Search for what a website costs in the UAE and you will find confident ranges, quoted to the dirham, on dozens of agency blogs. Follow any of them to a source and you find another agency blog.
We are not adding another invented number. What follows is the structure underneath a real quote — the seven things that actually move it — so you can read a proposal and tell whether it was priced or guessed.
Why "number of pages" is the wrong unit
Every brief starts with a page count and almost none of the cost lives there. Ten pages built from six reusable layouts cost less than six pages each designed from scratch, because the work is in the distinct layouts, not the URLs.
The same applies to hours, for reasons we set out in why the hour is a broken unit: an hourly rate prices the supplier's inefficiency and tells you nothing about what you are buying.
The seven things that actually move the number
1. How many genuinely different layouts
A hero, a services grid, testimonials, a pricing block, a contact section. Each distinct layout is designed once. Reusing it across pages is close to free. This is the single largest line in most builds and the one most quotes never itemise.
2. Whether the design is a system or a composition
Applying a proven design system to your brand is a different job from composing every section specifically for you. Both are legitimate; they are not the same price, and a quote that does not say which one it is has not told you what you are buying.
3. Who writes the words
The most underestimated line in web projects, and the most common cause of a schedule slipping. Supplying finished copy is cheapest. Having it tidied is more. Having it written is more again — and it is the one thing that reliably delays launch when the client keeps it.
4. Whether the site has to remember anything
A brochure site presents information. The moment you need logins, saved enquiries, customer records or orders, there is a database, an admin area and a security surface behind it. This is the biggest step change in the whole quote, and it is a yes/no question you can answer in one sentence.
5. Bilingual, decided at the start or bolted on later
Arabic is not a translation layer. It reverses the entire layout, and retrofitting it into a site designed left-to-right costs more than building for both from day one — every time. If Arabic is coming, say so before anyone designs anything.
6. What it has to connect to
A mailing list is a small integration. A CRM with two-way sync, a payment gateway, a booking system or an ERP is not. "Connect it to our systems" in a brief can mean AED 1,000 of work or AED 20,000, and only naming the systems resolves it.
7. Who maintains it afterwards
Not part of the build price, and it belongs in the same conversation. Updates, patches, expiring certificates and forms that quietly stop delivering. A quote with no answer here has moved a cost rather than removed one.
How to read a quote
A real quote itemises. Layouts, who writes the copy, how many revision rounds, what happens when you want an eleventh page after agreeing to ten. If it is one number with a paragraph under it, the argument about what that number included happens later, under deadline pressure.
A real quote states exclusions. Photography, content entry, ongoing hosting, third-party licences. An absent exclusions list is not generosity.
A real quote survives a question. Ask what happens to the price if the page count drops by a third. A studio that has priced the work answers immediately. One that guessed will need to get back to you.
The two-hour test before you brief anyone
Answer these and you can compare quotes on the same basis:
- How many distinct layouts do you actually need?
- Do you have finished copy, or does someone need to write it?
- Does the site need to save anything, or just present it?
- Arabic — yes or no? Decide now.
- Which specific systems must it connect to, by name?
- Who is updating it in month six?
Six answers, and every quote you receive becomes readable.
Why we publish ours
Our engagement levels and what sits inside each are on the site, because a buyer who cannot see a number cannot tell whether they are in the right conversation. It costs us the occasional enquiry from someone who was never going to be in range — which is the point.
If you want your own brief priced against those seven variables rather than against a paragraph, send it over. And if what you actually need is smaller than what you were about to buy, we would rather tell you that at the quote stage.