Blog

Notes on payment products, building for the UAE market, and the cost of the teams that do it.

Last reviewed 2026-09-30.

Occasional writing on the engineering behind consumer money apps, on building for the UAE market, and on what staffing a web build actually costs. These posts exist because the questions come up in scoping calls, usually in the same order.

Posts

• Apps like Cash App, compared by what they actually do Cash App alternatives sorted into the four categories they belong to, and how to choose between them.
• Apps like Afterpay, and what separates them Buy now pay later alternatives compared by model, fees and credit reporting.
• Website development in Dubai, and what actually shapes the build The law, language, payment and hosting decisions that shape a website built for the UAE market.
• Building a site that works in Arabic and English URL strategy, logical CSS, what must not be mirrored, Arabic typography and numeral handling.
• What a UAE online store has to show, and what that costs in build terms Disclosures, tax inclusive pricing, invoices, personal data at the checkout, refunds and partial returns.
• Website development in San Francisco, priced from published data BLS May 2025 wages for web developers in the San Francisco metro, the three occupation codes a web brief spans