What decides the price of a company website

Why two quotes for the same website can be so far apart

Website design cost is one of the first things clients ask me about, and the honest answer starts here: "a company website" is not one thing. One developer reads it as five pages on a template; another as a custom design in two languages, with a CMS, a booking form and a CRM connection. Both can be quoting fairly. They are quoting different websites.

I will not give prices here, because any number without your scope behind it would mislead you. Instead, this is what drives the cost of designing and building a website, what you keep paying after launch, and how to compare two quotes without guessing.

The type of site sets the starting point

• A landing page: one page with one goal, such as a campaign or an app download. The 90Plus landing page, for example, introduces a football app in Arabic and English and sends fans to the App Store and Google Play.
• A company website: several pages that explain who you are and what you offer, usually with a contact or quote form.
• An online store: products, cart, checkout, payments, shipping and order emails, on a platform such as Shopify, Salla or Zid, or built from scratch.
• A web platform: user accounts, dashboards and roles. This is software, planned and priced like an app, not like a brochure.

Many projects sit between two types, such as a company site with a small shop. That is fine, but say so at the start. Switching type halfway through is one of the most expensive changes you can make, because it changes the structure underneath.

Page templates matter more than the page count

Quotes often say "up to 10 pages", but the work depends on how many different page templates there are. A template is a layout: the home page, a service page, a project page, a blog post, the contact page.

A site with 30 service pages that share one layout can take less design and build time than a site with 8 pages that each look different. Once the service template exists, each extra service page is mostly content.

So list templates, not pages, and note roughly how many pages will use each one. Count the small screens too: the 404 page, the thank-you page after a form, the cookie notice and the emails a form sends. A good quote includes them.

Custom design, a template, or something in between

A ready-made template is the cheapest start, as long as you accept it largely as it is. Bending it into something it was not made for gets expensive fast, because every large change fights the template's own structure.

A custom design starts from your brand, your content and your visitors. A designer usually works in Figma first, you approve the layouts, and then the site is built to match. You pay for two jobs, design and development, and you get a site shaped around your content.

The middle ground is a set of tested components styled with your colours, typefaces and photos. Whichever you choose, ask in writing how many revision rounds are included and whether every template is designed for phone, tablet and desktop.

Content and copywriting: the part people forget

• Writing the text for every page, in every language
• Photos of your team, your work, your premises or your products
• Icons, illustrations and any video
• Moving old posts or project pages from your current site, with redirects
• Uploading everything and checking it on a phone

Content is the most common reason website projects run late, and it is often missing from quotes entirely. If one quote includes copywriting and photos and the other assumes you will supply them, you are not comparing the same thing.

Design with real content wherever you can. A layout approved with placeholder text often breaks when the real text arrives, especially when the Arabic runs longer or shorter than the English.

Arabic and English: what a bilingual RTL site adds

Adding Arabic is more than translating words. The whole layout mirrors from right to left: navigation, columns, icons that point in a direction, sliders, forms and tables. Arabic also needs a typeface designed for it, with enough line height to read comfortably.

Around the pages, each language needs its own addresses such as /en and /ar, its own titles and descriptions, and hreflang tags so Google shows the right version. Form emails, error messages and CMS fields need both languages too. Translation is a separate cost: machine translation is fine for a draft, but the pages that sell should be written or edited by someone who writes Arabic well.

Planned from day one, a second language is a contained piece of work. Added after launch, it often means going back through most templates. If your customers are in Egypt, Saudi Arabia or the UAE, plan for Arabic from the start. The Midex website, for example, runs in English, Arabic and German, so every template has to work in both directions.

Who edits the site after launch

• No CMS: the developer makes the changes. Simple, and fine for sites that rarely change.
• A CMS for the parts that change, such as news, projects and job openings; the rest stays fixed and fast.
• A CMS for almost everything, with page sections your team can add and reorder. The most flexible option, and the most work to build well.

Pick the level that matches what your team will really change in a normal month. Each step up adds design and build work, because every editable part needs fields, rules and a preview that does not break the layout.

