design, real content work, SEO structure, often bilingual | The realistic band for a serious SME |
| 60,000 - 150,000 | Larger sites: many templates, ecommerce, integrations, full bilingual | Scope creep is the risk, not price |
| 150,000+ | Platform work: portals, complex ecommerce, ERP integration | This is software, budgeted as software |
What actually drives the number
- Number of unique templates, not number of pages. Forty pages on six templates is a small project. Six pages on six templates is not.
- Content. Who writes it? If the answer is "you", the quote is lower and the project will take twice as long.
- Arabic. Adds design, build and content cost. Roughly plan for a meaningful uplift, not a rounding error.
- Ecommerce. Catalogue size, variants, payment gateways, shipping logic, tax.
- Integrations. Every system you connect to is a project inside the project.
- Photography and video. Frequently excluded from quotes and then discovered.
What is usually missing from a cheap quote
Content writing, photography, SEO structure and redirects, analytics setup, Arabic, training, post-launch support, and hosting beyond year one. Get each of these confirmed in writing or assume they are out.
Ongoing costs nobody mentions upfront
| Item | Typical annual (AED) |
|---|---|
| Hosting | 500 - 6,000 depending on scale |
| Domain | 50 - 400 |
| Platform / plugin licences | 0 - 10,000 |
| Maintenance and security updates | 3,000 - 30,000 |
| Content updates | Depends entirely on cadence |
A site with no maintenance budget is a security incident with a countdown on it.
How to brief so quotes are comparable
Give every agency the same document: page list, who writes the content, whether Arabic is in scope, what it must integrate with, and when you need it live. Without that you will get five quotes describing five different projects and no way to compare them.
Related
- Web Design Dubai
- Web Development Dubai
- Freelance Web Designer in Dubai
- Web Design UAE
- How to Choose a Marketing Agency in Dubai
FAQs
Is a cheap site worse than no site?
Frequently, yes. A slow, unmaintainable site that ranks for nothing costs you the rebuild plus the time you spent on it.
Should we pay monthly or a project fee?
Project fee for the build, then a defined maintenance agreement. Be careful with "free website, monthly fee forever" arrangements — check who owns the site if you leave.
How long does it take?
Six to fourteen weeks for most SME projects. Content readiness is the variable, almost every time.
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