Agenticum · Thoughts · 5 min read

How to Create a Chatbot for Your Business in the UAE and Saudi Arabia: 7 Steps, Costs in AED and SAR

This guide covers seven decisions for planning a business chatbot in the UAE or Saudi Arabia. Below are the steps in order, with published platform prices converted to AED and SAR at the fixed pegs.

Nikolay Zuykov · Agenticum · 31 October 2026

How to create a chatbot: the short answer in 7 steps

Define the job. Choose one or two tasks the bot must handle, such as answering FAQs or capturing leads.
Decide the primary language. Choose Arabic or English as the main language before you build.
Compare platform pricing. Microsoft Copilot Studio bills by credit, Google Conversational Agents bills by chat request, and OpenAI's API bills by token.
Prepare bilingual knowledge. Your Arabic and English sources must say the same thing.
Pick channels. Choose where customers will use the bot, such as your website or WhatsApp. If you use WhatsApp, plan for Meta's per-message billing from day one.
Meet data protection rules. Identify which data protection laws apply to your business and chatbot. Step 6 summarises the UAE PDPL, the DIFC law and the Saudi PDPL.
Test, launch and measure. Test answer accuracy and how the bot handles Arabic input, then track costs and outcomes each month.

The sections below cover each step.

Step 1: Define the job

Write the bot's job in one sentence before you look at any platform. For example: answer delivery and returns questions in Arabic and English, and pass complaints to a person.

Step 2: Decide the primary language

Decide on the main language before you build. In Copilot Studio, you set an agent's primary language when you create it and cannot change it later. For an agent whose primary language is Arabic, select Arabic when creating it. On any platform, test Arabic input yourself during the trial, including the Gulf dialect phrasing your customers use, before you commit.

Step 3: Compare platform pricing

Microsoft Copilot Studio bills by credit and Google Conversational Agents bills by chat request. OpenAI's API bills by token and states its prices per 1 million tokens. The table lists published prices converted at 3.6725 AED and 3.75 SAR per US dollar.

Option	How it bills	USD	AED	SAR
Microsoft Copilot Studio, capacity pack	25,000 Copilot Credits per pack, per month	200.00	734.50	750.00
Google Conversational Agents, Flows	Per chat request	0.007	0.0257	0.02625
Google Conversational Agents, Playbooks	Per chat request	0.012	0.0441	0.045
OpenAI API, gpt-6-luna	Per 1M tokens, input / output	0.10 / 0.50	0.367 / 1.836	0.375 / 1.875
OpenAI API, gpt-6.1-sol	Per 1M tokens, input / output	2.00 / 10.00	7.345 / 36.725	7.50 / 37.50

Four billing details matter when you compare these options:

Microsoft also sells Copilot Studio as a pay-as-you-go meter, in addition to the capacity packs.
Microsoft says an up-front purchase of Copilot Credit Commit Units saves up to 20%.
On Google, a turn that uses a Playbook, Data Store, Generator or Generative Fallback is billed at the Playbook rate. Such a turn costs USD 0.012 per chat request, not USD 0.007.
New users of Google Conversational Agents get trial credits that expire after 12 months: USD 600 for Flows (AED 2,203.50 / SAR 2,250) and USD 1,000 for Playbooks (AED 3,672.50 / SAR 3,750).

The OpenAI prices above are its standard short-context rates.

Step 4: Prepare knowledge and Arabic/English content

Start with accurate, current source documents. Gather the documents customers actually ask about:

FAQs and help pages
Returns, delivery and warranty policies
Price lists and service menus
Opening hours, branches and contact routes

Keep one approved Arabic and one approved English version of each document, and update both together.

Step 5: Connect channels, website and WhatsApp

Meta bills the WhatsApp Business Platform per message. Two rules shape the bill:

Free-form (non-template) replies can only be sent inside a 24-hour customer service window. The window opens and resets with each message from the user. Outside the window, free-form replies cannot be sent.
From 1 October 2026, Meta charges for service messages again. Each business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages per month, and billing starts from the 1,001st service message.

For your budget, count the service messages your bot will send per number per month, take off the 1,000 free service messages, and price the rest at Meta's rate for your market. This article does not quote UAE or Saudi per-message rates. Take them from Meta's current rate card.

Step 6: Data protection rules in the UAE and Saudi Arabia

This section is a summary, not legal advice.

UAE

The federal Personal Data Protection Law is Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021, in force since 2 January 2022. It applies to personal data processed fully or partly through electronic systems, inside or outside the country, so it covers chatbots. DIFC has its own data protection law, DIFC Law No. 5 of 2020, which the UAE government portal lists alongside the federal law.

Saudi Arabia

According to DLA Piper's summary, the Saudi PDPL was issued by Royal Decree No. M/19 on 16 September 2021, later amended by Royal Decree No. M/148, and came into effect on 14 September 2023. Morgan Lewis notes that the one-year transition period ended on 14 September 2024. DLA Piper names the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) as the regulator and gives a fine of up to SAR 5 million for general breaches. Check these points against the official SDAIA text before you rely on them.

Practical checklist for a chatbot

Collect only the fields the bot's job needs, for example name and phone number for a callback.
Tell users in the chat what you collect and why, and link to your privacy notice.
Set a retention period for chat logs and delete them when it ends.
Ask each vendor in writing where your data is stored and processed.
Give staff a way to find and delete one person's data if they ask.
If you operate from the DIFC, check the DIFC law as well as the federal one.

Step 7: Test, launch and estimate running costs

Before launch, test the bot with real questions:

Questions your documents do not answer: the bot should say so, not guess.
The same question in Arabic, English and mixed Arabic-English text.
Dialect wording and common spelling variants.
A clear route to a person, with the chat history passed along.
Prices and deadlines checked word for word against your source documents.

Example estimate (assumptions, not a quote): 2,000 conversations a month, five bot turns each, so 10,000 turns. For the Google rows, each turn is one chat request. For the API rows, each turn uses 1,500 input tokens (question plus retrieved documents) and 300 output tokens, so 15 million input and 3 million output tokens a month.

Option	Monthly USD	AED	SAR
Google, every turn at the Flows rate	70.00	257.08	262.50
Google, every turn at the Playbook rate	120.00	440.70	450.00
OpenAI gpt-6-luna, model cost only	3.00	11.02	11.25
OpenAI gpt-6.1-sol, model cost only	60.00	220.35	225.00
Copilot Studio, one capacity pack	200.00	734.50	750.00

Notes on this example: for a new Google user, the USD 1,000 Playbooks trial credit would cover about eight months at the Playbook rate, within its 12-month expiry. The API rows show model token cost only. The Copilot Studio row is a fixed pack of 25,000 credits. Check Microsoft's credit rules to see how many conversations that covers. If you use WhatsApp, budget separately for any applicable Meta message charges.

After launch, track these each month: share of conversations solved without a person, handoff rate, wrong-answer reports, leads or bookings captured, and cost per conversation.

Questions to ask before you sign

Whether you build the bot yourself or hire a vendor, ask these questions before you sign:

Where are conversations and personal data stored and processed?
How is usage billed, and what happens to cost if volume doubles?
Can we export our content, flows and chat logs if we leave?
How will Arabic and dialect input be tested before launch?
Who maintains the knowledge base, and how fast do updates go live?