The tool matters less than the fit. WordPress is a common choice. Headless tools such as Sanity keep the content separate from the code; the HotSpot website, for example, is built with Next.js and Sanity CMS, in English and Arabic. Some hosted CMS tools charge by editors or usage once you pass the free plan, so check before you choose, and ask for a short training session at handover.

Integrations: payments, CRM, WhatsApp and booking

• Forms that send leads by email and into a CRM such as HubSpot or Zoho CRM
• WhatsApp: a click-to-chat button is quick. Automated messages through the WhatsApp Business Platform need a Meta business account and approved message templates, and Meta charges for some messages.
• Booking: embedding an existing booking tool is quick. A custom flow with your own rules, like the showroom visit booking with date and time selection on the Diara website, is a feature in its own right.
• Payments: a gateway account in your company's name, plus local options such as mada cards in Saudi Arabia or cash on delivery in Egypt
• Analytics, ad pixels and a cookie consent banner for visitors from Europe
• Links to your own systems, such as stock levels or an ERP

Each integration has two costs: the build, and the account on the other side, which may have its own monthly plan or per-transaction fee. The hard part is what happens when a payment fails or a booking slot is taken twice. A good quote names each integration and says how it handles those cases, instead of a vague "integrations included".

Some providers must approve you before you go live. Payment gateways review your business documents and Meta reviews WhatsApp message templates, so start those early.

SEO, speed and accessibility belong in the build

• A unique page title and description for every page, in every language
• Clean addresses, a sitemap, a robots.txt file and hreflang tags between language versions
• Structured data with your business name, logo and contact details
• Redirects from every old address to its new one, if you are replacing a site
• Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools set up, with the sitemap submitted

This setup does not guarantee a ranking, and ongoing SEO work such as articles and links should be quoted separately. But skipping it makes every later effort harder, and missing redirects alone can cost a replaced site the search traffic the old one had.

Speed comes from properly sized images in modern formats, fonts that load without shifting the page, and no heavy sliders. Test on a mid-range Android phone over mobile data. Google measures this with Core Web Vitals, and PageSpeed Insights shows the results for any page.

Accessibility, such as readable contrast, labelled form fields, image descriptions and keyboard use, costs little when planned and much more when retrofitted. If you sell to consumers in the EU, the European Accessibility Act has applied since June 2025, so for many online businesses it is a legal question, not just good practice.

Yearly running costs: hosting, domain and email

• The domain, renewed every year. Country domains such as .sa, .ae or .eg have their own registration rules.
• Hosting, from a modest plan for a fast company site to managed WordPress hosting, or a server and database for a platform
• Business email through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, usually billed per user
• An SSL certificate, which most good hosts include for free
• Paid themes, plugins and font licences that renew yearly
• Third-party plans: a booking tool, a CRM, a store platform and its apps, payment fees and WhatsApp message charges

None of these is large on its own, but together they make a real yearly budget. Ask each developer to list every recurring cost, who pays it, and whose name the account is in.

That name should always be your company's, with the developer added as a user. A domain registered in a developer's name can be slow and stressful to get back.

Maintenance after launch

• Security and software updates for the CMS, plugins and code libraries
• Regular backups, and a tested way to restore them
• Uptime monitoring, so you hear about problems before your customers do
• Fixes when a connected service, such as a payment gateway, changes its API
• Small content edits within an agreed number of hours

The software around a website keeps changing, and a site nobody updates gets slower and less safe over time. WordPress sites with many plugins need this most. Maintenance is usually sold as a monthly plan, a block of prepaid hours, or pay as you go.

Ask how quickly someone responds when something breaks, what counts as a small change, and what is excluded. Bugs found in the first weeks after launch should be fixed under warranty, not billed as maintenance.

Timelines and what rushing costs

The timeline depends less on the code than on everything around it: how ready the content is, how many people approve each step, how fast feedback comes back, and whether third parties such as payment gateways have approved your account.

A tighter deadline does not make the work smaller. It means more people or longer days, which costs more and leaves less time for testing. If you have a fixed date, such as an exhibition, say so early. Often the better plan is to launch the core pages on time and add the rest later.

