Affordable website in Morocco: the real price, the 7 traps and the minimum to demand

You are looking for an affordable website in Morocco: a professional site for your shop, guesthouse, practice or small company, without tying up your cash. That is a perfectly reasonable thing to want. A showcase website does not need to cost 30,000 DH to bring in clients. But the gap between a cheap website and one that ends up costing you a lot is rarely visible in the advertised price. It sits in what is not written down.

This guide is written for busy owners and managers, including expats and foreign investors who run a business here and do not yet know how the local market works. It translates “cheap” into dirhams, shows the seven places where a low price hides costs, gives the minimum checklist any budget website must meet, and compares three ways of paying over 12 and 36 months. We are an agency, Bzaf Studio, and we sell a low-cost website ourselves. We hold it to the same standard as everyone else, and we say when it is not the right fit.

Affordable website in Morocco: what “cheap” really means in dirhams

A website is not a one-off purchase. It is a build, followed by costs that come back every year: the domain name, hosting, security and changes. So a cheap website is one whose total stays low over time, not just on the day you order it.

Here are the budget levels you will come across in Morocco for a showcase website, meaning a site that presents your business and generates calls and messages, without an online shop.

Budget	What you usually get	What is most often missing
0 DH	A social media page and a Google Business Profile, which Google provides free	A site of your own: your address, one page per service, control over what is shown
Rock-bottom price, below a freelancer’s rate	A few pages built on a ready-made template, online quickly	A domain in your name, HTTPS, backups, SEO, follow-up
Freelancer, from ~5,000 DH	A site adapted to your business, delivered in 2 to 4 weeks	Hosting, domain and changes, often billed separately
Traditional agency, 15,000 to 45,000 DH	A managed project with a team and meetings, in 1 to 3 months	The hosting and maintenance contract, on top
All-inclusive subscription, 399 DH incl. VAT a month (Bzaf Studio)	Site, domain, hosting and maintenance on one line, online in 5 working days	A 12-month commitment; no online shop

The right calculation: price per month

Bring everything back to a monthly figure, over the real life of the site. A site that costs 4,788 DH over a year works out at 399 DH a month, about 13 DH a day. A 2,000 DH site that has to be rebuilt after twelve months has cost 167 DH a month, and you have to pay all over again. The second one looks cheaper; it only is if the site lasts.

What one client is worth to you

Then set that figure against what a client brings in. Two examples, with margins given as assumptions: a tradesman who makes 300 DH margin per job covers 399 DH a month with two jobs; a beautician who keeps 150 DH per treatment covers it with three clients. A site that brings in nobody is expensive at any price. A site that brings two clients a month pays for itself, even if it is not the cheapest on the market.

One last reflex: check whether the price is quoted excluding or including VAT. On a quote “HT” (before tax), VAT is added when you pay, and the cheap price becomes a little less cheap. Our prices are shown including VAT (TTC).

How a website can be sold so cheaply

A low price is not suspicious in itself. You just need to know where it comes from. There are two ways to bring the price of a website down: work differently, or deliver less.

Working differently means, for example, selling a single offer, with a repeated method, components that have already been tested, and no custom quote to write for every client. That is the choice we made: no sales team, no endless meetings, a lead time known in advance. The work is the same; it is the organisation that costs less.

Delivering less means cutting what the client cannot see on launch day: security, backups, SEO, legal pages. Or recovering the margin later: on the hosting renewal, on every change, or by keeping the domain name so that you cannot leave. A low price of that kind is not a saving. It is a loan you repay later, without knowing the amount.

So when you are looking at a cheap offer, ask one question: what makes this price possible? If the answer is a method, good. If nobody can tell you, read the seven traps below before you pay.

The 7 traps of cheap websites, and what they cost you

These are the situations we see most often with businesses that contact us after a first low-cost website. None of them is visible on launch day. All of them end up costing more than the initial saving.

