How much does a website cost in Dubai and the UAE? 2026 prices in AED
Real price bands for business websites in the UAE in 2026 — from AED 1,000 templates to AED 150,000+ platforms — what drives the cost, what's usually hidden, and what you should expect for your budget.
By Syed Shahzaib Ali · 4 November 2026 · 5 min read
"How much does a website cost?" is the first question every business owner in Dubai asks and the one most agencies answer with "it depends". It does depend — but on a small number of things that are easy to understand. This guide gives you real 2026 price bands in AED, explains what moves a project from one band to the next, and lists the costs that quotes usually leave out.
The price bands in 2026
| Type of website | Typical UAE price (AED, ex VAT) | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Template / DIY builder site | 500 – 2,500 | Sole traders, new businesses testing an idea |
| Fixed-price package site | 1,000 – 6,000 | Small businesses that need a credible bilingual presence fast |
| Custom-designed business site | 8,000 – 25,000 | Established SMEs, clinics, law firms, consultancies, real estate brokers |
| E-commerce store | 12,000 – 60,000 | Retailers, D2C brands, restaurants with online ordering |
| Custom web application / platform | 60,000 – 300,000+ | Marketplaces, booking systems, portals, SaaS |
| Enterprise / multi-brand | 150,000+ | Groups with multiple sites, integrations and governance needs |
These are what we see across our own quotes and the competing quotes clients share with us. Large Dubai agencies with Media City offices will sit at the top of each band or above it; freelancers at the bottom, with corresponding differences in reliability.
What actually drives the price
1. Unique page designs, not page count
A site with 40 pages that share five layouts costs about the same as a 10-page site with five layouts. What costs money is each distinct design: home, service, about, contact, blog article, location page. Ask for the number of templates, not pages.
2. Arabic
A proper bilingual site is not a translated English site. It needs right-to-left layouts tested on every template, an Arabic typeface that pairs with your brand, culturally adapted copy rather than word-for-word translation, and Arabic SEO (titles, URLs, meta, schema) done separately. Expect Arabic to add 25–40% to a build if it is done properly, and far more in lost leads if it is done badly. Machine translation pasted into the same layout is why so many UAE sites look broken in Arabic.
3. Content
Who writes the words and supplies the images? Professional copywriting in English runs AED 300–800 per page; Arabic copywriting similar. Photography for a clinic or showroom AED 2,000–6,000 per half day. Many quotes assume you provide everything; many projects stall because you can't.
4. E-commerce
A store adds product data modelling, payment gateways (Telr, PayTabs, Network International, Stripe UAE), buy-now-pay-later (Tabby, Tamara), shipping and COD logic, VAT invoicing, and order management. Platform choice matters: Shopify is cheapest to launch and has a monthly fee; WooCommerce is cheaper monthly but needs maintenance; headless Next.js with a commerce API costs more up front and scales best.
5. Integrations
CRM (HubSpot, Zoho, Salesforce), booking systems, WhatsApp Business API, property portals for real estate, PMS for hotels, ERP for distributors. Each integration is typically AED 2,000–15,000 depending on how well documented the other side is.
6. Platform and performance
A WordPress theme is quick and cheap. A custom WordPress build with a proper block library is mid-range. A Next.js site with static generation costs more to build but is faster, more secure, cheaper to host and ranks better on Core Web Vitals — which is why we recommend it for anything you expect to keep for five years.
7. Who does the work
Agency overheads in Dubai are high. A team working from Karachi, Cairo or Amman with a UAE-facing account lead delivers the same quality at a materially lower price, and that is the model most "Dubai" agencies use quietly anyway. Ask where the designers and developers actually sit.
The costs that quotes leave out
- Domain: a .ae domain is around AED 100–200 per year through an accredited registrar; .com about AED 50–60.
- Hosting: AED 0–100/month for a static Next.js site on Vercel or Cloudflare; AED 150–600/month for managed WordPress; more for stores with traffic.
- Email: Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 at roughly AED 25–50 per user per month.
- Maintenance: updates, backups, security patches, small changes. AED 300–1,500/month is normal; WordPress needs it more than Next.js.
- Licences: premium plugins, fonts, stock photography, Shopify apps.
- VAT: 5% on top of everything from a UAE-registered supplier.
- Marketing: a website does nothing on its own. Local SEO, Google Business Profile optimisation and Google Ads are separate budgets.
Over three years, a mid-range AED 15,000 site typically costs AED 25,000–35,000 all-in. Plan for that number, not the build price.
What you should get at each budget
Under AED 3,000. A clean template, your branding applied, 5–8 pages, a contact form that emails you, mobile-responsive, basic on-page SEO, Google Business Profile linked. Arabic only if the package explicitly includes it. You should own the domain and hosting account.
AED 5,000–15,000. Custom design on a proper system, bilingual, copy assistance, structured data, cookie consent and PDPL privacy policy, Google Analytics and Search Console configured, speed scores in the green, a short training session, and a warranty period after launch.
AED 15,000–40,000. Everything above plus full copywriting, photography direction, CRM or booking integrations, a content hub or blog designed for SEO, location pages per emirate, Arabic copy by a native writer, and a maintenance plan.
AED 40,000+. You are buying a product, not a brochure: discovery workshops, UX research, design system, custom functionality, performance budgets, staged releases, and a team you will keep working with.
How to compare quotes fairly
Send every agency the same one-page brief: your goals, the pages you need, whether Arabic is required, the integrations, who provides content, and your launch date. Then ask each for:
- Number of unique templates and a list of pages.
- What is included for Arabic — translation, adaptation, RTL QA?
- Platform and why.
- Hosting recommendation and monthly cost.
- What happens the day after launch: warranty, support, hourly rate.
- Who owns the code, the design files and the domain (you should).
- Portfolio sites you can open on your phone now.
A quote that can answer all seven clearly is usually worth a few thousand dirhams more than one that can't.
Our prices
We publish our package prices because it saves everyone time: AED 1,099, 2,199 and 5,899 for fixed-scope bilingual sites, and custom quotes for stores, web apps and migrations. Every price is ex VAT and includes hosting setup, SEO basics and a PDPL-aligned privacy policy. You can see exactly what each includes on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the cheapest way to get a business website in Dubai?
- A fixed-price package from a small agency or a well-configured template on Wix, Squarespace or WordPress will cost AED 1,000–4,000. It is a fine choice for a single-location business that needs a credible presence and a contact form, as long as it is mobile-fast, in both languages if your customers are, and you own the domain.
- Why do Dubai agencies quote such different prices for the same brief?
- Because 'website' hides very different scopes: custom design versus a theme, Arabic translation versus machine translation, copywriting included or not, and the hourly cost of the team doing the work. Ask each agency for the number of unique page designs, who writes the content, and what happens after launch — the quotes become comparable quickly.
- Is VAT charged on website design in the UAE?
- Yes. Web design and development is a standard-rated service, so a UAE-registered agency adds 5% VAT to its invoice. Agencies outside the UAE invoicing you from abroad may not charge VAT, but you may need to account for it under the reverse-charge mechanism if you are VAT-registered.
- How long does a website take to build in the UAE?
- A package site takes 2–3 weeks; a custom bilingual business site 5–8 weeks; an e-commerce store 8–12 weeks. The most common cause of delay is the client's content — text, photos, product data — not the agency.
See our fixed AED prices
Three transparent packages from AED 1,099, with Arabic/English, hosting setup and SEO basics included, plus custom quotes for stores and web apps.