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What actually sets a website's price, why quotes range from EGP 3,000 to 300,000, and how to compare them without overpaying or getting less.
"How much is a website?" is the first question we get from almost every business owner, and it is a fair one. But the honest answer starts with another question: a website that does what? In the Egyptian market you will find people offering a site for EGP 3,000 and others asking for EGP 300,000, and both can be telling the truth. This guide explains what creates that gap, how to read a quote, and which questions protect you from surprises.
Why do prices vary so much?
A website is not a boxed product on a shelf; it is a set of decisions. Every decision adds time from a designer or developer, and time is ultimately what you pay for. The main factors that move the price:
- Template or custom design: a ready-made template is cheap and fast, but it looks like thousands of other sites and is hard to change later. A custom design is built around your brand and your customers.
- Number and type of pages: an "About us" page is not the same as a product page with options and sizes, or a booking page tied to a calendar.
- The dashboard: do you want to edit content yourself? A good Arabic-friendly dashboard saves you the cost of every small change for years.
- Languages: an Arabic and English site is not just a translation; page direction, fonts and layout all change.
- Integrations: payment gateways, shipping companies, accounting systems, WhatsApp. Each integration needs development and testing.
- Speed, security and search visibility: these do not show up in the screenshots a vendor sends you, but they decide whether the site works for you or stays a pretty page with no visitors.
Three rough price bands
Low-cost sites (under EGP 10,000): usually a WordPress template with your colours and logo. Suitable if you are testing an idea and need a quick presence. The downside is that performance, security and support are often limited, and you may end up rebuilding the site within a year.
Professional company websites (from around EGP 25,000): custom design, a dashboard, two languages, basic search optimisation and contact forms. This is the band most small and mid-sized companies need. At Golden Code our company website plan starts from EGP 25,000.
Stores and platforms (EGP 50,000 and up): a store with product, stock and online-payment management, or a platform with user accounts and permissions. Here the price depends on the number of features more than the number of pages.
What should a quote include?
A good quote is not a number in a WhatsApp message. Ask for a written quote that spells out:
- The list of pages and features in detail, and what is out of scope.
- The number of revision rounds at each stage.
- The expected timeline and delivery stages.
- The payment schedule, with each payment tied to a milestone.
- The warranty period after launch, and the cost of maintenance afterwards, if any.
- Who owns the code, the design, the domain and the hosting.
Costs not everyone mentions
Some costs sit outside the development price, and you should know them from the start so they do not surprise you:
- Domain: renewed yearly; a .com domain costs little.
- Hosting: depends on the size of the site and the number of visitors, paid monthly or yearly.
- Payment gateway: takes a commission on each transaction in online stores.
- Maintenance: security updates and backups. Ignoring them costs far more than paying for them.
- Content and photos: if you do not have text and images ready, writing and shooting them is extra work.
Our advice: make sure the domain and hosting are in your own name and paid directly to the provider. That way they stay yours even if you change the company you work with.
How to compare two quotes
Do not compare numbers alone. Open each company's work on your phone and test the speed. Ask: can I edit the content myself? What happens if a problem appears two months after launch? Will I talk to the developer directly or to a salesperson? The cheapest quote can become the most expensive if you have to rebuild the site after a year, or pay for every small change.
How to lower the cost without losing quality
- Start with the essentials: launch with the most important pages, then add features gradually based on what your customers actually ask for.
- Prepare your content: ready text and photos save days of work.
- Be clear about what you want: the clearer your requirements are from the start, the fewer revisions and the less time it takes.
- Choose a good dashboard: you pay once and save the cost of every later edit.
Typical timelines
Time is part of the cost. A professional company website usually takes three to six weeks from the first meeting to launch: about a week to understand the business and plan the pages, one to two weeks of design and revisions, one to two weeks of development, and a final week of content entry, testing on real phones and launch. Online stores and platforms take longer because every feature needs to be tested with real scenarios, such as a failed payment or an out-of-stock product. Be wary of anyone who promises a complete custom site in three days; that usually means a template with your logo on it.
Questions to ask before you sign
- Can I see two or three live sites you built, and contact one of those clients?
- Who exactly will design and build my site, and will I talk to them directly?
- Will the site load fast on a mid-range phone on mobile data?
- What happens to my site and data if we stop working together?
The bottom line
There is no single "website price"; there is a website that fits your goal and your budget. Decide what you want the site to achieve for your business, ask for a clear written quote, and compare on value, not just the number. If you want the exact cost of your website, contact us for a free discovery call, or read about our website development service to see how we work.
