The verdict in three sentences
For a private engineering school where 30 % of students come from sub-Saharan Africa, the website is the first admissions office: an applicant in Dakar or Douala must be able to apply online, upload documents and pay the application fee without travelling. In Tunis, agencies charge 12,000 to 35,000 TND (roughly 3,500 to 10,300 EUR) for this kind of site in 2026, with 8 to 12 weeks of work; schools in Morocco or France pay comparable or higher amounts. The metric that justifies the spend is cost per complete application, compared with student fairs.
The journey of a francophone African applicant
Take a 900-student school offering an integrated preparatory cycle and four majors: civil engineering, computer science, telecoms and industrial engineering. Each intake brings around 270 international students from Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Gabon, Chad and Mauritania.
The typical applicant discovers the school on a phone, through a search such as engineering school Tunisia tuition fees or a parents' WhatsApp group. Parents ask three questions: what do tuition and housing cost, is the degree recognised, how do the visa and arrival work. If the site does not answer them within a minute, the application goes to Rabat, Casablanca or Dakar.
Site modules and their cost in Tunis
2026 order of magnitude from Tunis web agencies (1 EUR is about 3.4 TND).
| Module | Content | Market cost TND | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Programme pages | Majors, curriculum, careers, accreditations | 2,500 to 5,000 | Essential |
| Online application | Multi-step form, applicant account, status tracking | 4,000 to 10,000 | Essential |
| Document upload | Transcripts, passport, baccalaureate, format checks | 1,500 to 4,000 | Essential |
| Application fee payment | International card, local payment gateway | 1,500 to 4,000 | Strongly advised |
| Country of origin pages | Visa, equivalences, cost of living, testimonials | 1,500 to 4,000 | Strongly advised |
| English version | Key pages and form | 1,000 to 3,500 | Useful |
| Admissions back office | Dashboard, statuses, email reminders | 2,000 to 5,000 | Essential above 500 files |
A simple site with a form and document upload sits around 12,000 TND. The top of the range, 35,000 TND, is a real applicant portal with back office, automated reminders and integration with the student information system.
Cost per application: website versus student fairs
Fairs in West and Central Africa still build awareness, but they are expensive per complete application.
| Channel | Estimated yearly cost TND | Complete applications | Cost per application TND |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fair in Dakar (stand, flights, hotel, 2 staff) | 18,000 | 45 | 400 |
| Fair in Abidjan | 20,000 | 50 | 400 |
| High school tour in Douala | 15,000 | 30 | 500 |
| Website with online application (3-year amortisation) | 8,000 | 160 | 50 |
| Website plus targeted Meta campaigns | 23,000 | 320 | 72 |
| Partnerships with education agents | 10,000 (commissions) | 40 | 250 |
These are 2026 estimates for a school of this size. Fairs keep their place: the idea is to send fair visitors to the online form, with a QR code on the stand.
Technical watch-outs
Document upload must accept phone photos and compress them, since many applicants have no scanner. Set a 5 MB limit per file and let applicants resume if the connection drops. For payment, an international card is not always enough: many families prefer a bank transfer or payment by a relative in Tunis. Show both options clearly.
Kolonell also works with private institutions: an admissions portal with applicant accounts is a custom application, simple at 2,500,000 to 4,000,000 FCFA (3,810 to 6,100 EUR) or medium at 4,000,000 to 7,000,000 FCFA (6,100 to 10,670 EUR), depending on the back office required.
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Mini case study
Mrs Ben Salah, admissions director at a private engineering school in Tunis, invests 24,000 TND in a site with an applicant portal. Amortised over 3 years, that is 8,000 TND a year, plus 6,000 TND of targeted campaigns, or 14,000 TND.
The site produces 260 complete applications, 54 TND each, against 400 TND at a fair. With a 25 % enrolment rate, that means 65 new international students. At 9,500 TND of annual tuition, their first year alone brings 617,500 TND of revenue for 14,000 TND of yearly spend.
FAQ
Should the application fee be paid online?
Yes, a fee of 100 to 250 TND (about 30 to 75 EUR) filters out casual applications and cuts wasted processing time by about 30 %. Offer card and bank transfer.
Are country of origin pages really useful?
Yes. A Senegal or Cameroon page detailing the visa, baccalaureate equivalence and a monthly budget of 1,200 to 1,800 TND reassures parents and ranks on local searches.
Which personal data needs protection?
Passports and transcripts are sensitive. Store them in encrypted storage, limit access to 3 or 4 staff and delete rejected files after 12 to 24 months.
Does the site need English?
For francophone African applicants, French is enough. English helps for Nigeria, Ghana or university partnerships, around 10 to 15 % of pages.
How early should the project start?
Start at least 4 months before applications open: 8 to 12 weeks of build, plus 4 weeks of testing with real files.
Let's scope your project. Tell us your majors, recruitment countries and admissions calendar, and we will propose the applicant portal scope and a schedule that fits your intake. Detailed quote within 48 h. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.
Mohamed Bah
Fondateur, Kolonell
Passionate about digital and entrepreneurship in Africa, Mohamed has been helping Sénégalese businesses with their digital transformation since 2020. Founder of Kolonell, he believes every SME deserves a professional and accessible online présence.
