Web Development Agency for the UAE, Saudi Arabia & the GCC
By Obaid Tariq, Founder & Lead Engineer · Published · Last updated
AI Dev Planner is a remote web development agency for businesses in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman. We build custom web applications, SaaS products, customer portals and business software on Next.js, TypeScript and PostgreSQL. Our team is in Islamabad, Pakistan, one to two hours ahead of the Gulf all year, which gives six to seven shared working hours a day. We have no office in the region: delivery is remote, senior-led, and starts from a written scope with a fixed quote.
Web applications, SaaS, customer portals and business software on Next.js, TypeScript and PostgreSQL.
A one-hour gap with the UAE and Oman and two hours with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, all year.
Arabic and right-to-left layouts planned from the first sprint, not retrofitted.
Hosting in a Gulf cloud region of an account you own; data access planned against your country’s law.
Local payment gateways such as Moyasar, HyperPay, Tap and PayTabs scoped in discovery, with mada, KNET and BENEFIT where you need them.
Published planning ranges from £25,000–£45,000 for a web app MVP, and you own the code.
Custom web development services in the Gulf
One team covers design, front end, back end, database, testing and deployment, so you do not have to coordinate several suppliers. Gulf clients most often come to us for software that runs a part of the business, rather than for a brochure site. Each service below has its own detail page with deliverables, technology and case studies.
Web application development
Booking, operations and customer-facing platforms with accounts, roles, dashboards and integrations.
A web application is software that runs in the browser and lets people do work: sign in, book, approve, pay or manage records. It is priced by user roles, workflows, integrations and compliance, not by the number of pages, which is why a portal can cost more than a large marketing site.
Gulf web applications tend to add a few requirements we plan in discovery rather than after launch:
Arabic and English from day one, with right-to-left layouts and translation files rather than hard-coded text.
Dates, numbers and currencies formatted per locale, and the Hijri calendar shown where your users expect it.
Integrations with the payment providers, accounting systems and government or sector services you already use.
Hosting in a UAE or Saudi cloud region, in an account your company owns.
Role-based access enforced in the database, for organisations with several branches, departments or partners.
If your website only needs content pages and a contact form, a website builder or a WordPress theme may be the cheaper choice, and we will say so. Our guide to WordPress vs Next.js explains where each fits.
Web development company for the UAE
For companies in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the other emirates we work as a remote web development company: we have no UAE office or trade licence. The UAE is on UTC+4 with no clock change, so 09:00 in Dubai is 10:00 in Islamabad and about seven hours of the working day overlap. Working weeks vary by employer, with federal government on a Monday to Friday week and many private companies closing on Sundays, so we agree shared working days at kick-off.
The federal Personal Data Protection Law, Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021, applies alongside separate regimes such as the DIFC’s Data Protection Law and the health ICT law. Which one applies to you decides how a team abroad may access personal data, so we confirm it with you and your adviser before anyone touches production. In practice we build on test data, with production in a UAE region of your own cloud account.
Web development services in Saudi Arabia
We work with companies in Riyadh, Jeddah and across the Kingdom remotely, with no Saudi office, entity or registration. Saudi Arabia is on UTC+3, two hours behind Islamabad all year, giving about six shared working hours. Government bodies and financial institutions have kept a Friday and Saturday weekend since 2013, so Sunday is a working day for most clients and a planning point for us.
Saudi Arabia’s Personal Data Protection Law, supervised by SDAIA, reaches processing of residents’ data by entities outside the Kingdom and expects transfers abroad to be limited to the minimum needed. Sector regulators such as the Saudi Central Bank can add their own approvals. That makes the design choice simple: host production in a Saudi region, give the development team synthetic data, and treat real-data access as a recorded exception. Saudi products also often launch Arabic-first, which we plan into the design system rather than add as a translation layer.
Government, semi-government and regulated-sector buyers may require a locally registered supplier. Check that before you shortlist any remote agency, including us.
Web development for businesses in Qatar
For companies in Doha we work the same way: remote delivery from Islamabad, no Qatar office or registration. Qatar is on UTC+3, so 09:00 in Doha is 11:00 in Islamabad and about six hours overlap. The standard working week runs Sunday to Thursday; we confirm yours, and the public holidays on both sides, at kick-off.
