Marketplaces, subscriptions, rentals, configurable products, headless storefronts and B2B portals, from AED 18,500. When the pricing rules are the business, you get software that expresses them instead of four extensions fighting each other.
Headless
Storefront and commerce separated
Rules
Pricing logic built, not bent
Yours
Code and data from day one
90 days
Warranty after launch
When the way you sell does not fit a product catalogue and a cart. Multi-vendor marketplaces, subscription and rental models, quote-based B2B ordering and heavily configurable products all end up fighting the platforms rather than using them.
The test is simple. If the plan involves four extensions, two workarounds and a spreadsheet to reconcile it, custom is usually cheaper over three years. If a platform does 90% natively, use the platform and build only the missing tenth.
One starting point, then a written scope built from your commerce model. You see the fixed figure before any code is written.
For large catalogues, several storefronts, B2B pricing or an ERP that owns the stock.
from AED 18,500
from USD 5,040 · delivered in 10-16 weeks
Not included in any tier: the platform subscription, payment gateway and instalment fees, paid apps and product data entry beyond the limit. Gateway accounts are opened in your name with your bank.
Not sure you need custom? Read Shopify vs custom ecommerce: what UAE stores actually need, or compare the Starter and Growth stores.
Products, pricing, entitlement and fulfilment designed around how you actually sell rather than around a platform's assumptions.
Multi-step, quote-based, part-payment or subscription. Whatever the sale actually is, without fighting a fixed checkout.
UAE gateways integrated at the API level, with Tabby and Tamara added and no platform surcharge in between.
Vendors, buyers, approvers and admins with separate permissions. This is where marketplace and B2B builds live or die.
Stock, ERP, courier and accounting connected, so your back office does not turn into manual data entry.
A React front end over a commerce API buys you speed and design freedom while keeping a proper admin behind it.
Compare the total, not the launch quote.
| Platform plus extensions | Custom build | |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | Lower | Higher |
| Monthly cost | Platform fee, app subscriptions, sometimes revenue share | Hosting and maintenance only |
| Unusual pricing rules | Extensions and workarounds that fight each other | Built once, exactly right |
| Upgrade risk | An extension update can break checkout | You control when anything changes |
| Ceiling | You hit it and then replatform | Extend it as the business changes |
Custom is not automatically better. It is better when your workaround list is already long.
The selling models that keep pushing businesses off the platforms.
Ownership, deadlines and defects are where web projects go wrong. We put all three in the contract, not just on this page.
Repository, hosting and domain credentials are in your name before we write a line of code. Not handed over at the end, not held as leverage.
Milestone dates are fixed in writing before the project starts. You always know what ships next and when.
Anything that breaks because of how we built it gets fixed free for 90 days after launch.
Custom and headless builds start at AED 18,500 (USD 5,040) and take ten to sixteen weeks. What drives the final number is how many user types the system serves, how complex the pricing and fulfilment rules are, how many external systems it integrates with and whether it handles payouts as well as payments. We write that scope first and give you one fixed figure.
Yes. The commerce part is usually the easy half. The work that decides whether a marketplace succeeds is vendor onboarding, commission calculation, split payouts, dispute handling and giving vendors a dashboard they will actually use. We scope those before designing any storefront.
If a platform covers most of it, start there and prove demand first. Replatforming later is annoying but survivable, whereas spending a year on custom software for a model nobody buys is not. We recommend starting custom when the selling model itself is the thing being tested and no platform can express it.
Yes, and usually more cleanly than a platform. Gateways such as Telr, PayTabs, Network International, Stripe and Tap integrate at the API level, Tabby and Tamara are added directly without a platform surcharge and 5% VAT is implemented in your own tax logic so invoices come out correct for your accountant.
Nothing stops you. The repository, hosting and every third-party account are in your name from day one. The stack is mainstream, so hiring a replacement is realistic, and the architecture is documented in the repository. That is the point of building it this way rather than on something only we understand.
Send your brief and get a fixed scope, a written timeline and a real number back within one business day. No discovery-call maze, no sales sequence.
