Published Dubai price guides put a small business website at roughly AED 1,000 to AED 17,000, an online store at AED 4,500 to AED 110,000, and a custom web application from AED 24,500 upwards. The ranges overlap heavily because the price is set by scope, not by the word website. Running costs are separate.
Key takeaways
- Four published Dubai guides put a basic business site between AED 1,000 and AED 17,000, which tells you the label means nothing without a scope.
- E-commerce published ranges run from AED 3,999 at the low end to AED 110,000 and above for larger builds.
- Running costs are small but real: a .ae domain at AED 125 in year one, free SSL, and care plans published between AED 299 and AED 1,800 a month.
- Arabic is a priced add-on in published lists, around AED 1,800 to AED 8,600 depending on the site.
- None of the guides we checked states whether its figures include the 5 percent UAE VAT, so ask before you compare two quotes.
What do Dubai agencies actually publish?
Very few agencies publish prices, which is why most articles on this question contain invented numbers. Below are the figures that agencies and studios have actually put on their own public pages, attributed to each source. Treat them as market context rather than a quote.
| Source | Basic or business site | WordPress or CMS | E-commerce | Custom app or portal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Element8 | AED 3,500 to 8,000 basic; 12,000 to 55,000 corporate or SME | Included in the above | AED 15,000 to 110,000+ | AED 50,000 to 275,000+ |
| Codingclave | AED 2,900 to 17,000 | AED 2,200 to 11,000 | AED 5,900 to 49,000 | AED 24,500 to 245,000 |
| Cubix | AED 3,000 to 15,000 basic; 15,000 to 40,000 moderate | AED 5,000 to 20,000 | AED 30,000 to 120,000+ | AED 40,000 to 120,000 complex; 120,000 to 200,000+ enterprise |
| TheWebMakers | AED 999 static starter, 5 pages | AED 2,500, up to 6 pages | From AED 3,999 | Not published |
| Bootesnull | AED 1,000 to 3,500 basic; 4,500 to 8,000 small business | Not published | AED 4,500 to 15,000 | AED 4,500 to 40,000 |
Read that table sideways rather than down. A basic business site is priced anywhere from AED 999 to AED 15,000 across five published lists. That is not five opinions about the same product. It is five different products wearing the same label, and the gap is entirely in what is included.
Codingclave’s list is dated and the clearest to compare against, marked as checked on 12 October 2026 and excluding VAT, with build times attached: 1 to 3 weeks for a business site, 2 to 6 weeks for a store, 6 to 16 weeks for a custom application.
What makes one website cost five times another?
| Driver | What it adds |
|---|---|
| Page count and unique layouts | Five pages on one template is a different job from twenty pages with eight distinct layouts |
| Design origin | A bought theme adjusted to your brand, versus a design drawn from scratch and then built |
| Arabic and RTL | A second content set, mirrored layouts, Arabic typography and a reviewer who reads it properly |
| Content | Copywriting, photography and translation are usually quoted separately and are often the real holdup |
| Integrations | Payment gateway, CRM, booking system, accounting, inventory. Each one is an API with its own failure cases |
| E-commerce depth | Twenty products is a catalogue, two thousand with variants, stock sync and returns is a system |
| Performance and SEO work | Technical SEO, schema, speed work and analytics setup, which are often excluded from cheaper quotes |
Arabic is worth isolating because it shows up as a line item in published pricing. Codingclave lists the Arabic uplift as up to roughly AED 2,800 on a business site, AED 1,800 on a WordPress site and AED 8,600 on an e-commerce store. If you are a Dubai business selling to residents, that is not an optional extra, so get it into the comparison from the start rather than discovering it in month three.
What are the running costs?
The build is the one-off. These are the published figures for keeping the site alive, which is where a cheap build gets expensive.
| Item | Published figure |
|---|---|
| .ae domain | AED 125 first year, AED 145 renewal, from AEserver, excluding VAT |
| SSL certificate | AED 0, free certificates are standard |
| Shopify Basic | USD 24 a month billed yearly, about AED 88 |
| Hosting, backups, monitoring and support | AED 200 to 600 a month, Codingclave published range |
| Website care plan | AED 600 to 1,800 a month, Codingclave; AED 299 a month, TheWebMakers |
| Basic maintenance, annual | AED 600 a year basic and AED 2,400 a year standard, Innomedia |
| Freelance developer | AED 90 to 130 an hour, Cubix published range |
| Dedicated developer | AED 8,900 to 17,900 a month full time, about 160 hours; AED 4,900 to 9,500 half time |
Two things to notice. A care plan at AED 600 a month is AED 7,200 a year, which can exceed the build cost of a small site inside two years, so it needs to be buying something you can name. And the hourly rates matter more than they look: if your quote excludes content and integrations, those come back as hours later.
WordPress, Shopify or custom?
Platform choice moves the number more than any design decision.
