French-Arabic RTL Corporate Website Cost (2026)

The verdict in three sentences

A truly bilingual French-Arabic corporate website in Morocco costs 120,000 to 280,000 MAD excl. VAT (about 11,100 to 25,900 EUR) in 2026, over 10 to 14 weeks. The RTL premium (right-to-left layout) adds 20% to 35% to the price of a single-language site, because it affects layout, fonts, components and testing. For Gulf groups expanding into the Maghreb, a French-speaking agency is often the missing link: French remains the language of business in Morocco, while Arabic carries institutional credibility.

Where the RTL premium comes from

Adding Arabic is not just translating text. The entire page must be mirrored: menus, arrows, carousels, forms, tables, directional icons. Numbers often stay in Western digits, dates and phone numbers need explicit rules, and mixed text (a Latin brand name inside an Arabic sentence) breaks poorly built layouts.

Font choice matters more than expected. Open-source fonts (Noto Kufi Arabic, IBM Plex Sans Arabic, Cairo) are enough for a services site. A custom brand font or a commercial license can add 10,000 to 15,000 MAD.

Content: translation, adaptation and Arabic SEO

The second hidden item is content. A 30-page corporate site often holds 18,000 to 25,000 words in French. Professional human translation in Morocco costs 0.8 to 1.2 MAD per word, proofreading included, and transcreation of sales pages costs more. Gulf groups should note that Moroccan readers expect Modern Standard Arabic adapted to local usage, not Gulf phrasing.

Arabic SEO in Morocco needs real work: users search in Standard Arabic, in transliterated Darija and in French. Dedicated keyword research often shows that the strongest Arabic query is not the literal translation of the French term.

A 10 to 14 week plan

A realistic schedule: 2 weeks of scoping and sitemap, 3 weeks of mockups in both reading directions, 4 to 6 weeks of build running in parallel with translation, then 1 to 3 weeks of cross-review by an Arabic-speaking and a French-speaking reviewer. The classic trap is to start translation after development, which adds a month.

Mini case study

Youssef, marketing director of an 80-employee services company in Rabat, compares two options. Option A: French site with machine translation, 70,000 MAD. Option B: native bilingual RTL site with human translation, 165,000 MAD. His public tenders and institutional clients require documents in Arabic. If option B helps him win a single extra contract worth 400,000 MAD per year at a 25% margin, i.e. 100,000 MAD, the 95,000 MAD difference (about 8,800 EUR) is recovered in under a year (2026 order of magnitude).

FAQ

How much does a French-Arabic website cost in Morocco?

Expect 120,000 to 280,000 MAD excl. VAT (about 11,100 to 25,900 EUR) in 2026, depending on pages, CMS and content. The RTL premium is 20% to 35% over a single-language site.

Can we use machine translation?

Only as a first draft reviewed by a translator. Full post-editing costs about 0.4 to 0.6 MAD per word, half the price of human translation.

Which Arabic fonts should we use?

Noto Kufi Arabic, IBM Plex Sans Arabic or Cairo are free and readable on mobile. A commercial font adds 4,000 to 15,000 MAD in licensing.

Do we need a separate URL for Arabic?

Yes, an /ar/ subfolder with hreflang tags is the simplest SEO setup. It costs about 4,000 MAD more than a language switcher without dedicated URLs.

Can a Gulf group add English as a third language?

Yes, English is left-to-right like French, so it adds roughly 10% to 15% to the build plus translation. Budget about 0.10 to 0.15 USD per word for French to English.

Let's scope your project. Tell us your page count, languages and deadlines, and we will price RTL design, translation and Arabic SEO with a 10 to 14 week plan. Detailed quote within 48 h. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.