By Mark McDowellPosted: 8 min read
How Much Does A Website Cost In Malaysia
Malaysian web design firms publish about RM2,500 to RM30,000 for a business website, RM5,000 to RM60,000 for an online store and RM30,000 or more for a custom system. The project fee is only part of what a website costs: in a worked three-year example, maintenance, hosting, the domain and 8% service tax added almost as much again.
Key Takeaways
- Your website is part of AI answers. Elevate, Primal's AI Visibility Tracker, logged 16,543 AI answers across 172 queries over the last month, and a brand's own website was cited in about a quarter of the answers about it.
- Pages, layouts and hours set the price. Published prices from Malaysian web design firms run from about RM2,500 for a small business site to more than RM100,000 for a custom system, and the gap inside each band comes from what the fee pays for.
- Running costs can nearly double the fee. In this post's three-year example, maintenance, hosting, the domain and service tax added about RM7,000 to an RM8,000 project fee, and maintenance was most of it.
- Plan hosting at its renewal price. Hostinger's Premium plan for Malaysia renews at almost three times the rate it starts at.
- Check the digital grant before you sign. Bank Simpanan Nasional's MSME Digital Grant MADANI pays up to half of an eligible invoice, capped at RM5,000, and approval comes before you pay.
What A Website Costs In Malaysia
AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews now read your website when someone asks them about your business. Over the last month, Elevate, Primal’s AI Visibility Tracker, logged 16,543 answers across 172 queries about 12 brands in 12 industries. A brand’s own website was cited in about a quarter of the AI answers about it.
So the site you are pricing is also a source. That changes how I read a quote. I look first at what the pages will say and what it costs to keep them current for three years. The project fee comes after that.
The published prices give you a starting point. Three Malaysian web design firms, Skytomato, Laman7 and Walk Production, publish price guides. Together they put a business website at about RM2,500 to RM30,000, an online store at RM5,000 to RM60,000 and a custom system at RM30,000 or more. These are asking prices from firms that sell websites. Use them to check a quote you already hold. Then add the running costs.
What Each Type Of Website Costs
The spread inside each band is wide because a website fee is the hours of work multiplied by a rate. A band gives you the type of site. It leaves out the pages and features the fee assumes, and those decide the hours.
A Business Website
Skytomato’s guide puts a small business site at RM2,500 to RM8,000 and a corporate site at RM8,000 to RM30,000.
Clutch, a review site for business services, shows what firms ask before they take a project on. On the first page of its Malaysia web design list, more than half of the 48 Malaysia-based firms that show a minimum take projects from US$1,000. That is a little over RM4,000 at Bank Negara Malaysia’s rate. About two in three of the same firms charge between US$25 and US$99 an hour.
What An Ecommerce Website Costs
Skytomato publishes RM5,000 to RM50,000 or more for an ecommerce site, and Walk Production RM6,000 to RM60,000. A store costs more than a business site because it has to show products, take payments and send orders.
A store on Shopify also pays a monthly plan, and a fee on each payment that goes through a third-party payment gateway. Shopify’s Malaysian pricing page lists Basic at US$19 a month on a yearly plan.
A Custom System Or Portal
A custom system is written for your business, with logins, bookings or links to stock and accounting software. Skytomato’s band for one starts at RM30,000 and runs past RM100,000. The web development page explains what that work involves.
Is A Freelancer Cheaper Than An Agency
A freelancer usually charges less for the design. Laman7’s guide puts a business site from a freelancer at up to RM15,000 and from an agency at up to RM30,000. Before you choose on price, ask who will update the site, back it up and fix it when something breaks. That work carries on every month after launch.
The Costs That Come After Launch
A design quote prices the launch. The domain, the hosting and the maintenance come back every year after it, so add them to the quote before you compare.
The Domain
The Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM) gives the usual price of a .com.my domain as RM80 a year. Register it in your company’s name, so it stays yours if you change firms.
Hosting
Read the renewal price before the first price. Hostinger’s Malaysian hosting page lists its Premium plan at RM7.99 a month on a 48-month plan, and the plan then renews at RM22.99 a month. The page also lists a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate as part of its plans. The SSL certificate is what puts https and the padlock on your address. Check whether your hosting has one before you pay for it on its own.
The capture below is that page. The renewal price for each plan sits in the small print under it.
Is Maintenance Included In A Website Quote
Usually not. Skytomato’s guide says most design quotes in Malaysia cover the first set-up, with maintenance charged on top each month or each year. Maintenance pays for software and plugin updates, backups, security checks and small changes to the content.
Laman7 publishes maintenance from RM150 a month, and Skytomato lists RM100 to more than RM1,500 a month. Ask what the monthly fee covers and what an hour of work outside it costs.