1. The domain name registered in the provider’s name

Your domain name is your address: your-company.ma. In Morocco, .ma is managed by ANRT, the national telecommunications regulator. ANRT does not sell names itself: registration goes through providers declared to it, 50 of them at the end of March 2026. For ANRT, the holder of a name is the person or company that registered it with a provider. If the provider registers your name in its own name to save time, it is the provider who owns your address.

This is not a theoretical risk. In its annual report on .ma domain names, ANRT states that the majority of the complaints it handles concern names registered through intermediaries who registered them in their own names, and not in the name of the actual holders.

Good to know if you are not Moroccan: ANRT confirms that .ma registration is open to residents of Morocco and also to foreigners, provided they appoint an administrative contact based in Morocco. There is no reason for a provider to hold the name for you.

What it costs: the day you want to change provider, your address does not follow you. You lose what is printed on your cards, vehicles and quotes, and every link that pointed to your site.

What to demand: the domain registered in your name, or your company’s, from day one, with proof, such as a screenshot of the domain record at the provider or a WHOIS extract. For a .com, ICANN’s lookup tool, lookup.icann.org, shows which registrar holds the name; that registrar must give you the transfer code within five calendar days of your request. Our domain name page checks live whether your name is available in .ma and .com.

The good news: according to ANRT, the holder of a .ma can change provider at any time, subject to their contractual commitments, without losing the remaining registration period. There were 1,804 provider changes on .ma in 2025. You do have to be the holder, though.

2. “Free” hosting that renews at full price

“Domain and hosting free for the first year” is a common line in cheap offers. There is nothing dishonest about it, as long as you know the price for year two. Very often it is written nowhere. The invoice arrives in month thirteen, when the site is live and leaving has become expensive.

The domain name itself is rented by the year. ANRT notes that 93.5% of .ma names were registered for a single year in 2025, and recommends registering and renewing for several years to avoid a name being deleted when an annual renewal is forgotten. One renewal forgotten by a hurried provider, and your address can vanish.

What to demand: the price for years two and three, in writing on the quote; who pays the renewal; and who warns you before it is due.

3. No HTTPS, no backups

HTTPS, the small padlock in the address bar, encrypts the connection between your visitor and your site. Without it, Chrome shows “Not secure”: since July 2018 and Chrome 68, every HTTP site has been labelled that way. A client who sees that warning above your contact form thinks twice before leaving a phone number.

There is no financial reason to go without it. Let’s Encrypt, a certificate authority run for the public’s benefit, gives anyone who owns a domain name a trusted certificate at zero cost. A showcase site without HTTPS, or with HTTPS sold as an extra, tells you the provider does not look after the technical side.

There is a legal reason too. As soon as your form collects a name, a phone number or an email, you are processing personal data. Article 23 of Moroccan law 09-08 requires the data controller, meaning you, to protect that data, in particular when it is transmitted over a network, and to choose a subcontractor that offers sufficient guarantees. Your web provider is one.

Backups, finally, are the site’s insurance. A hacked site, an update that breaks everything, a wrong click: without a recent copy, you start again from scratch, and pay again. Ask how often the site is backed up, where the copies are kept, and how long a restore takes.

4. Pay-per-change updates

A living site changes often: Ramadan opening hours, summer hours, a new service, a price, a photo, a seasonal offer. In low-cost offers, each change is often billed separately, and done when the provider has time.

Do the maths. At 200 DH per change, six changes a year cost 1,200 DH, more than half of a 2,000 DH site, every year. The hidden cost is elsewhere: when a change costs money and takes a week, you stop making changes. The site then shows wrong information, and a client who finds the wrong opening hours does not call to check. They move on.

What to demand: the price of a change, how long it takes, and how many small changes are included, if any.

5. A template resold to dozens of businesses

To deliver fast and cheap, many offers start from a theme bought once and reused for many clients, changing only the logo and colours. The result: your site looks like a competitor’s, sometimes in the same city, and placeholder text is still visible on a forgotten page.

