A bilingual Arabic and English website usually costs roughly 15 to 30% more than an English-only build, according to Kolonell. With us, Arabic right-to-left design is included on custom and Plus tiers and is an add-on of about AED 1,750 on the Shopify launch tier. Prices exclude 5% VAT.
You ran your first site in English. Now customers, partners or your own family ask for Arabic, and the quotes you get range from a small add-on to double the price. It helps to know what the extra money pays for, so you can tell a fair quote from a padded one.
What you are really paying for
Arabic is not English with the words swapped. Arabic reads right to left, called RTL. So the whole page has to flip: the menu, the order of columns, the direction of arrows, the side the cart sits on, the alignment of text and forms. Some designs only work in one direction, which is why a bilingual site is not a copy and paste job.
The extra cost comes from five places. We list them below so you can ask any agency for a line on each.
| Cost area | What it covers | Who does it |
|---|---|---|
| Right-to-left design | Mirroring layouts, menus, icons, forms and sliders | Designer and developer |
| Arabic fonts and type | Choosing, licensing and testing readable Arabic fonts | Designer |
| Content | Translation or writing Arabic from scratch | Translator or copywriter |
| Technical set up | Language switcher, language tags, hreflang, URLs for each language | Developer |
| Testing | Checking every page on phone and desktop in both languages | Everyone |
How much more: the market and our prices
One local source, Kolonell, says bilingual RTL sites add roughly 15 to 30% to a build. That is a reasonable rule of thumb, though it is a market estimate from an agency blog and not a fact.
Our approach is different by tier. Arabic RTL is part of the design phase on our custom and Plus builds, so it sits inside the price. On the Shopify launch tier it is an add-on of about AED 1,750. All prices exclude 5% VAT.
| Build | From (AED) | Arabic RTL | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify launch store | 4,950 (typical 4,950 to 12,000) | Add-on, about 1,750 | 3 to 4 weeks, plus a little for Arabic |
| Custom Shopify theme | 14,500 (typical to 27,500) | Included in design | 6 to 8 weeks |
| Shopify Plus or headless | 34,500 (typical to 75,000) | Included in design | 10 to 16 weeks |
| WordPress business site | 3,950 (typical to 12,000) | Scoped in the quote | 2 to 4 weeks |
| Custom WordPress | 9,950 (typical to 20,000) | Scoped in the quote | 4 to 8 weeks |
So an Arabic and English Shopify launch store with us starts around AED 6,700 (AED 4,950 plus about AED 1,750). That is an example from our price book, not a quote. Content costs are separate. For the broader price picture see website cost in Dubai. We cover pages like these in our website design service in Dubai.
Translation or copywriting?
This choice changes both cost and results, and the cheapest option often costs the most in lost trust.
| Option | What it is | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Machine translation | Software converts your English | Internal drafts only | Stiff or wrong phrasing; poor for a brand |
| Human translation | A translator renders your English into Arabic | Policies, specs, service pages | Can read flat if the English was written for English readers |
| Arabic copywriting | A writer creates Arabic for the brand, not word for word | Home page, product stories, ads | Costs more; needs a good brief |
| Review by a native speaker | Someone checks translated text | Any machine or human draft | Needs someone who knows your industry |
Our view: pay a human for the pages customers read first, which are the home page, the main collections and the About page. Use plain human translation for policies and specs. Never publish machine text for a premium brand. Ask for a price per word or per page before you commit, because content is often the largest and most variable cost.
Modern Standard Arabic or Gulf dialect?
Most websites use Modern Standard Arabic, which every reader understands. Marketing copy for a Gulf audience sometimes uses a lighter, more local tone. Choose based on your customer and say so in the brief.
Fonts
Arabic letters change shape depending on where they sit in a word. Some fonts look good in a heading and become hard to read in small text. A font also has to match your English font in weight and feel. This takes design time. It also takes a licence check, because not every font is free for web use. Ask who pays for the font licence.
- Use a readable Arabic font for body text and a more expressive one only for headings.
