How much does website design cost in Saudi Arabia in 2026?
Website design cost in Saudi Arabia has no single going rate: a one-page profile and a bilingual 300-page site with bookings are both called “a website”. With us, a static business website starts from US$150, a large SEO website from US$300, an online store from US$750 and a portal or web app from US$900.
Those are floors, not totals. A simple site for a small contractor may land close to the starting price. A bilingual corporate site with many layouts, a careers section and several forms will sit well above it. The useful question is not “what does a website cost?” but “what does this list of pages and features cost?”, which is why the rest of this guide breaks cost into parts you can control.
One caution about comparisons. Prices you see online, including ours, are rarely for identical scopes, and many do not include running costs. The most reliable way to compare is to send the same written brief to each provider and ask for itemised quotes.
- Business site up to 100 pages: from US$150
- SEO or content site with 299+ pages: from US$300
- Online store: from US$750
- Portal, booking system or web app: from US$900
Why do website design quotes in Saudi Arabia vary so much?
Quotes differ because providers price different amounts of work, carry different overheads and include different extras, and because many briefs are vague enough to be read three ways. Two quotes can both be honest and still be far apart.
The work itself varies most. One provider plans a custom design with six unique templates; another installs a ready-made theme and changes colours. One includes Arabic copywriting; another expects you to supply it. One quotes hosting for a year; another leaves it out. Until the scope is written down, the numbers are not comparable.
Overheads come next. A local agency with an office, account managers and a sales team has costs that a small freelance team working remotely does not. That is not a criticism: in-person service and local presence are real benefits, and they cost money. Finally, risk pricing: some providers add margin for unclear scope, and a well-written brief removes much of it.
Scope
Templates, features, languages, content and integrations. The largest and most controllable factor.
Overheads
Office, sales and management layers. Reflects the service model more than the build quality.
Inclusions
Copywriting, photography, hosting, maintenance and SEO. Check each one on every quote.
Website design cost in Saudi Arabia by type of website
Think of your site as one of five types, because each has a different cost shape. The type sets the starting point; features and languages add to it.
A company profile site is mostly design and content, with a contact form and maps. A service business site adds service pages, perhaps per city, and lead forms that reach WhatsApp. A content or SEO site is built for hundreds of pages from structured data, so templates and data preparation dominate. A store adds catalogue, checkout, shipping and invoicing. A portal or booking system adds logins, databases and business rules, and is really a piece of software.
Moving up a type usually matters more than adding pages. Ten extra service pages on a profile site add modest effort; adding online booking with deposits turns it into custom work. If budget is tight, launch the simpler type first and add the feature once the site is paying its way.
- Company profile or service site: from US$150
- Hundreds of service-area or product pages: from US$300
- Store with mada and Apple Pay checkout: from US$750
- Booking, portal or dashboard: from US$900
What does a bilingual Arabic and English site add to the cost?
A bilingual site costs more than a single-language one because it needs right-to-left engineering, Arabic fonts, a second set of URLs and metadata, and twice the content entry and review. How much more depends on whether RTL is designed in from the start or bolted on later; bolting on is usually dearer.
In our builds, the RTL layout comes from the same templates written with logical CSS, so the extra engineering is moderate. The larger extras tend to be outside the code: Arabic copy, which your writer or translator supplies and you pay them for, and review time, because every page must be checked in both languages on phones.
A practical approach for tight budgets is to launch both languages for the pages that bring enquiries (home, services, contact) and add Arabic versions of long articles later. What we advise against is machine-translated Arabic going live unedited to save money; it costs trust with the very customers the Arabic pages are for. Details are on our bilingual Arabic and English website page.
What should a website design quote in Saudi Arabia list?
A good quote lists every piece of work and every running cost separately, with who provides each. If a quote is one number with no breakdown, ask for the breakdown before comparing it with anything else.
Ours are split into lines you can accept, remove or move to a later phase. That lets you see, for example, that the booking feature is a third of the total, and decide whether it belongs in the first release.
- Discovery and sitemap in both languages
- Design: number of unique page templates
- Development: templates, forms, integrations
- Content entry: how many pages, in which languages
- SEO setup: titles, descriptions, schema, sitemaps, hreflang
- Integrations: payments, booking, WhatsApp, CRM, e-invoicing
- Testing on phones and browsers, in both directions
- Training and handover notes for your staff
- Maintenance terms after launch
- Running costs you pay to others: domain, hosting, licences
Anything the quote leaves out should be named as excluded, not left silent. Arabic copywriting, photography and paid plugins are the three most often forgotten. See how we structure a starting price list for each service.