The law to name in scoping is Law No. 13 of 2016 on Protecting Personal Data Privacy. We do not summarise its transfer rules here; confirm with your adviser what it means for a development team outside Qatar, and we will design data access around the answer.
Web development services in Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman
We work with companies in Kuwait City, Manama and Muscat remotely, with no office or registration in any of them. Kuwait and Bahrain are on UTC+3 and Oman on UTC+4, none with a clock change. The laws to raise in scoping are Bahrain’s Personal Data Protection Law (Law No. 30 of 2018) and Oman’s Personal Data Protection Law (Royal Decree No. 6 of 2022); Kuwait has no single nationwide data protection statute, with sector rules applying instead. For an Omani website, cost follows the same planning ranges as below: what moves it is whether you need a content site or an application with accounts and integrations.
The full time-zone picture for the six GCC states:
Time difference and working-day overlap between Islamabad and the six GCC states
Country
UTC offset (no clock change)
Islamabad is ahead by
Overlap of a 09:00–17:00 day
United Arab Emirates (Dubai, Abu Dhabi)
UTC+4
1 h
7 h
Saudi Arabia (Riyadh, Jeddah)
UTC+3
2 h
6 h
Qatar (Doha)
UTC+3
2 h
6 h
Kuwait (Kuwait City)
UTC+3
2 h
6 h
Bahrain (Manama)
UTC+3
2 h
6 h
Oman (Muscat)
UTC+4
1 h
7 h
The overlap is arithmetic for planning, not a statement of our working hours, which are agreed per project. Working weeks, Ramadan hours, the data protection laws by country and the sources behind every figure on this page are in our guide to offshore software development for the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. General information, not legal advice.
Arabic and RTL web application development
Right-to-left support is cheap to build in and expensive to retrofit. When a product needs Arabic, at launch or in a later phase, we plan it from the first sprint:
Direction at the document level. Language and direction set on the page, and layouts written with logical start and end properties, so one codebase serves Arabic and English.
Mirroring with exceptions. Navigation and directional icons flip; logos, media controls, phone numbers and time-axis charts usually do not.
Bidirectional text tested with real content. Arabic sentences with English product names, numbers, emails and URLs, in forms as well as on pages.
Arabic typography. A web font with the weights you need, line heights that suit the script, and no letter-spacing on Arabic text.
Numbers, dates and documents. Western or Arabic-Indic digits, Hijri dates where needed, and PDFs, invoices and emails that render Arabic correctly.
A translation workflow. Strings in translation files and a review step by a native speaker on your side.
We have not yet published an Arabic-language case study. Ask us, as you should ask any supplier, to show a working right-to-left screen during scoping, and write the points above into the scope so they are tested, not assumed.
Startups, enterprises and Vision 2030 programmes
Gulf buyers come to us from three directions: funded startups in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh building a first SaaS product; established companies replacing spreadsheets and legacy systems with web applications; and teams delivering digital-transformation work tied to national programmes such as Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. The engineering is the same for all three. What changes is the paperwork around it.
Startups usually need speed and a fixed budget: a focused MVP in 8–12 weeks from agreed scope, Arabic and English from the first sprint, and code in their own repository so investors see a clean IP position.
Enterprises need integrations with ERP, CRM and government services, role-based access across branches, and an audit trail. We can work as a delivery team behind your IT function or a local integrator.
Government-linked and regulated programmes often require a locally registered supplier or in-country staff. We cannot meet that requirement directly; where a local prime contractor holds the contract, we can deliver a defined workstream under it.
Gulf cloud regions and data residency
The major clouds run regions inside the Gulf, so production data can usually stay in-country or in-region, in an account your company owns. Which region fits depends on your country’s data protection law and your sector regulator, not on our preference. The options we plan around most often:
Public cloud regions commonly used for GCC data residency
Country
Regions to consider
What to check
United Arab Emirates
AWS Middle East (UAE); Microsoft Azure UAE North and UAE Central
Confirm whether your sector (health, finance, government) or a free zone such as the DIFC sets its own rules.
Saudi Arabia
Google Cloud Dammam; other in-Kingdom regions as providers list them
PDPL and any sector regulator rules decide whether data may leave the Kingdom; check the provider's current Saudi region list before you commit.
Qatar
Google Cloud Doha; Microsoft Azure Qatar Central
Plan data access against Law No. 13 of 2016 with your adviser.
Bahrain
AWS Middle East (Bahrain)
Often used as the regional home for workloads serving several GCC states.
