We build e-commerce platforms in Abu Dhabi
Building e-commerce platforms in Abu Dhabi
Qanat builds software for Abu Dhabi companies, including work with data-residency and procurement requirements. Abu Dhabi projects start more slowly than Dubai ones — vendor registration and security review are real steps — but scope tends to be clearer and change less once agreed.
- Scope
- Written
- Price
- Fixed
- Held back
- 20%
- Code
- Yours
Before anything is quoted
Agreed before we start
Until you accept
From the first commit
Scope
What a build of this kind actually contains.
Everything below is inside the quoted price. The items agencies leave out of a cheap quote — admin tooling, error states, deployment, handover — are the ones you end up paying for anyway.
- 01
Customer-specific pricing, credit limits and approval flows for B2B
- 02
UAE payment gateways and VAT handling done correctly
- 03
Delivery and logistics integration
- 04
Performance work, because catalogue pages decide conversion
- 05
Migration from the existing platform without losing order history
What we build it with
- Next.js
- Medusa
- Shopify
- PostgreSQL
- Stripe
- Network International
How this goes wrong
The failure mode we see most often.
Forcing a B2C platform to do B2B. Per-customer price lists, credit terms and multi-step approvals are where Shopify stops being cheap and starts being expensive in workarounds.
Demand is weighted toward government, energy and sovereign-backed entities, which brings procurement processes, security review and data-residency requirements that a Dubai SME never encounters. It adds weeks at the front and removes ambiguity later. Requirements documents are usually written before a vendor is approached, which changes what a quote is measuring.
The constraint people miss in Abu Dhabi
Data residency is a design decision, not a hosting setting. If the workload cannot leave the UAE, that has to shape the architecture from week one — retrofitting it later is close to a rebuild, and it is the most common reason an Abu Dhabi project gets re-scoped.
Who we build for in Abu Dhabi
- Government and semi-government entities
- Energy and utilities groups
- ADGM-licensed financial firms
- Healthcare and education institutions
- Contractors serving public-sector programmes
What it costs
We do not publish a rate card, and you should distrust anyone who does.
The price of e-commerce platforms is decided by scope, not by category. Two projects with the same label routinely differ by a factor of five, and a number quoted before anyone has read your requirements is a guess dressed as a quote.
What we commit to is this: one price, written against a scope you have read and agreed, fixed before work starts. If we estimated badly that is our problem, not a change request.
If you need a budget figure first
Our UAE software cost guide publishes what the market charges, with every figure sourced. That is researched market data for budgeting — not our price list, and not a quote.
Questions
E-commerce Development in Abu Dhabi
Shopify or custom?
Shopify for straightforward retail — we will happily build on it. Custom when the business runs on account-specific pricing, credit limits or approval chains, because that is precisely where platform workarounds start costing more than a build.
What is different about building software in Abu Dhabi?
Demand is weighted toward government, energy and sovereign-backed entities, which brings procurement processes, security review and data-residency requirements that a Dubai SME never encounters. It adds weeks at the front and removes ambiguity later. Requirements documents are usually written before a vendor is approached, which changes what a quote is measuring.
How long does it take to build e-commerce platforms in Abu Dhabi?
It depends on the scope, and any studio quoting you a duration before reading your requirements is guessing. We commit to a specific date in the quote, once the scope is written, and you see the software running well before that date rather than at the end.
Start here
Building e-commerce platforms? Tell us what it has to do.
A scope call, then a written scope and one fixed price against it. 20% of that price is held back until you accept the finished build, and the scope is yours to take elsewhere either way.
- Who reads it
- Alexandre Arnaud, Founder & Engineer. Not a coordinator, not an inbox.
- What happens
- A 20-minute call to pin the outcome, then a written scope and one fixed price against it.
- What it costs
- Nothing to get scoped and quoted. The quote is free and the scope is yours to take elsewhere.