How to compare two quotes fairly

Put the quotes side by side and check that each one answers these points in writing. Where a quote is silent, ask, because silence usually means "not included":

• The type of site and the list of page templates, not just a page count
• Custom or template design, the screen sizes covered and the number of revision rounds
• Who writes, translates, photographs and uploads the content
• Every language, and whether Arabic is fully built right to left, including forms, emails and the CMS
• Which CMS, and what your team will be able to edit
• Each integration by name, plus the third-party accounts or fees it needs
• The SEO setup, speed and accessibility work included
• Hosting, domain and email: who sets them up, in whose name, and the yearly costs
• The timeline, and a payment schedule tied to stages of work
• The warranty, the maintenance terms, and who owns the design files, code and accounts at the end

Red flags in a website quote

• One total with no breakdown or written scope
• "Unlimited pages" or "unlimited revisions" with no definition
• The domain, hosting or email registered in the developer's name
• A promise of the first page on Google, or any guaranteed result
• No mention of content, or Arabic described only as "translation"
• Full payment before any work starts
• Nothing about what happens after launch
• Pressure to sign today because a discount is about to expire

A low quote is not a red flag on its own. It may describe a smaller site or a template. Ask what is missing and add those costs yourself; the gap often shrinks once both quotes describe the same site.

A high quote is not proof of quality either. Ask what the difference buys you: more design rounds, copywriting, a CMS, a longer warranty. If the answer is vague, so is the value.

How to lower the cost without hurting the result

• Launch with fewer templates, and add sections in a second phase
• Use tested components styled to your brand instead of a custom design for every detail
• Write the first content draft yourself and pay a writer to edit it
• Have the content ready before design starts, so nothing is designed twice
• Start with a WhatsApp button and a good form, and add automation later
• Use a store platform such as Shopify, Salla or Zid when your needs are standard. The Challenge Nutrition store, for example, runs on Shopify.
• Have one person on your side collect feedback and make decisions

These reduce the amount of work, not its quality. What I would not cut: a layout that works properly on phones, fast pages, accounts in your company's name, the basic SEO setup, and proper Arabic if your customers read Arabic. Saving there usually costs more later.

What to do next

Write a one-page brief: the goal of the site and the one action you want visitors to take, the type of site, the templates you expect, the languages, who will edit it, the integrations, two or three websites you like and why, and your deadline.

Send the same brief to every developer or agency you are considering and ask for itemised quotes that cover the comparison list above. Then go through the two best ones line by line on a short call.

If you would like a quote from me, send that brief through the contact page. I will reply with questions or an itemised quote that also lists the yearly costs after launch.

Common questions

How much does it cost to design a website?

It depends on the type of site, the number of page templates, custom or template design, the languages, the content, the integrations and the CMS. Any fixed figure given without that scope is a guess. The fastest way to an accurate number is to send the same short brief to two or three developers and ask for itemised quotes.

Should I choose a website template or a custom design?

A template is a good choice if you can accept it largely as it is and your budget is tight. A custom design is better when your content, brand or way of selling does not fit someone else's layout. A middle path is a set of tested components styled to your brand.

Is WordPress cheaper than a custom-coded website?

Not always. WordPress can be quicker to start when a good theme and existing plugins cover what you need, but the cost moves to setup, paid plugins and regular updates. A custom-built site has fewer parts to keep updated, but changes outside the CMS need a developer. Compare the total over a few years, not just the build.

What are the yearly costs of running a website?

Domain renewal, hosting, business email per user, and any paid themes, plugins, CMS plans or third-party tools. Stores and booking sites add platform plans and payment fees. Maintenance is usually a separate monthly or hourly cost.

Does adding Arabic double the cost of a website?

Usually not, but it is much more than translation. The layout has to mirror right to left, each language needs its own SEO setup, and every form, email and CMS field needs both languages. Planned from the start, it costs far less than adding it after launch.

How long does it take to build a company website?

It depends mostly on the scope and on how ready your content is. A single landing page is much quicker than a bilingual site with a CMS and integrations. Ask for a timeline with stages and the inputs you owe at each one, because delays usually come from missing content and slow approvals.

Do I need to pay for website maintenance?

If your site has a CMS, plugins or integrations, yes, in some form. Updates, backups and monitoring keep it safe and working. A simple site that rarely changes may only need an occasional check, so choose a plan that matches how much your site does.