How much does a website cost in Dubai? (2026 prices)

A business website in Dubai typically costs between AED 1,000 and AED 50,000 or more, depending on who builds it and what it is built to do. That range is so wide it looks useless — until you break it into tiers. Here is what each price band actually buys, what drives a quote up or down, and the ongoing costs that rarely appear in the proposal.

Website price ranges in Dubai (2026)

• AED 1,000 – 3,500: Template-based builds by freelancers or website builders (WordPress themes, Wix, hosted platforms). A presentable brochure site, usually 1–5 pages, with limited customisation.
• AED 3,500 – 15,000: Small studios and experienced freelancers. Custom design on top of a proven platform, proper mobile behaviour, contact and WhatsApp integration, basic SEO foundations.
• AED 15,000 – 50,000: Agencies. Fully custom design and build, content strategy, bilingual English/Arabic versions, e-commerce or booking systems, performance and SEO engineered in from the start.
• AED 50,000+: Custom platforms — portals, marketplaces, web applications. At this level you are buying software development, not a website.

As with logo pricing, no tier is wrong in itself. A single-truck delivery business does not need a AED 40,000 build. A company competing for corporate clients against established names probably should not meet them with a AED 1,500 template.

What actually drives the price

• Custom design vs template: designing your site around your business costs more than pouring your text into a theme thousands of other companies use.
• Number of pages and content: who is writing the words? Copywriting is real work, and 'we'll use your content' often means the project stalls waiting for it.
• Arabic: a proper right-to-left Arabic version is a second layout job, not a translation dropped into the same template.
• Functionality: forms and WhatsApp buttons are cheap; payment, booking, membership and multi-language content management are not.
• SEO and speed: being genuinely findable and fast is engineering, not a checkbox — and it is the difference between a site that sells and a digital business card.
• Who you are hiring: an agency's price includes project management, strategy and accountability. A freelancer's price includes the freelancer.

The running costs nobody mentions

The build price is not the whole price. Every website carries recurring costs, and quotes rarely spell them out. Ask about all four before you sign:

• Domain: roughly AED 40 – 200 per year depending on the extension (.ae costs more than .com).
• Hosting: AED 100 – 1,500+ per year for a typical business site — more for e-commerce traffic.
• Maintenance: updates, backups, security patches and small fixes. Some builders include a year; many charge AED 1,000 – 5,000 annually.
• Licences: premium plugins, fonts, stock imagery and email services can quietly add a few hundred dirhams a year.

The most expensive website is the cheap one that never brings a customer. The second most expensive is the beautiful one nobody can find.

What you should always receive

• Full ownership of the domain, registered in YOUR name — not the agency's
• Admin access to the hosting and the site itself
• A mobile-first build — most UAE traffic is on a phone
• Working contact points: forms that actually deliver, and WhatsApp one tap away
• Basic on-page SEO: titles, descriptions, clean structure, a sitemap submitted to Google
• Clarity in writing on what maintenance is included, for how long

The domain point deserves repeating, because it is the most common trap in the market: if the builder registers your domain under their own account, you do not own your web address. Walking away later means starting over — or paying to be released.

Template, WordPress or custom?

Builders and templates are fine for validating a new idea cheaply. WordPress with a well-built custom theme remains the practical middle for most UAE SMEs — flexible, maintainable, and any developer can work on it later. Fully custom builds earn their cost when speed, security or unusual functionality genuinely matter to the business. Be suspicious of anyone who prescribes the platform before asking what the site needs to achieve.

Typical timelines

• Template build: 3 days to 2 weeks
• Custom-designed business site: 2 to 6 weeks
• E-commerce or bilingual build: 4 to 10 weeks
• Custom platform: 2 months and up

Five questions that expose a quote

• Who owns the domain, and whose account is it registered in?
• What exactly happens after launch — and what does it cost per year?
• Is the content written by you, by me, or by nobody?
• Will I see the design before you build it?
• What does 'SEO included' actually include?

What we charge

For transparency: at Manara Media every website is fixed-price, quoted by scope and agreed before work begins — no hourly surprises, no ownership games. Your domain is registered in your name, you receive full admin access, and maintenance terms are written down. If you want a specific number for your business, a short consultation is free.