How much a website costs in Bishkek, and what the estimate is made of

The most frequent question on a first call is “how much does a website cost?”. The honest answer is “it depends”, which is useless. So let's take it differently: what exactly it depends on, and why two contractors quote 45,000 and 300,000 soms for the same brief.

The lower bound: 45,000 soms

That buys a company website: design in your brand, responsive layout, a lead form, analytics wired up, and basic SEO. Three to four weeks. It isn't a template knocked out overnight: the structure is assembled around your services, not around demo content.

What it doesn't include: a filterable catalogue, user accounts, online payments, an exchange with your accounting system. Each of those is separate work, and anyone promising them “for free” either hasn't built them or has hidden them in another line.

Why a store costs twice as much

An online store starts at 87,000 soms and six weeks. The difference isn't page count — it's that state appears: a cart, stock, order statuses, payments, refunds. A company site has little to break; a store has dozens of flows, each of which must be tested.

Plus the thing everyone remembers last: the fiscal receipt. If you take payments online, a receipt has to reach the tax office, and that is a separate integration with its own timeline. We put it in the estimate upfront — not out of love for precision, but because otherwise it surfaces a week before launch.

Where 300,000 comes from

A threefold difference usually comes down to one of four things:

• Integrations. An exchange with accounting, a payment gateway, a CRM, a delivery service. Each one isn't “connecting” but agreeing formats, handling errors and testing on real data.
• Roles and permissions. Once a site has managers, suppliers and customers with different rights, it's a system, not a website.
• Catalogue size. A hundred items and ten thousand need different architecture. Rebuilding later costs more than planning for it now.
• Load. If you expect seasonal peaks, that's tested separately.

If none of those apply and the price is still in the hundreds of thousands, ask exactly what for.

What you shouldn't be paying for

Three line items that show up in other people's estimates and almost never help a small business:

• A unique design for every page. Five typical templates cover ninety percent of a site. Drawing twenty different screens is a bill from a designer, not a benefit to you.
• A bespoke CMS. The contractor writes their own admin panel and leaving them becomes impossible. It's sold as an advantage and works as a lock.
• A monthly “site support” fee where nothing happens. Support is specific hours on specific tasks, not a standing charge for the site being online.

What to ask before signing

• Whose name are the domain, hosting and repository in? The right answer is your company's, from day one.
• What happens if the scope grows mid-project? The right answer is a written re-estimate, not “we'll sort it out as we go”.
• Who edits copy and products after launch? If the answer is “we do, just ask us”, that's a future retainer.
• Is fiscalisation included if there are payments? If the contractor asks what that is, treat it as the answer.

In short

A company website: from 45,000 soms and three weeks. A store: from 87,000 and six. Anything dearer should be explained by integrations, roles, catalogue size or load; if it isn't explained, it's markup.

Open ranges for every direction are on our pricing page, and the full scope of a web project — stages, guarantees, frequent questions — is on the web development page.