The problem is not only how it looks. These do-everything themes often load features you do not need, which slow the site down on phones. And in Morocco, the phone is the rule: according to ANRT, at the end of March 2026, 89.82% of internet subscriptions were mobile, against 6.82% for fixed-line internet. A heavy site on 4G loses visitors before your number has even appeared.

What to ask: is the site designed for you, or built on an off-the-shelf theme? Can you see two sites already delivered, and open them on your own phone, on 4G, away from the office Wi-Fi?

6. No SEO at all

A site that Google cannot understand only brings in the clients you give the address to yourself. The cheapest offers often skip the basics: a unique title and description on each page, one page per service, a sitemap submitted in Search Console, a Google Business Profile linked to the site. Yet these basics are what make you appear when someone searches for your trade in your city.

Two useful points on a tight budget. First, the Google Business Profile is free: Google says that creating a Business Profile and listing your business on Google costs nothing. A provider can charge for the time spent setting it up properly, not for the profile itself. Second, beware of the opposite excess: the cheap offer that “guarantees first place on Google”. Google says so in its own documentation: no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.

What proper SEO work involves, and what it costs, is covered in our article on SEO pricing in Morocco.

7. A site that disappears with its provider

This is the most expensive trap, because it adds up the other six. The provider changes trade, moves abroad or stops answering. If the domain is in their name, the hosting on their account and the files on their computer, you are left with nothing: no site, no address, not even a login to correct a phone number.

ANRT reports that the average .ma name is 6.2 years old, but that 39.6% of .ma names have a lifespan of under three years. The figure does not say why. It simply reminds you that a name that is not renewed stops, and the site with it.

What to demand: a written clause stating that the site, its content and the domain belong to you, and that files and logins will be handed over when the contract ends. Keep your own list of accounts too: domain registrar, hosting, Google Business Profile, Search Console. If you are already in that situation, our article on website redesign in Morocco explains how to recover a domain and logins from a former provider.

The minimum checklist: what a cheap website must include

A site can be small without being incomplete. Five well-made pages are worth more than fifteen empty ones. Here is what a low-cost site must include all the same. Send this list to the providers you are talking to, and ask them to tick it in writing.

What must belong to you

• The domain name, registered in your name or your company’s, with proof.
• The site files and logins, handed over at the end of the contract, under a written clause.
• The Google Business Profile and Search Console, attached to your email address or shared with you.

The technical side

• HTTPS on every page, renewed automatically.
• Regular backups, with the frequency in writing.
• A layout designed for phones first, tested on 4G.
• Compressed photos and light pages, so the site opens fast.
• Hosting with a known price for year two.

The content

• The core pages: home, one page per main service, about, contact.
• A tap-to-call phone number and a WhatsApp button on every page.
• A contact form linked to your email.
• Your service area, and your address if clients come to you.

Google

• A unique title and description on each page.
• A Google Business Profile created or taken over, and linked to the site.
• The site registered in Search Console, with a sitemap.

The legal side

• A legal notice. When you offer a service to consumers by electronic means, Moroccan consumer protection law 31-08 (articles 26 and 29) requires the offer to state your name or company name, a phone number on which you can actually be reached, your email address and your physical address.
• A privacy policy. Article 5 of law 09-08 requires you to tell people, when you collect their data, who the controller is, what the data will be used for, and their rights of access and correction.

The price

• The amount including VAT.
• Renewal prices: domain and hosting.
• The price and turnaround time of a change.
• Payment terms, any commitment period, and how to stop.

A quote that ticks the whole list can be compared with the others. A quote that leaves half of it out is not cheaper: it is incomplete. The full list of what a website quote should contain, line by line, is in our guide to website cost in Morocco.

Seven questions to send on WhatsApp before you pay

Most small offers are negotiated by message. Use that: ask these questions in writing, and keep the answers. A vague answer today becomes an invoice tomorrow.