- Test numbers. Decide whether you show Western digits or Arabic-Indic digits, and keep it consistent.
- Test on phones. Small Arabic text is where weak fonts fail first.
- Keep font files light so the page stays fast.
The technical bit: hreflang and URLs
If you have two language versions, Google needs to know they are related, and which to show to whom. That is the job of hreflang tags, which tell search engines that /en/ and /ar/ are the same page in two languages. Each language also needs its own URL, such as /ar/ for Arabic, not a button that swaps text on the same address.
Done right, an Arabic searcher sees your Arabic page in Google and an English searcher sees the English one. Done wrong, each version competes with the other or one is ignored. We cannot promise any ranking, but we can make sure the set-up is correct. Google documents hreflang in its Search Central help pages, so confirm the current guidance there.
Common mistakes
- A language switcher that changes the words but not the layout direction.
- Product names, prices and buttons left in English inside Arabic pages.
- Images with English text baked in.
- Emails, invoices and checkout pages that stay English.
- Forms that reject Arabic characters or break the order of the fields.
- Phone number and address fields that only fit the English format.
The checkout and the order emails are where a half-translated store loses buyers. Budget time for them.
Do you need Arabic at all?
Not always. If your customers are international professionals, tourists or B2B buyers in English, an English-only site may be enough for now. If you sell to Emirati and Arab families, or to older customers, or your competitors have Arabic, it is a strong reason to add it. A second language also doubles what you must maintain, so every new product needs two descriptions.
If you are unsure, launch in English with a design that is ready for Arabic, and add Arabic in a second phase. That spreads the cost without forcing a rebuild.
A worked example
Take a perfume brand with 40 products that wants an Arabic and English Shopify store. Using our price book, the launch store starts at AED 4,950 and the Arabic layout adds about AED 1,750, which brings the build to about AED 6,700 excluding VAT. Then add content. If the brand has 40 products with a short description each, plus a home page, About page and policies, a human translator or copywriter will quote separately, and the price depends on word count and on whether you want translation or fresh Arabic writing.
If the same brand chose a custom Shopify theme from AED 14,500, Arabic design would be inside that price, and the content would still be extra. This is an illustration with our own numbers, not a quote.
Running costs after launch
Bilingual sites cost more to keep up. Every new product needs text in both languages, every sale banner needs two designs and every campaign needs two sets of copy. Decide who will write the Arabic each month, and what it costs, before you commit. If you plan to publish blog posts or news, double the writing time.
Check email and WhatsApp messages too. If your store replies in English to an Arabic customer, you lose the benefit of the translation. Our WhatsApp auto-reply guide shows how to answer in the language the customer used.
What to ask in a quote
- Is Arabic included in the design price, or an add-on?
- Who writes or translates the Arabic, and who reviews it?
- Which Arabic fonts, and who pays for the licence?
- How are language URLs and hreflang handled?
- Are checkout, emails and invoices in Arabic too?
- How are future products and pages added in both languages?
To see what a store built with Arabic in mind looks like, open our Oud Atelier design study. For the Shopify side of the story, read our guide to the Shopify Arabic store.
Questions
Roughly 15 to 30% more than English only, according to Kolonell. With us, RTL is included on custom and Plus tiers and about AED 1,750 on the Shopify launch tier, excluding 5% VAT. Content is separate.
RTL means right to left. Arabic is read from the right, so layouts, menus and icons must mirror. Without this the site looks wrong even if the words are correct.
Not for a brand. It is fine for a rough draft, but customers notice stiff Arabic. Pay a human to translate or write the key pages, and have a native speaker review them.
Yes. Each language should have its own address with hreflang tags, so that search engines can show the right language. A switch that changes text on the same URL does not help search.
Yes, if the English site was designed to be bilingual from the start. It is cheaper than a rebuild. Tell your designer about Arabic in the first brief.
Usually a little longer, mainly because of content, testing and review. The build time depends on the tier, and Arabic content is often the slowest part.