- WordPress. The cheapest published tier, AED 2,200 to 11,000 in Codingclave’s list and AED 5,000 to 20,000 in Cubix’s. Good for content sites and brochure sites, and you own the files. The ongoing cost is updates and plugin maintenance, which is what care plans are for.
- Shopify. Low build cost, predictable monthly fee at about AED 88 for Basic billed yearly, and no server to maintain. Transaction fees and app subscriptions are the part people underestimate.
- Custom. Published from AED 24,500 and running past AED 245,000. Worth it when the site is the product or the business logic is unusual, and a waste when it is a brochure.
We compared the first two in detail for Gulf sellers in Shopify vs WooCommerce in the UAE, including payment and cash-on-delivery handling.
What is specific to the UAE?
Three things change the brief here, and all three change the price.
Payments and buy now, pay later. Element8’s published e-commerce scope names regional payment gateways such as Telr and PayTabs, and Tabby or Tamara setups for instalments. Each is an integration and each has its own onboarding, so put them in the scope document, not in a wishlist.
Cash on delivery. Still a meaningful share of UAE online orders, and it is not just a checkout option. It means an order confirmation step, a failed-delivery path and reconciliation. Many cheap store builds skip it and the cost arrives later.
Arabic and bilingual search. A bilingual site needs correct hreflang, RTL layouts and Arabic that was written rather than machine translated. Doing it at build time is cheaper than retrofitting it.
How to compare two quotes
Put both on the same sheet and make each answer these. A quote that cannot is not cheaper, it is shorter.
- How many unique page layouts, as opposed to pages?
- Is the design original or a theme, and who owns it afterwards?
- Is Arabic included, and is it written or translated?
- Who writes the copy and who supplies the photography?
- Which integrations are in scope, named one by one?
- Is technical SEO, schema and analytics setup included?
- What happens after launch, for how long, and at what monthly cost?
- Who holds the domain, the hosting and the repository?
- Does the figure include 5 percent VAT?
Question eight is the one that costs people money. If the agency holds the domain and the hosting account in its own name, leaving later is a migration rather than a password change.
What a low price usually means
A AED 999 five-page site is a real product and it is sometimes the right one. What it generally means is a template, your text typed in, no original design, no Arabic, no integrations, no SEO work and no support window. For a trade licence that needs a presence this month, that is fine. For a business that expects the site to bring enquiries, the gap shows up as a site nobody finds.
The other pattern worth naming: a low build price with a high mandatory care plan. Add the first two years together before you compare.
How Virtuloom helps
We build bilingual websites and stores in Dubai, with the Arabic version treated as a first-class version rather than a translation, and technical SEO done at build time instead of sold back to you later. Our own pricing is quote on request, because scope decides it and a published range would be a guess about your project. See our web development page, or all our services.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a website cost in Dubai?
Published Dubai guides put a basic business site between AED 999 and AED 17,000, a corporate or SME site between AED 12,000 and AED 55,000, and an online store between AED 3,999 and AED 110,000 or more. The spread reflects scope, so compare what is included rather than the headline figure.
How much does an e-commerce website cost in the UAE?
Published ranges start from AED 3,999 at the low end, run AED 5,900 to 49,000 in Codingclave’s list and AED 15,000 to 110,000 or more in Element8’s. Product count, payment gateways, cash on delivery and Arabic are the drivers that move it within that range.
What are the ongoing costs after launch?
A .ae domain is published at AED 125 in the first year and AED 145 on renewal, SSL is free, and maintenance is published between AED 299 and AED 1,800 a month or AED 600 to AED 2,400 a year depending on the provider and the level. A Shopify Basic plan is about AED 88 a month billed yearly.
Does a website in Dubai include Arabic?
Often not. Published price lists show Arabic as a separate uplift, around AED 1,800 to AED 8,600 depending on the site type. Ask whether it is included, and whether the Arabic is written by a person or machine translated, because the second one reads badly to local customers.
Is WordPress cheaper than a custom website?
Yes, substantially. Published WordPress ranges sit at AED 2,200 to 20,000 against AED 24,500 and upwards for a custom application. WordPress is the right answer for most content and brochure sites. Custom becomes worth it when the site carries business logic a CMS cannot express.
Do these prices include VAT?
Usually unstated. Of the published guides we checked, only one marks its figures as excluding VAT and none of the others says either way. UAE VAT is 5 percent, so confirm it before you treat two quotes as comparable.
Sources
- Website development cost in Dubai, Element8
- Web development cost in Dubai 2026, Codingclave, figures marked as checked 12 October 2026 and excluding VAT; the Cubix, TheWebMakers, Bootesnull, AEserver and Innomedia figures above are as compiled and cited on that page
Every figure above is a published list price as of October 2026 and changes often, so check the source page on the day. If you want your own brief priced properly rather than guessed, send us the scope.
