Choose a web design company by what it can show you before you sign: real sites it has built and still supports, a clear plan for Arabic and English, a platform that fits how you sell, and a contract that leaves your domain, hosting and admin access in your name. Treat the lowest quote and any promise of guaranteed rankings with caution.
There is no single “best web design company in Saudi Arabia”. The right company is the one whose way of working fits your business, your budget and your customers. The checklist below is what we would want a business owner to ask any agency, including us.
Start with what the site must do
A website for a clinic that takes bookings, a contractor that wants quote requests and a brand that sells online are three different projects. Before you compare agencies, write down the one action you want visitors to take: call, send a WhatsApp message, fill in a form, book or buy.
A good agency will ask about this in the first meeting and plan the pages, the calls to action and the tracking around it. If the conversation is only about colours and animations, the site may look good and still bring few enquiries.
Arabic and English, done properly
Most Saudi businesses need both languages. Doing this well is more than translating the English text.
- Native Arabic copy. Arabic pages should be written for Saudi readers, not machine-translated. Ask who writes and reviews the Arabic.
- Right-to-left layout. Menus, icons, forms and sliders must mirror correctly on Arabic pages, on mobile as well as desktop.
- Separate pages per language. Each language should have its own URL, linked to its pair with hreflang tags, so Google shows the right version to each searcher.
- Arabic keyword research. People search differently in Arabic. The Arabic pages need their own research, not translated keywords.
We explain the search side in more detail in our guide to Arabic SEO in Saudi Arabia.
Look at real work and real people
Ask for live websites the agency built, not only screenshots. Open them on your phone, try the forms and the WhatsApp button, and switch between Arabic and English. If you can, ask one of their clients how the project went and how support works after launch.
Ask who will actually work on your site: the designer, the developer and the person who writes the content. A small, named team is often better than a large agency that hands the work to people you never meet.
You can see some of our own work on our projects page.
Pick a platform that fits how you sell
The platform decides what the site can do later and how much it costs to run. As a rule of thumb:
- WordPress suits service businesses and content-heavy sites that need flexible pages and full control.
- Salla and Zid are Saudi e-commerce platforms with local payments and shipping built in, a practical start for many online stores.
- Shopify or WooCommerce suit stores that need more customisation or sell across several markets.
An agency that only works with one platform will usually recommend that platform. Ask why it fits your business. Our comparison of website platforms for Saudi businesses goes through the trade-offs.
Saudi requirements to raise early
These points are easy to forget until late in a project. Ask how the agency handles each one.
- Domain. Saudi domains are registered through SaudiNIC, part of the Communications, Space and Technology Commission. A
.com.sadomain is for entities with a valid commercial registration, or a trade name or trademark registered in Saudi Arabia. - Personal data. Saudi Arabia’s Personal Data Protection Law has been fully enforceable since 14 September 2024. Contact forms, booking forms and tracking tools collect personal data, so the site needs a clear privacy notice and consent where it is required.
- E-invoicing. If you sell online, check how invoices are issued. ZATCA is bringing businesses into Phase 2 of e-invoicing in waves, so the store and your accounting system may need to work together.
- Local payments. Shoppers expect Mada and Apple Pay, and many also use STC Pay or buy-now-pay-later options such as Tabby and Tamara. Confirm which ones your platform and payment provider support.
This is general information, not legal advice. Confirm your own obligations with the relevant authority or a qualified adviser. For online stores, see our e-commerce development services.
Speed and mobile
Most Saudi visitors will see your site on a phone first. Ask the agency how it measures speed and what it aims for. Google’s Core Web Vitals are a sensible benchmark: the main content should appear within 2.5 seconds, the page should respond to taps in under 200 milliseconds, and the layout should not jump around while it loads.
Ask for a PageSpeed Insights test of one of their recent sites on mobile. Heavy sliders, large images and too many plugins are the usual reasons a beautiful site feels slow.
SEO from day one
A new site should be built so that Google can crawl and understand it: one clear heading per page, page titles and descriptions you can edit, clean URLs, a sitemap, and structured data where it is accurate.
If you are replacing an existing site, this matters even more. Pages that rank today need to keep their address or redirect to the right new page, or you can lose traffic overnight. Ask the agency for its redesign plan, and read our website redesign SEO checklist before you agree to a launch date.
Who owns what
Make sure the following are registered in your company’s name, with admin access for you, before the project ends:
- The domain name and the hosting account.
- The website admin login, at the highest permission level.
- Google Analytics, Google Search Console and any ad accounts linked to the site.
- Paid themes, plugins and licences, or a clear list of which ones the agency provides and what they cost each year.
An agency can still manage these for you. The point is that you can move to another provider without losing your website.
What affects the cost
Quotes for what sounds like the same website can differ a lot. Compare what is included, not only the total.
| What drives the cost up | What keeps it down |
|---|---|
| Custom design for every page | A proven template adapted to your brand |
| Arabic and English, each written natively | One language at launch, the second added later |
| Online store, bookings or integrations with other systems | A brochure site with a contact form and WhatsApp |
| Content, photography and video produced by the agency | Content and images you already have |
| Ongoing support, updates and security | A one-off build with support on request |
Ask every agency to separate its own fee from third-party costs such as hosting, domain, licences and payment fees. Our guide to website development cost in Saudi Arabia explains the main cost drivers.
Questions to ask before you sign
- Which live sites have you built that are similar to ours, and can we speak to one of those clients?
- Who will work on our project, and who writes the Arabic content?
- Which platform do you recommend for us, and why?
- How will you handle Arabic and English pages, including hreflang?
- How will you test speed on mobile, and what result do you aim for?
- If we already have a site, how will you protect the pages that rank today?
- Which forms, calls and WhatsApp clicks will be tracked, and where will we see them?
- What is included in support after launch, and what does it cost?
- Which costs are yours, and which are third-party costs we pay directly?
- Will the domain, hosting and all admin accounts be in our name?
Red flags
- A price given before anyone has asked what the site needs to do.
- No live examples, or only mock-ups.
- Arabic pages produced by automatic translation.
- The domain or hosting registered in the agency’s name, with no plan to transfer it.
- Promises of “page 1 on Google” or a guaranteed number of visitors.
- No mention of redirects when an existing site is being replaced.
- No written scope that lists the pages, features and what happens after launch.
If you want a second opinion on a proposal, see how we work on our web design company in Saudi Arabia page, or our website design service in Riyadh.
Sources
Comparing web design quotes?
Send us the proposals you have and your current website, if you have one. We will tell you what we would check before you sign.