Ecommerce website cost in the UAE: build and running costs

Ask what an ecommerce website costs in the UAE and you are usually given a build price. That is half the picture. A store also has running costs that arrive every month: the platform, card fees, delivery, apps, the domain and someone to look after it.

The build cost depends on a few decisions:

• The platform. A hosted platform such as Shopify, WordPress with WooCommerce, or a custom build.
• The catalogue. How many products, how many variants such as size and colour, and whether stock comes from another system.
• Languages. An Arabic storefront doubles the product data and needs a right-to-left layout.
• Integrations. Payments, couriers, accounting and stock systems.

Our packages and what they include are on the pricing page. This guide covers the costs outside any agency quote.

We read the Shopify UAE and WooCommerce pricing pages on 27 September 2026. Shopify quotes its plans in US dollars.

Shopify's billing help says stores in the UAE are charged 5 per cent VAT on their Shopify bill, unless they enter a valid 15-digit tax registration number and certify that they are a VAT taxpayer. Our Shopify and WooCommerce comparison covers which platform suits which store.

Card fees grow with every sale, and in the worked example below they are the largest line. These are Shopify Payments' published online rates in the UAE.

The last column applies if you use a local gateway on Shopify, on top of that gateway's charges. WooCommerce adds no platform fee on payments.

Instalment services such as Tabby and Tamara, and cash on delivery, carry costs of their own. Our guide to UAE payment gateways compares published gateway fees and explains what to ask each provider.

Connecting a courier is usually done with an app or plugin. Aramex's app on the Shopify App Store is free to install, and its listing states that shipping fees are charged to your Aramex account. Your cost is the courier's rate per shipment, which you agree with the courier.

Showing live courier rates at checkout can cost more than the app. Shopify's pricing page lists live third-party shipping rates as a feature of the Advanced plan, and the Aramex app notes that checkout rates need Shopify's Carrier Service API to be available in the store. Flat delivery rates avoid the question.

• Shopify apps are priced by each developer. List the ones you need and add their monthly fees to your budget.
• WooCommerce extensions cost USD 29 to 299 a year each, according to WooCommerce's pricing page.
• Accounting, stock and point-of-sale links should be quoted separately.
• Cash on delivery has a collection charge from your courier. Ask for it in writing.

Product content is easy to leave out of a budget. Every product needs photographs, a title, a description, a price, variants, a weight for shipping and a stock code. On a bilingual store, every word is needed twice.

Shopify's help centre says product images must be under 20 MB and up to 5000 x 5000 pixels, and that square images of 2048 x 2048 pixels usually display well. It also advises one aspect ratio for all featured images, so collection pages line up. Plan the photography around those sizes.

Get written photography quotes per product or per day. Then decide who writes, translates and enters the product data. If nobody on your team has the time, it becomes a paid task.

The UAE VAT law sets a standard rate of 5 per cent. Article 38 of Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017 says the advertised price of a taxable supply shall include the tax, and the law lists failure to display tax-inclusive prices among the grounds for administrative penalties. Shopify lets you include tax in product prices, and set this for each market you sell to.

Ask your accountant or the Federal Tax Authority how VAT applies to your store and what your invoices must show. Configure the store once you have their answer.

Selling online also needs the right licence. The Dubai government's portal states that an online business on the Dubai mainland applies through the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, and that all eTrade licences require an approval or a no-objection certificate from the TDRA. It describes the eTrader licence as a home-based licence for individuals who sell through social media and online platforms, issued only as a sole proprietorship. Ecommerce in the UAE is governed by Federal Decree-Law No. 14 of 2023 on Modern Technology-based Trade.

Here is one month for an imagined store on Shopify Basic, billed monthly. It takes 150 orders with an average value of AED 250, all paid by UAE card through Shopify Payments. Sales for the month are AED 37,500. Every figure comes from a published price page read on 27 September 2026.

The published costs come to USD 32 for Shopify, plus about AED 1,249.58. Card fees are 3.3 per cent of sales, and they are by far the largest line. If 30 of those orders used international cards at 3.9% + AED 1.00, each would cost AED 10.75 instead of AED 8.25, adding AED 75 to the month.

To finish your own version, add courier charges, app subscriptions, any instalment or cash-on-delivery fees, and a care plan for updates and fixes. Our care plan is listed on the pricing page. We build and look after stores through our ecommerce website development service.