Hidden and recurring costs after the website goes live
The build is a one-off; the site then costs money every year. Budget for the first twelve months, not just launch day, and make sure every recurring account is in your business's name.
The domain renews yearly. A .sa domain is registered through a licensed registrar, as SaudiNIC, which runs the .sa registry under the Communications, Space and Technology Commission, requires for private-sector registrations; a .com is bought from any registrar. Hosting renews monthly or yearly, and business email is often a separate subscription per mailbox.
Then come the less obvious ones: premium theme or plugin licences on WordPress, a map or search API if usage is high, payment gateway fees on each transaction for stores, stock photo licences, and Arabic copy for new pages you add later. Maintenance keeps software updated and backups working; with us it is free for two months after launch and then from US$120/mo. Monthly SEO, if you want it, starts from US$150/mo.
- Domain renewal (.sa through a licensed registrar, or .com)
- Hosting and SSL, business email
- Theme, plugin and API licences
- Payment gateway fees for stores
- Arabic and English copy for new content
- Maintenance from US$120/mo after the free period
Is a cheap website in Saudi Arabia a false economy?
Sometimes. A low price is fine when it buys a small, well-built site you own; it becomes expensive when it hides a rebuild in two years. The questions below separate the two.
Warning signs include a site built on the provider's own locked platform that you cannot move, a domain registered in the provider's name, no Arabic version or an Arabic version that is machine-translated and left-to-right, no access to the admin, and a quote that says nothing about maintenance. Any of these can turn a low price into a costly second project.
Low cost and good value can coincide. A static site on a modern framework, with a clean bilingual structure, hosted on an account you control, can be both inexpensive and long-lived. That is the route our starting plan from US$150 follows. The saving comes from fewer layers, not fewer standards.
Ask every provider
Who owns the domain, hosting and code? Can I export everything? What happens if you are unavailable next year?
Red flag answers
“We host it for you, it's included forever”, “you don't need access”, or “Arabic is automatic”.
Quotes in US dollars: what that means for a Saudi budget
We quote and invoice in US dollars, and because the Saudi riyal is pegged to the dollar, a USD quote converts to riyals at a stable rate rather than drifting with currency markets. Your bank or payment service applies its own conversion margin and transfer fee, so ask them what a transfer costs.
Payment is by Wise, bank wire or PayPal against milestones agreed in the quote, with nothing billed before your written approval. A typical split is a first payment to start, one after design approval and one at launch, but the exact milestones are agreed in your written quote.
Invoices come from India, from three freelance developers, and show the details your accountant needs. We do not charge Saudi VAT on our invoices, because we are not registered in the Kingdom; how your business accounts for tax on the service is covered in the next section and belongs with your accountant.
VAT reverse charge and withholding tax when you pay a web designer abroad
Paying a non-resident provider can create tax obligations on your side, and the two to ask your accountant about are VAT under the reverse charge and withholding tax. We do not give tax advice; this section only explains why the questions exist so they are not a surprise at month-end.
Saudi VAT has a standard rate of 15%, in force since July 2020. When a VAT-registered business in the Kingdom receives services from a supplier with no Saudi VAT registration, the reverse charge mechanism can apply: the Saudi business accounts for the VAT itself rather than the supplier charging it. Whether and how it applies to your purchase, and whether you can recover it, is your accountant's call. ZATCA, the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, publishes its guidelines on its official website.
Saudi income tax rules can also require a resident business to withhold tax from certain payments to non-residents and pay it to ZATCA, with the rate depending on the type of payment. A tax treaty between Saudi Arabia and India exists, and your accountant will know whether it changes the position for your payment. Tell us early if withholding applies, so the quote and invoices are set up in the way your accountant wants.
How payments, e-invoicing and WhatsApp change website design cost
Integrations are where Saudi website budgets grow fastest, because each one connects your site to another system with its own rules, test environment and failure cases. Price each integration as its own line and decide which belong in the first release.
Card and wallet checkout with mada and Apple Pay involves a merchant account in your name, a gateway integration, webhooks and refunds; our payment gateway integration page explains the pieces. Stores and billing systems that issue tax invoices from their own code may need a ZATCA e-invoicing integration, which is a software project on its own.
WhatsApp is cheaper to start with: a click-to-chat button costs almost nothing, while automated order confirmations and reminders through the WhatsApp Business Platform are a separate build with per-message charges from Meta. CRM links, booking calendars and map search each add their own line. None of these is required for a first site; all of them can be added later if the structure allows it.
What SEO adds to website design cost in Saudi Arabia
Basic SEO should be part of the build, not an extra: clean URLs, titles and descriptions per page and per language, headings in order, fast loading, structured data, an XML sitemap and hreflang for bilingual sites. If a quote treats these as a paid add-on, ask what the base price includes.
