How much does an ecommerce website cost in Dubai? What drives the build, and what it costs to run
Short answer: the ecommerce website cost in Dubai depends on scope far more than on catalogue size: Arabic done properly, the number of distinct page templates, integrations, payments and migration. A custom bilingual build costs several times a template setup, and Shopify Plus or ERP work more again. Running the store then costs roughly AED 250–3,000 a month in plan and apps, before card fees, delivery and ads. The cheapest quotes usually leave out Arabic, payments, tracking or SEO.
Ask Google what an ecommerce website costs in Dubai and the answers run from four figures to six. GoDaddy’s MENA guide starts a basic Dubai site at around AED 1,000 and says larger builds can pass AED 50,000. Both ends are real. They’re pricing different things.
Below: what each build type includes, what moves the price, the monthly running costs that never appear in the quote, a worked year-one example, the red flags in cheap quotes and how to compare quotes fairly. I don’t publish build prices. Two stores with the same product count can need very different work, so every ecommerce website build I take on is scoped and quoted individually.
On this page: Build types · What drives the price · Shopify vs WooCommerce vs custom · Monthly running costs · Year-one example · Red flags · Comparing quotes · FAQ
Ecommerce website cost in Dubai by build type
| Build type | What you get | Relative cost | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Template setup | A theme installed, products loaded, a gateway or COD switched on. Little or no custom work. | Lowest. GoDaddy’s guide starts a basic Dubai site at around AED 1,000 | Varies |
| Launch store | Premium theme customised, payments, shipping, core apps, content | Theme licence plus customisation time; scales with templates and apps | 4–6 weeks |
| Custom bilingual build | Custom design and Liquid theme, English and Arabic with RTL, integrations | Several times a template setup; driven by Arabic design and templates | 6–10 weeks |
| Shopify Plus / complex | Plus, ERP or API integrations, custom apps, multiple markets | Highest; each integration is its own piece of work | 8–14 weeks |
| Headless (Hydrogen) | Custom front end on Shopify’s APIs | Above a custom build; scoped individually | Scoped |
| Migration to Shopify | Products, customers, orders, URL redirects | Scales with URLs to redirect, languages and any redesign | 3–8 weeks |
I don’t sell template setups, so that row is the market, not me. Everything else is quoted per project after a scoping call, and the quote excludes the Shopify plan and apps, which you pay to Shopify and the app developers directly.
What I’d pick: most UAE brands selling their own products should start with a launch store and spend the difference on stock and ads. Go custom when Arabic is central to the brand or the theme keeps fighting your product pages. Shopify Plus makes sense past roughly AED 300,000 a month online, and then for its features, not its fees.
What drives the price
Catalogue size matters less than people expect. Importing 50 products or 2,000 is mostly the same job. These are what actually move a quote:
- Arabic done properly. RTL layouts checked on every template, Arabic fonts that load fast, translated URLs and hreflang so the Arabic pages can rank. It’s the most common reason a project moves from the launch row to the custom row.
- Number of distinct templates. A store with one product type needs one product page. Eyewear with prescriptions, perfume with gift sets and furniture with delivery slots each need their own logic.
- Integrations. ERP, in-store POS, warehouse or a custom product configurator. Each one is a small project with its own testing.
- Payments. A local gateway, Tabby or Tamara with product page messaging, and COD rules by emirate. Shopify Payments is an option only on Advanced and Plus; details in my Shopify Payments UAE guide.
- Migration and SEO. Moving from WooCommerce or Salla means mapping every old URL to a 301 redirect. Skipping it is cheap on day one and expensive for months.
Shopify vs custom-coded vs WooCommerce
| Shopify | WooCommerce | Custom-coded | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform fee | Monthly plan, plus a transaction fee if you use a third-party gateway | None; you pay for hosting and plugin licences | None; you pay for servers |
| Hosting, security, PCI | Included | You manage | You manage |
| Time to launch | 4–10 weeks | 6–12 weeks | 4–9 months |
| Who keeps it running | Shopify, plus a developer for theme work | Your developer: updates, backups, plugin conflicts | Your developers, permanently |
I only build on Shopify, so weigh my view accordingly. WooCommerce has no subscription and no Shopify-style transaction fee, and on thin margins that is a real saving. You pay it back in hosting, yearly plugin licences and someone’s time to keep everything patched. Custom-coded makes sense for marketplaces or genuinely unusual business models. For a brand selling its own products, it’s an expensive way to rebuild a checkout that already exists.
