If a referral asks for your website and you send a LinkedIn link, this is for you. You have a freelance permit, the permit is not the reason to build a page, and a short test tells you whether the page is worth buying yet. This is not for you if you cannot yet say in one line who you help. Wait, and read the section on that below.
Does a freelance permit ask for a website?
No. We read one authority's page on 14 October 2026. The Dubai Development Authority's freelancer licence, the Sole Professional License, lists a valid passport copy with the residence visa page if you have one, an NOC from external authorities if your licensing category needs it, and a self-declaration form if you hold a valid visa. A website, portfolio or marketing material is not on the list.
The same page gives the fee as AED 7,500, plus AED 10 as a Knowledge Dirham and AED 10 as an Innovation Dirham per transaction, with an estimated 2 working days. Other authorities and free zones set their own lists and fees, so read the page of the one you apply to.
So the website is a choice you make after the permit. The question is whether it pays yet.
What do people say about needing one?
Two things, and both come from someone who sells something.
Internext, a web studio selling to Dubai freelancers, writes that "Clients don't trust an Instagram bio and a WhatsApp number alone for serious work." It sells freelancer sites from AED 99 a month plus a setup fee, so it has a reason to say so.
Sawan Kumar, who sells courses on starting a business in Dubai, writes the opposite: "Your first client doesn't require a website." He says it needs "one clear offer and one direct conversation," and suggests sending your offer to 20 people before you spend on branding.
Neither gives you a test. Both are probably right for someone. We use two checks, which are our rule of thumb and not a study.
What are the two checks?
Check 1 is about the past three months. Has a referral, a client or a partner asked "do you have a website?" and you sent a LinkedIn profile, a PDF or a WhatsApp number instead? If yes, someone checked you, and the check had nowhere to land. If nobody asked, a page will not add clients this quarter. Your diary is being filled by people who already trust you.
Check 2 is about the next ten seconds. Write one line that says who you help and what changes for them. Something like "I help first-time managers in Dubai run their first team meeting without dreading it." If you can write it without three tries, you have a line.
| Check 1: asked in 3 months | Check 2: one line | What we say |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | Yes | Buy the page now. |
| Yes | No | Fix the line first. See the next section. |
| No | Yes | You can wait. Buy the page when the first referral asks. |
| No | No | Wait. Talk to people first. |
We will tell you to wait. A page with a vague line gives a referral nothing to forward.
What if you cannot write the line?
Then do not pay for the page yet, or pay for the writing first. Those are the two honest options.
The first is Sawan Kumar's route. Describe your offer in one paragraph: who it is for, the problem, the result, the price. Send it to 20 people and ask whether they know someone with that problem. It costs nothing, and it is how you find the line.
The second is to let us write it. The AED 4,200 Founder Page uses one line from your own bio, so a weak bio line gives a weak page. Copywriting is an add-on at AED 1,500 before VAT, where we write the page from a short interview. We do not write it for you if you have no offer to describe. We would tell you that on the call, before anyone builds or invoices.
What does the page cost next to the permit?
This is what the two pages state today, on 14 October 2026. They are different things, and not a like-for-like comparison.
There is no monthly minimum on a Founder Page. You cannot edit the page yourself in the fixed fee: you send us the change, and we quote it in writing before we start, at AED 900 an hour or AED 8,100 for a 10-hour block. If you change your offer often, count that cost first. If we host the page and you stop the AED 199 a month, the page comes off our servers. The domain stays yours, so you can point it elsewhere.
The page has no refund promise, because the scope is small on purpose. If it does not fit, we say so on the call, before anyone builds or invoices.
What happens when you say yes?
Our method is called Own the booking. The live page shows six sample sites with invented founders, labelled as samples, and shivanathd.com, the page we built for our own founder, so you can see the layout before you send anything. You tell us what you sell in one line and where people book you today. We reply by email within 24 hours. There is one call of up to an hour, where we check the fit, agree the bio line, the photo and one accent colour. We build the page from our standard layout. You see it before it goes live, and you say yes or no. It goes live on a domain you buy in your own name, in a few days, which is the page's own wording, counted from the day you send your bio line and domain. It does not give a day count, so ask for the date on the call.
The book button opens the Gmail, LinkedIn or WhatsApp you already use. On WhatsApp, the first line is filled in for the client: "I found you on your page." You answer as you do today, with nothing new to log into.
Mindcat is a Dubai company and a Salesforce consulting partner since 2010, and the Founder Page is invoiced by our FZE (about us). We have no client page to show you yet, so we do not quote one. We do not promise a Google listing or any search ranking, and we do not advise on which licence you need. If one page is not what you need, we say so on the call, and you can also contact us first. If both checks passed, tell us what you sell and where people book you today.