Kuwait and Oman
A neighbouring GCC region, chosen against your sector rules
Check with your adviser whether a regional (rather than in-country) region is acceptable.
In-region hosting reduces exposure but does not settle the question on its own: a development team abroad that can reach production data may still count as a transfer. So we build and test on synthetic data and limit production access to a named person with logged, time-limited credentials.
Region names from AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, accessed 8 November 2026. Providers add regions often; check their current lists. General information, not legal advice.
Regional payment gateways
Stripe is not always the answer in the Gulf. Customers expect local card schemes such as mada in Saudi Arabia, KNET in Kuwait and BENEFIT in Bahrain, plus Apple Pay and wallets, and many businesses already hold a merchant account with a regional gateway. We scope the gateway in discovery, against its current API documentation and sandbox, and build the checkout, webhooks, refunds and reconciliation around it.
Moyasar
Saudi Arabia: mada, cards, Apple Pay and STC Pay
HyperPay
Saudi Arabia and the wider region: cards, mada and local methods
Tap Payments
Across the GCC, including KNET in Kuwait and BENEFIT in Bahrain
PayTabs
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other GCC markets
STC Pay
Saudi wallet payments, usually through one of the gateways above
Supported methods differ by gateway, country and merchant agreement; confirm them with the provider. We have not published a case study for these gateways, so ask us to walk through the integration plan during scoping. For subscription billing on a SaaS product, see our guide to SaaS payments and authentication.
Our development process
Every project follows the same five steps, whether you are in Dubai, Riyadh or Muscat, with shared working days, the weekly demo day and public holidays on both sides written down at kick-off. More detail is on how we work.
01
Discovery and written scope
We map your workflows, data model, authentication and integrations, then turn them into a written scope with an estimate and a list of exclusions. Changes later are measured against this document.
02
Two-week sprints on staging
We build in fixed two-week sprints and deploy to a staging environment you can click through. Every two weeks you get a video walkthrough of the working software, not a status slide.
03
Testing before launch
Automated tests and load tests check how the application behaves under expected and peak traffic before it goes live.
04
Launch, handover and warranty
You receive setup and deployment documentation, environment configuration and a walkthrough. A 60–90 day warranty after launch covers defects in what we delivered.
05
Optional ongoing support
A maintenance retainer is scoped separately and can cover monitoring, security patches, dependency upgrades and performance work. You can equally support the product in-house.
Pricing and project timelines
There is no honest fixed price for a web application before it has been scoped, but there are honest planning ranges, and we publish ours. They are set in pounds sterling, with one US dollar band; we do not publish AED, SAR or QAR prices. The invoicing currency, payment schedule and who bears transfer fees are agreed in the contract.
AI Dev Planner published planning ranges by product type
Product type
Published range
Timeline
SaaS or web app MVP
£25,000–£45,000
8–12 weeks for a focused SaaS MVP; 12–16 weeks for a standard web-app MVP
For Gulf projects, the items that most often move a budget are Arabic as a launch language, local payment and government-service integrations, the number of user roles and any approvals your regulator needs. For an indicative range for your own scope, use the MVP cost calculator, or see all bands on our pricing page.
Why work with AI Dev Planner
Founder-led delivery. You work directly with founder and lead engineer Obaid Tariq and the engineers who write the code, in a dedicated Slack channel.
Hours that line up. One or two hours of difference, all year, means same-day answers and live working sessions.
A budget you can plan. Published ranges, a written scope with exclusions, and fixed two-week sprint costs you can stop after any milestone.
No lock-in. The code, repository and cloud accounts are yours, with a documented handover and a 60–90 day warranty after launch.
When we are the wrong choice
You need a locally licensed supplier or an on-site team in the Gulf.
Your regulator or contracts require that only in-country staff can access your systems or data.
You need a fixed quote before anyone has looked at the scope.
If you are hiring for a market outside the Gulf, see our US, UK and Europe web development agency pages.
Client names and figures are anonymised for confidentiality. Ask for an architecture walk-through on a call, where the engineers who did the work explain the decisions they made.
Frequently asked questions
How much does web development cost in the UAE?