The question	The reassuring answer	The answer that should worry you
In whose name will the domain be registered?	“Yours, and you will get proof.”	“Ours, it’s simpler for you.”
What do domain and hosting cost in year two?	An amount in writing	“We’ll see next year.”
Is the site on HTTPS and backed up? How often?	Yes, with a precise frequency	“SSL is an option.”
How much does a change cost, and how long does it take?	A price and a turnaround, or changes included	“It depends.”
Is the design made for me? Can I see two sites you delivered?	Two links you open on your phone	Screenshots only
What happens if we stop working together?	Files and logins handed over, help with the transfer	No answer, or “exit fees”
Is the price before or after VAT?	The amount including VAT, in writing	A pre-tax price with no mention of VAT

How to pay little without falling into these traps

There are honest ways to pay less for a website. All of them reduce what you buy, never what you get on each page.

Start smaller, but complete

A five-page site, home, two or three services, about, contact, is enough to start, as long as each page is done properly. You can add a page per service or per city once the site has proved itself. What must not be cut is the minimum checklist above.

Prepare your own content

A good share of the work on a website is text and photos. Come with your logo, a list of your services with price ranges, your opening hours, your service area, and ten to twenty real photos of your work, taken in daylight on your phone. You save time and money whoever your provider is. Avoid images found online, though: in general, you do not have the rights to use them.

Pay for a build in two instalments

If you choose a one-off build, do not pay everything upfront to a provider you do not know. A deposit, then the balance at launch, after checking that the minimum checklist is ticked: that is your best guarantee.

Do it yourself, counting your time

An online website builder has no build fee, but it does have a platform subscription and takes a lot of evenings. Count your time: a few dozen hours to start, then updates to do yourself. If you are weighing up doing it yourself against a freelancer or an agency, our article freelancer, agency or online builder: who should build your website? compares all three.

Choose an all-inclusive subscription

This is the newest model: no build fee, and a monthly amount that covers the site, domain, hosting, security and maintenance. You do not have to advance a large sum, and everything sits on one line. The trade-off: a commitment period, and you keep paying while the service runs. It is the model of our All-Inclusive Plan, detailed below.

If you truly have no budget

Start with what is free: a complete Google Business Profile, with your hours, photos and service area, and a WhatsApp Business account. It is not a website, but it is better than a botched one. The limits of a presence without a website are explained in our article website or Instagram?

The maths: three ways to pay for a cheap website, over 12 and 36 months

Take a small business that wants a showcase site of five to eight pages, with a contact form and a WhatsApp button. The figures below are working assumptions, not quotes: replace them with the ones you receive.

• Rock-bottom price: build at 2,000 DH paid on order; domain and hosting free in year one, then 1,000 DH a year; six changes a year at 200 DH.
• “Complete” freelancer: build at 5,000 DH, the bottom of the market range; domain at 200 DH and hosting with HTTPS at 700 DH a year from year one; four changes a year at 300 DH.
• All-inclusive subscription: 399 DH incl. VAT a month, or 4,550 DH incl. VAT a year, everything included.

Assumptions	Rock-bottom price	“Complete” freelancer	All-inclusive subscription
Paid upfront	2,000 DH	5,900 DH	399 DH
Total over 12 months	3,200 DH	7,100 DH	4,788 DH (or 4,550 DH paid yearly)
Total over 36 months	7,600 DH	11,300 DH	14,364 DH at the current rate (or 13,650 DH paid yearly)
Average cost per month over 36 months	211 DH	314 DH	399 DH (379 DH paid yearly)
Domain in your name	no, in our assumption	get it written on the quote	yes
HTTPS and backups	not included	HTTPS yes, backups depend on the quote	included
Basic SEO and Google profile	no	depends on the quote	included
Second language	no	extra	included
Blog articles	no	no	36, one a month

What the table says

Over 12 months, the subscription costs less than the complete freelancer build, 4,788 DH against 7,100 DH, because there is no build fee. It costs a little more than the rock-bottom price, 3,200 DH, but that option does not meet the minimum: no domain in your name, no HTTPS, no backups.