What A Business Website Costs Over Three Years
The example below is a 10-page business site on WordPress with a project fee of RM8,000, at the top of Skytomato’s small business band. The other lines are the published prices above for the domain, Hostinger’s Premium plan and Laman7’s maintenance. Service tax is added at 8%, the rate the Royal Malaysian Customs Department sets. It goes on the fee and the maintenance, on the basis that the firm bills both.
| Cost over 36 months | Ringgit | Share of the total |
|---|---|---|
| Project fee (example) | RM8,000 | 53% |
| Maintenance at RM150 a month | RM5,400 | 36% |
| Service tax at 8% on the fee and the maintenance | RM1,072 | 7% |
| Hosting, Premium plan for 36 months | RM288 | 2% |
| .com.my domain for 3 years | RM240 | 2% |
| Total | RM15,000 | 100% |
Everything other than the project fee comes to about RM7,000, close to the fee itself. Maintenance is most of it, and a cheaper design leaves that line where it is. When the first hosting term ends, the hosting line almost triples.
The chart puts the same lines side by side. It shows how small the hosting and the domain are next to maintenance, which is the cost I would negotiate first.
A store adds to the sum. Shopify Basic on a yearly plan comes to about RM2,800 over three years at Bank Negara Malaysia’s rate. Apps, a paid theme and the payment fee come on top.
What Makes One Quote Higher Than Another
Two quotes for the same site can be far apart, because each firm prices the hours it expects to spend. Three of the questions below come from our own calls with prospects, and each answer changes those hours.
Who Writes The Content
Ask before you compare prices, because the answer changes the fee. If the firm does the copywriting and supplies the photos, the fee goes up. If your team does it, the fee falls and the launch date depends on your team.
Copy is where I would put money first. The words on a page are what an assistant reads and quotes. A page that says plainly what you sell and who it is for does more for you than another animation.
Pages And Layouts
Pages that share one layout cost less than pages that each need their own design. Walk Production’s guide prices a page made from a template at RM500 to RM800 and a page with a custom design at RM1,000 to RM1,500.
Which Platform The Site Runs On
Ask which platform the site will run on before you compare prices, because it sets the project fee and the running costs. A site on WordPress, a content management system (CMS), or on Shopify starts from a theme. That makes it cheaper than a custom system. After launch, WordPress brings theme and plugin licences, and Shopify brings its monthly plan and any paid apps.
What A Website Migration Costs
A migration costs the hours it takes to send every old address to its new page. The price grows with the size of the old site. Ask for it as its own line in the quote. Skip it, and the new site can lose the rankings the old pages earned.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) after launch is usually a separate monthly fee, and the guide to what SEO costs in Malaysia covers it. I talk through how to keep your rankings when you rebrand or replace a site in this video.
Mark McDowell explains how to keep search rankings through a rebrand or a change of site, on his YouTube channel.
Is There A Grant For A Business Website
There is one for small businesses that qualify. Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN) runs the MSME Digital Grant MADANI for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). It pays up to half of an eligible invoice, capped at RM5,000. The work has to come from a provider on the panel of the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC).
BSN’s page lists who qualifies, by ownership, registration, time trading and yearly turnover. On an RM8,000 invoice the grant would pay RM4,000, and above RM10,000 the cap applies.
Approval comes before you pay your share, so apply before you sign. Ask BSN or a panel provider whether your website project qualifies in the current round.
How To Compare Website Quotes
My advice is to put every quote on the same three-year basis before you compare them.
- Ask each firm to price the same scope: the number of pages and layouts, who writes the copy, the features and the rounds of changes.
- Ask which running costs are in the quote and which you pay. List the domain, hosting at its renewal price, licences, any platform plan and maintenance.
- Ask whether the price includes service tax.
- Register the domain and the hosting in your company’s name, and keep the logins.
- Ask what monthly maintenance covers and the hourly rate for work outside it.
- Check the BSN grant before you sign anything.
Primal started in 2015 and works from offices in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Singapore. Our web design team plans each site around the questions your buyers ask, on Google and in AI assistants. We can work through the three-year cost of your site with you before you compare quotes.
Frequently Asked Questions About Website Cost In Malaysia
How much does a simple business website cost in Malaysia?
Skytomato publishes RM2,500 to RM8,000 for a small business site, and more than half of the Malaysia-based firms on Clutch’s first page take projects from about RM4,100. A site you make yourself on a website builder costs less, and Laman7 puts it at RM500 to RM3,000 a year.
How much does it cost to run a website each year in Malaysia?
In this post’s example, about RM2,100 a year. That covers maintenance, hosting in its first term, the .com.my domain and service tax on the maintenance. Once the first hosting term ends, the hosting line almost triples.
Do website quotes in Malaysia include service tax?
Some do and some do not, so ask each firm. Service tax is 8%, which adds RM640 to an RM8,000 project fee.
Who should own the domain and the hosting?
Your company should. Register both in its name and keep the logins, so you can change firms later without losing the site or its address.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Mark McDowell is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Primal, which he started in Bangkok in 2015. He is on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2020 list and was Campaign Asia’s Southeast Asia Young Achiever of the Year in 2018. He writes about AI search and search engine optimisation.
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