It depends on scope, and we do not publish an AED price list. Our published planning ranges are roughly £25,000–£45,000 for a SaaS or web app MVP, £40,000 to over £80,000 for internal tools and £60,000 to over £120,000 for customer portals; a focused B2B SaaS MVP is $25,000–$65,000. Arabic and right-to-left support, integrations with local payment providers and the number of user roles are the main things that move a Gulf budget. Every project is quoted in writing after discovery, and the invoicing currency is agreed in the contract.
How do I choose a web development company in Dubai?
Judge local and remote suppliers the same way: live work similar to yours, the named engineers who will build it, a written scope with exclusions, a contract that assigns the code to you, and references you can speak to. If the product needs Arabic, ask to see a working right-to-left screen rather than a slide. Check whether your sector or customers require a locally licensed supplier, because a remote team like ours cannot meet that requirement. Our guide to choosing a software development company has a scorecard you can use for any shortlist.
What is the cost of custom web application development in Saudi Arabia?
We price Saudi projects on the same published bands as everywhere else, from about £25,000–£45,000 for a web app MVP, then fixed two-week sprint costs against a written scope. Saudi-specific work that can add cost includes Arabic as the primary language, Hijri dates alongside Gregorian ones, hosting in a Saudi cloud region, and any approvals your sector regulator requires before data leaves the Kingdom. We confirm the figure after discovery.
Can an offshore development agency work with a company in Qatar?
Yes, remotely. Doha is two hours behind Islamabad all year, so about six hours of a 09:00 to 17:00 day overlap, enough for daily stand-ups and same-day decisions. Agree the working days at kick-off, because the standard Gulf week runs Sunday to Thursday. Qatar's Law No. 13 of 2016 on Protecting Personal Data Privacy may apply to the data in your product, so confirm with your adviser how the development team may access it. We have no office or registration in Qatar.
Does your web development team support Arabic and RTL interfaces?
We build bilingual Arabic and English interfaces as a planned requirement: right-to-left direction set at the document level, layouts written with logical start and end properties so one codebase serves both directions, translation files instead of hard-coded text, Arabic web fonts and locale-aware numbers and dates. We have not yet published an Arabic-language case study, so ask us, as you would any supplier, to show a working right-to-left screen during scoping before you commit.
How long does it take to develop a business web application?
Our published timelines are 8–12 weeks for a focused SaaS MVP and 12–16 weeks for a standard web application MVP, from agreed scope to production release. Internal tools and customer portals are timed after discovery because integrations drive the schedule. Arabic launch content, Ramadan working hours on your side and public holidays such as Eid should be built into the plan.
Who owns the source code after development?
You do. You receive full IP in the bespoke source code, database design and documentation we write for you, assigned once the contractual milestones are met, with the exact wording in the contract and our terms of service. We recommend the repository, hosting, domain and third-party accounts sit in your company's name from day one, so you can bring in another team at any point.
Do you have an office in Dubai, Riyadh or Doha?
No. Our engineering team is based in Islamabad, Pakistan, and works with Gulf clients remotely. We do not have an office, trade licence, entity or registration in any Gulf state, and we would rather you know that before the first call than after it.
Can our data be hosted in the UAE or Saudi Arabia?
Yes. Production can run in a UAE or Saudi region of a cloud account your company owns and controls. Hosting in-country does not by itself settle the data protection question, because remote access by a team abroad can still count as a transfer, so we build and test on synthetic data and limit any production access to a named person with logged, time-limited credentials.
Which payment gateways can you integrate for Saudi Arabia and the UAE?
We scope the gateway in discovery against its current API documentation and sandbox. Gulf projects most often use Moyasar, HyperPay, Tap Payments or PayTabs, with local schemes such as mada in Saudi Arabia, KNET in Kuwait and BENEFIT in Bahrain, plus Apple Pay and wallets such as STC Pay. Supported methods differ by gateway, country and merchant agreement, so confirm them with the provider. We have not published a case study for these gateways.
How many working hours overlap with the Gulf?
Islamabad is UTC+5 all year, one hour ahead of the UAE and Oman and two hours ahead of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. If both sides keep a 09:00 to 17:00 day, about seven hours overlap with the UAE and Oman and six with the others. The working weeks differ, because the Gulf week usually runs Sunday to Thursday, so shared working days are agreed at kick-off.
Send a short description of your web application, which languages it needs and where your data must live. We will reply with whether we are the right fit, a rough range and how the work can be done with as little access to personal data as possible. If a locally licensed supplier would suit you better, we will say so.