How much does custom software cost in Dubai?

Typical custom software prices in Dubai

These ranges assume a senior team, fixed-scope phases and production-quality work. Enterprise programmes sit above them and should be scoped individually.

• Paid discovery: commonly from AED 7,500 for a focused business; larger organisations are quoted after a short call. Good discovery fees are credited against the build.
• Single internal tool or workflow-shaped app: often AED 40,000 to AED 120,000 for a first useful release.
• Customer portal or multi-role web app: commonly AED 80,000 to AED 250,000 for a first release, depending on integrations and permissions.
• Broader platform or phased product: often AED 150,000 to AED 500,000+ across phases, and into the millions for large enterprise programmes.
• Ongoing support: typically AED 3,500 to AED 25,000 a month. That covers monitoring, fixes, updates and small improvements. The figure scales to system size and response times.

What drives the price

Integrations are usually the largest cost driver: every CRM, ERP, payment or identity system adds design, testing and long-term maintenance. Permissions, reporting, mobile clients and data migration come next. A clean process with one owner is cheaper than a political workflow with six approval paths.

AI features add cost when they need evaluation, guardrails and retrieval over your own documents. A thin chatbot wrapper is not the same project as an assistant that books into your systems with a human checkpoint.

Build vs buying another licence

Custom software is not automatically cheaper than SaaS. It usually wins when seat pricing is the wrong shape or the process is distinctive. It also wins when you are already paying partners to bend a platform that still needs spreadsheets beside it. For a standard pipeline used by a small team, a cheaper off-the-shelf tool is often the right answer.

How to buy without getting burned

Insist on a mapped scope before a build price. Require fixed phases you can stop after. Ensure source code and cloud accounts are in your name. Agree a clear monthly support plan after launch. If a vendor cannot say what changes in the first 30 days, treat that as a risk signal.