Over 36 months, the order changes, and we would rather say so: the rock-bottom price remains the cheapest in dirhams, then the freelancer, then the subscription. If you want to pay once and manage hosting and updates yourself for years, a build by a reliable freelancer can work out cheaper. The subscription adds what the other columns lack: the second language, ongoing follow-up, and an article written for you every month.

The scenario that changes everything: the provider disappears in month 14

Go back to the rock-bottom price. After 13 months you have paid 3,200 DH, plus a 1,000 DH renewal: 4,200 DH. In month 14, the provider stops answering, and the domain is in their name. You have paid 323 DH a month for 13 months of website, almost the price of a full subscription, and you keep nothing. You need a new build, a new address, and Google no longer knows your site.

That is why a cheap website should be judged on risk as much as on price. The full three-year comparison, including the traditional agency and the online builder, is in our article Website cost in Morocco: 2026 price guide. We do not repeat it here.

The 399 DH a month plan: an affordable website without the seven traps

Our answer to the need for an affordable website is a subscription. Here is what it includes, taken from our offer page and our terms and conditions, set against each of the seven traps.

• Domain. A .ma or .com, included and registered in your name; we keep track of the renewal dates.
• Hosting. Hosting, SSL certificate and backups are included in the same price every month, with no “free first year”. During the commitment period, the price is guaranteed.
• Changes. Maintenance and small content changes are included, and we reply within 24 hours on WhatsApp.
• Design. Custom-made and mobile-first: no bought themes, no resold templates. Light pages and compressed images, for a site that is fast on 4G.
• SEO. Title, description and structured data on every page, a Google Business Profile created or optimised and linked to the site, and one blog article written for you every month.
• Ownership. Under article 11 of our terms, once paid in full, which for the plan means the 12 monthly payments of the commitment period, the site, its content and its domain name belong to you. Your files and logins are handed over on simple request.
• The rest of the minimum. Up to 30 pages, a blog, an FAQ, a contact form, a WhatsApp button, a second language (French and Arabic, or French and English) and the legal pages.

Payment: there is no set-up fee. The first month, 399 DH incl. VAT, is paid on order by bank transfer; our bank details (RIB) are sent with the order confirmation, within 24 hours. The commitment is 12 months, after which the plan continues month to month. You can also pay 4,550 DH incl. VAT for the year, 238 DH less than twelve monthly payments. The site goes live in 5 working days from your complete brief, and you approve every page before launch. If you order as a private individual, Moroccan law 31-08 gives you 7 days to withdraw.

The exact scope of the showcase website and of hosting and maintenance is described on their own pages.

When it is not the right choice

• You want an online shop, with a basket, payments and stock. The plan is a showcase website; a shop is a different project with a different budget.
• You want to pay once and manage it yourself for years, with no recurring fees. A one-off build by a reliable freelancer will cost less over time, if you handle the technical side yourself.
• You need a site for a few months, for an event for instance. The commitment is 12 months.
• Your project goes well beyond 30 pages, or needs custom development: a members’ area, an app, a connection to your software.
• You have no monthly budget at all: start with a Google Business Profile and WhatsApp Business, and come back to the website once the first clients justify it.

Where to start this week

Four steps take you from “I’m looking for a cheap website” to a decision.

• Write down your list of pages: home, your three to six services, about, contact. It is the basis of any quote.
• Check your name in .ma and .com on our domain name page, and note the available variants.
• Gather your content: logo, real photos, prices or price ranges, opening hours, service area.
• Send the minimum checklist and the seven questions to two or three providers, and compare the written answers, not the headline prices.

If our plan suits you, everything is set out on the offer page, and you order online on the order page. We work from Marrakech for businesses all over Morocco, from Casablanca to Marrakech and beyond, and we reply within 24 hours on WhatsApp, at +212 6 61 68 64 46.