Ongoing SEO is a different cost: research, new content, local listings and technical monitoring month after month. With us it starts from US$150/mo. It makes sense once the site exists and you know which services earn the most; it is optional, and nobody can honestly guarantee rankings in return for it.
A site with many service-area or product pages is often the better investment for search than a small site plus monthly SEO, because it gives search engines and AI tools more precise pages to show. That is the idea behind our SEO website plan from US$300. For map-pack visibility, our local SEO in Saudi Arabia page covers Google Business Profile work.
Ways to lower your website design cost without cutting corners
The cheapest hour of work is the one nobody has to do twice. Most savings come from preparation on your side and from phasing, not from choosing a lower-quality build.
- Write a one-page brief: audience, pages, features, languages, deadline
- Collect logos, photos and existing copy before the project starts
- Use fewer unique templates; repeat layouts across similar pages
- Launch core pages in both languages; add long articles later
- Phase features: booking or portal in release two
- Choose a static or lean build unless you truly need a CMS
- Keep domain and hosting accounts ready in your business's name
- Give one person authority to approve designs and copy
Scope changes during a build are the most common reason costs rise. We list every change request with its cost before doing it, so you decide in writing rather than discovering it on the final invoice.
How long a Saudi website takes, and how timing affects cost
A static business site usually takes one to two weeks of build, an SEO site three to five weeks, a store four to eight weeks and a portal six to twelve weeks. The biggest delays are almost always content and approvals, not code.
Timing affects cost indirectly. A project that stalls for a month waiting for Arabic copy still needs everyone to re-read the brief when it restarts. Rushed deadlines can mean dropping features to protect the date. The cheapest plan is a realistic one that fits your team's availability for reviews.
Plan around the Saudi calendar too. Approvals slow down during Ramadan and the Eid holidays, and campaigns tied to seasons or national events need the site ready weeks before, not days. Tell us your launch date on the first call and we will say honestly whether it is achievable for the scope.
Working with a remote team in India on a Saudi website budget
India is 2.5 hours ahead of Saudi Arabia, so your working day falls within ours, and four of your Sunday–Thursday days overlap with our week. Budget reviews, design walkthroughs and launch calls happen on Google Meet or Teams in English; quick questions go through WhatsApp any day.
The honest trade-off: you save on overheads and get three people with complementary skills, but you do not get in-person meetings, site visits or native Arabic copywriting. If those matter more than cost to your project, a local provider is a better fit.
Ownership is set up before any code is written. The domain, hosting, analytics and repository are created in your business's accounts, and we are invited as users you can remove. That protects the money you spend: if you change providers later, nothing has to be rebuilt just to get it back.
First week
Brief review, sitemap, itemised quote and a list of what you need to supply, including who writes the Arabic copy.
Second week
Design direction on a staging link you open on your phone, with the first templates in both languages if the site is bilingual.
Worked example: budgeting a hypothetical Dammam air-conditioning contractor's site
Take an air-conditioning installation and maintenance contractor in Dammam, invented for illustration, that wants a bilingual site to win more service calls across the Eastern Province. It has no site today, a logo, and a few phone photos of past installations.
The brief lists a home page, six service pages, a page for each of five cities it covers, an about page, a contact page with a quote form that sends to WhatsApp, and Arabic plus English versions of everything. That fits the static plan, starting from US$150, with extra lines for the bilingual templates, the city pages and content entry. Arabic copy is written by a freelance translator the contractor hires directly.
The first-year budget then adds items paid to others: a .sa domain through a licensed registrar, hosting, and business email. Maintenance is free for two months, then from US$120/mo if the contractor wants it. Online booking with deposits is deliberately left for a later phase. This example shows how a budget is assembled; it does not describe a real business or a guaranteed final figure.
Checklist: comparing website design quotes in Saudi Arabia
Put every quote you receive against the same checklist. Where a quote is silent, ask the question; the answer often explains a large part of the price gap.
- Same sitemap and page count in every quote?
- Arabic and English both included, and who writes the Arabic?
- Number of unique designs, and how many revision rounds?
- Hosting, domain and email: included, excluded, and in whose name?
- SEO basics, sitemaps and hreflang included in the build?
- Integrations listed separately with their own prices?
- Maintenance terms and cost after launch?
- Full ownership and export of code and content?
- Payment milestones, currency and invoice details your accountant needs?
- Tax points on paying a non-resident provider raised with your accountant?
Send us the same brief you send everyone else and we will answer each line. Our process is on the about page.