Monthly running costs in AED
This is the part quotes leave out. The build is paid once; these arrive every month.
| Cost | Typical UAE range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Plan and apps, new store (Basic) | ~AED 250–600 / month | Before payment processing |
| Plan and apps, growing store (Grow) | ~AED 700–1,800 / month | Before payment processing |
| Plan and apps, established store (Advanced) | ~AED 1,600–3,000 / month | Advanced alone is about AED 1,465 a month on monthly billing |
| Card processing | ~2.5–3% per order | Depends on your gateway and negotiated rate |
| Shopify third-party transaction fee | 2% Basic, 1% Grow, 0.6% Advanced, 0.2% Plus | Not charged on COD. Removed for cards paid through Shopify Payments, but still charged on BNPL orders |
| Tabby / Tamara | ~4–6% per BNPL order | Paid by you, not the customer |
| Domain | ~AED 50–200 / year | .ae through a UAE registrar |
| Delivery and COD | Per shipment | Negotiated with your courier; volume decides the rate |
| Maintenance | Optional | A fixed monthly fee if you want a developer on call |
Plan-by-plan prices and the upgrade maths are in Shopify pricing in the UAE.
Last checked: October 2026, against Shopify’s UAE pricing page. Shopify bills UAE merchants in USD, so AED figures move with your card’s exchange rate.
A year-one total, worked through
Take a launch store on the Grow plan, selling AED 40,000 a month: 60% card through a local gateway, 15% Tabby or Tamara, 25% cash on delivery. The build stays a variable, because it depends on your scope.
| Item | Monthly | Year one |
|---|---|---|
| Build (one-off) | — | Your build quote |
| Plan and apps | AED 1,000 | AED 12,000 |
| Card processing, 2.7% of AED 24,000 | AED 648 | AED 7,776 |
| BNPL, ~5% of AED 6,000 | AED 300 | AED 3,600 |
| Shopify fee, 1% of AED 30,000 (COD exempt) | AED 300 | AED 3,600 |
| Total | AED 26,976 + your build quote |
The point isn’t the exact number. It’s that running costs come to about AED 27,000 in year one here, and none of it appears in a build quote. Delivery, ads, stock and VAT come on top. If someone quotes you a few thousand dirhams and calls it the cost of an online store, they’ve left out everything else on this table.
Red flags in cheap quotes
- No written scope. If the quote doesn’t list templates, languages, apps and integrations, you can’t compare it, and every “extra” becomes a change request.
- “Arabic included” that turns out to mean machine translation with no RTL testing. Ask to see an Arabic product page they’ve built.
- The store sits on their account. You should own the Shopify store, the theme, the domain and the Google and Meta accounts from day one. If they build on a development store, the transfer should be in the quote.
- Payments means “COD switched on”. Gateway applications, BNPL setup and test orders are real work. Make sure they’re included.
- No redirects on a migration. Old URLs without 301s are the fastest way to lose the traffic you already have.
- No tracking. Without GA4 and ad conversions in scope, your first month of ads is spent blind.
- Nothing after launch. Something always breaks in week one. Ask what support is included and for how long.
If you’re still at the licence stage, my ecommerce licence guide covers what you need before a gateway will approve you.
How to compare ecommerce website quotes
Dubai quotes rarely line up. Put them on the same basis first:
- One scope sheet for everyone. Catalogue size, languages, page templates, payment mix (card, BNPL, COD), couriers, integrations and launch date.
- One-off and monthly, separately. The build, the theme licence and every paid app listed apart, with each app’s monthly cost.
- A definition of done. Arabic tested on phones, a test order through every payment method, redirects mapped, tracking verified.
- The same VAT basis, and ownership and post-launch support in writing.
Category matters too: perfume, eyewear and fashion each need different product pages, as our industries page sets out.
Where NKM fits
I build Shopify stores for UAE brands and take on one or two builds at a time. Every project is scoped and quoted individually: send your catalogue size, languages, payment mix, any systems the store has to talk to, and your launch date. After a scoping call you get a written fixed quote, split into build, apps and running costs, with 30 days of monitoring after launch included.