Does that UAE agency price include VAT and ad spend? What suppliers say on their own pages

The two questions that most often turn a tidy comparison into a wrong one are simple. Is VAT in the price, and is the money you spend on advertising in it or on top? I opened the pricing pages of several UAE suppliers on 4 November 2026 to see what they actually say. They are not a sample of the market, and I draw no conclusion about what is typical.

VAT

CubicSofts, which says it is headquartered in Ajman, is the clearest of the pages I read. Its PPC packages page says all prices are in AED and exclusive of 5 percent UAE VAT. So the monthly fee shown is not the amount that will appear on the invoice. On the other pages I opened for this piece, from Leads Dubai, Media Search Group and Samco, I found no statement about VAT at all.

Silence is not an answer. If a quote does not say, ask in writing whether the amount includes VAT, and ask your accountant how VAT applies to you.

Advertising spend

For paid advertising there is a second layer. The Leads Dubai package page lists a Google Ads package at AED 2,500 a month with a 3-month term and a minimum ad budget of AED 5,000 a month. It says the ad spend goes directly to Google or Meta and stays in the client's name, so the fee and the spend are separate amounts.

The Samco social media page lists a paid social package and says ad spend is excluded. The Media Search Group PPC page lists a maximum ad budget for each package but does not say whether the spend is billed separately, which is exactly the kind of gap to close in writing.

Setup fees and terms

The same Media Search Group page lists a one-time campaign setup fee of AED 349 as an addition to each package. The Leads Dubai page lists a 3-month term on its managed packages. A monthly figure with a setup fee and a 3-month minimum is a different commitment from the same figure with neither.

What to do

Ask every supplier for the same five things in writing: the amount before VAT, the VAT, the setup fee, the minimum term and the ad budget you are expected to hold. Then put the quotes in the service price guide, which removes VAT where it is included and totals fee and setup over the term you choose. Keep ad spend as a separate line of your own.

More on the mistakes that cause bad comparisons is in mistakes when comparing agency prices, and the wider approach is in what digital marketing costs in Dubai.

A disclosure

This site is published by Web Marketing International FZCO, which sells PPC and SEO. If you are pricing paid advertising, you can ask me for a quote and put it through the same comparison as everyone else's.