What a business website costs in Kigali

"How much is a website?" is the question Kigali business owners ask us most, and an honest answer has three numbers in it. A one-page landing site starts at around RWF 300,000. A proper business website of five or so pages, with a contact form and both English and French, usually lands between RWF 450,000 and RWF 900,000. An online store that takes mobile money and card payments starts at around RWF 600,000. Here is what sits inside each of those figures, what you keep paying once the site is live, and how to work out which one your business actually needs.

What a website costs in Kigali

These are indicative starting prices at our Kigali studio, before the size of the site and the features are agreed:

• One-page landing site - from RWF 300,000
• Business website, up to 5 pages - from RWF 450,000
• Full site, 10 pages or more - from RWF 900,000
• Online store with mobile money and card payments - from RWF 600,000
• Mobile or web app - from RWF 1,500,000
• SEO and Google Business Profile setup - from RWF 80,000
• Social media post design - from RWF 60,000
• Social media management - from RWF 120,000
• Digital ad banners - from RWF 40,000
• Company profile design - from RWF 80,000
• Presentation and pitch decks - from RWF 60,000
• QR code and digital menu setup - from RWF 25,000
• Branded email signatures - from RWF 20,000
• Logo design - from RWF 50,000
• Full brand identity kit - from RWF 150,000

Two things move these numbers: how many pages the site has, and whether it has to do anything beyond inform - take payments, handle bookings, run in two languages. Tell us what the site must actually do rather than how it should look, and the quote gets sharp within the hour.

Landing page, business site or online store

Most businesses in Kigali need one of three things, and paying for the wrong one is the expensive mistake. A one-page landing site is right when you have a single thing to say and a single thing you want people to do: who you are, what you offer, where you are, call this number. It is the cheapest way to stop losing customers who search your name and find nothing. A business website of four to six pages suits anyone with a real range of services, a story worth telling and clients who want to check you out before they call - consultancies, schools, clinics, hotels, contractors, NGOs. This is what most of our clients buy, and it is where our website design and development service sits. An online store only earns its price when you genuinely sell products in volume and someone on your team will keep it stocked and answer orders. If you sell twenty items a month through WhatsApp, a business site with a good catalogue page will serve you better than an e-commerce build. And if what you are describing is really a product rather than a shop window - a booking platform, a service with user accounts - that is app development, and it is a different conversation with a different budget.

What is inside the price

A website quote from us covers design, build and launch: the layout and look, the pages themselves, a contact or quote form that reaches your inbox, everything working properly on a phone, basic search-engine setup so Google can read the site, an SSL certificate so browsers show it as secure, and a short handover so someone on your team can update text without calling us. Roughly three in four visitors to a Rwandan business site arrive on a phone, so we design the phone version first and the desktop version second, not the other way round. Bilingual English and French is available and worth asking about if you deal with regional clients, donors or visitors - it adds to the price, but far less than building the site twice. What is not automatically inside the price: photography, copywriting in a language you have not supplied, a logo if you do not have one, and the yearly running costs below. We list those separately so nothing surprises you at the end.

What you pay every year after launch

A website is not a one-off payment, and anyone who tells you otherwise is leaving something out. Budget roughly RWF 20,000 a year for a .com domain name, a little more for a .rw, and from about RWF 120,000 a year for reliable hosting, depending on how much traffic and email you need. Those two keep the site online and are non-negotiable. Beyond that, put aside a small yearly amount for updates: new services, new photos, a change of phone number. Sites that go three years untouched start to cost customers rather than win them, because nothing says "this business may have closed" quite like prices from 2023. We can host and maintain the site for you on a simple plan, or hand you the keys and the logins so your own team runs it. Both are fine, but decide which before we build, because it changes how we set the site up.

Building it is half the job. Being found is the other half

A beautiful website nobody visits is an expensive business card. The single highest-return thing a Kigali business can do is claim and complete its Google Business Profile - the panel that appears with your photos, opening hours, directions and reviews when someone searches your name or your service near them. It is free, most local businesses either have not claimed theirs or have left it half filled in, and it usually sends more customers than the website does in the first year. Our SEO and Google Business Profile setup handles that, plus the on-page basics and the analytics so you can see what is actually working rather than guessing. After that, keep the site alive with something to say. Social media management or a monthly pack of post designs gives people a reason to come back, and digital ad banners put you in front of people who have never heard of you.

How long it takes, and what usually slows it down

A landing page takes about a week. A standard business site takes two to four weeks, or one to two weeks if you need it faster and can turn feedback around quickly. An online store takes three to six weeks, because products, prices, photographs and payment setup all have to be right before it can open. In nearly every project that runs late, the delay is the same: the content. Design and build move quickly; waiting for the About text, the service descriptions, the staff photos and the final price list is what stretches three weeks into three months. So gather what you can before we start - your logo files, ten good photographs, a paragraph about the business, a list of your services and the exact contact details you want on the site. If writing is not your thing, say so at the quoting stage and we will price the copywriting in.

Your website is part of your brand, not separate from it

The businesses that look established look the same everywhere a customer meets them. The same logo, the same colours and the same phone number on the website, on the business card you hand over, on the shop sign above the door and on the van parked outside. That is why we would rather sort your logo or a full brand identity before the site is designed than bolt a website onto a logo that is about to change. If you are starting from nothing, our guide to branding a new business in Rwanda on a small budget covers what to do first. And once the site is live, put the address everywhere: on your cards, your banners, your email signature and, for a restaurant or cafe, on a QR code on the table.

How ordering works with us

Tell us three things: what your business does, what you want the site to achieve, and roughly what you can spend. That is enough for an itemised quote, usually within the hour, with the yearly running costs written down separately so you see the true figure. We then show you a design of the home page before a single further page is built, so you are approving the real thing rather than a description of it. Payment is staged, the site is yours at the end, and your logins are handed over in writing. See the full list of what we do online on our digital services page, or browse everything in one place on our websites and social media page.