You are launching a project on Al Reem Island, Yas, Saadiyat or out towards Al Raha Beach. The masterplan is approved, the escrow account is open and the first units are on the market. Now you need buyers: residents who want to stop renting, investors chasing yield, buyers abroad from Europe, India, Russia or elsewhere in the Gulf who will never see the site before they reserve. Almost all of them start their research online, often months before they speak to anyone. You need to decide how much to spend each month on being found by them.
This guide helps you set that budget as a decision-maker: by comparing it with what you already spend to sell, and with what a single unit sold is worth to you.
What you already spend to sell
Every developer has a sales budget, even if it is spread across several lines. List honestly what you pay today to find buyers.
- Your in-house sales team. Salaries, commission, visas, housing allowances, cars, phones.
- Brokers. Commission paid to the agencies that bring buyers, often your largest single sales cost.
- Advertising. Billboards on the main roads, paid social and search campaigns, listings on property portals.
- Events and roadshows. Property exhibitions in Abu Dhabi and overseas, launch events, travel and stands.
That monthly total is your real benchmark. Online visibility is not one more cost stacked on top; it is a channel to be judged alongside the others on what it returns.
The plans and what they cost
Traffic Engine pricing in the UAE is in dirhams. After a Visibility Audit at AED 2,900, fully deducted from the one-time setup of AED 6,000 if you go ahead within 30 days, you choose a monthly plan on a 12-month commitment.
| Plan | Per month | First year (setup included) |
|---|---|---|
| Presence (entry seat) | AED 4,500 | AED 60,000 |
| Momentum (growth seat) | AED 7,900 | AED 100,800 |
| Flood (intensive seat) | AED 14,500 | AED 180,000 |
| Momentum Exclusive | AED 16,000 | AED 198,000 |
| Flood Exclusive | AED 24,000 | AED 294,000 |
The exclusive plans lock the entire property development sector in your area for the length of the commitment: no competitor can take a seat. They are only available while the sector is still empty.
Compared with a sales hire
Put Momentum, at AED 7,900 a month, next to the full cost of one sales executive in Abu Dhabi once salary, commission, visa and allowances are included. They do different jobs. The salesperson converts: runs viewings, reassures, negotiates and follows the file through to the sale and purchase agreement. Visibility feeds: it brings enquiries from people already looking to buy, at any hour, including from London, Mumbai or Riyadh.
So the real question is not one or the other, but does my sales team have enough qualified enquiries to work on? A salesperson spending the day cold-calling is an expensive way to sell a few units. The same person, fed with inbound enquiries, closes more.
Compared with advertising and brokers
Advertising has one clear strength: it is immediate, which matters at launch. But it stops when you stop paying, and every new project starts again from zero. Broker networks bring volume but at a recurring cost on every sale, and the relationship with the buyer often stays with the broker. Lasting visibility accumulates instead: your name as a developer, your delivered projects and your current launches remain findable, and each new launch benefits from what has already been built.
For a developer that matters enormously. A buyer, especially an overseas one buying off-plan, wants to know whether you have delivered on time before, whether the project is registered and what earlier buyers say. That trust-checking happens online, increasingly through AI assistants too, and a one-off campaign does not answer it. Our guide on splitting a marketing budget between visibility, ads and prospecting sets out the trade-offs.
Measure the budget against one unit sold
The most telling comparison sets a year of visibility against the margin on a single sale. In Abu Dhabi, the margin on one apartment or villa is usually large compared with the first-year cost of any plan, which means a very small number of additional direct sales can cover the year. The calculator on the Traffic Engine page runs this with your own margin per unit. For a fuller treatment of that reasoning, read how many sales a developer in Abu Dhabi needs to break even, and for what invisibility already costs, see the cost of being invisible for a property developer.
Which plan for which developer
- Presence suits a developer with one active project who wants steady baseline visibility for its name and track record.
- Momentum suits a developer with several projects, or one who wants visibility to become a real sales channel. It is the most common choice.
- Flood and the exclusive plans are for developers who want to own the ground in Abu Dhabi for the long term, or shut competitors out while the sector is still open.
Every plan comes with a dated report each week, results tracked in your own Search Console and a measured review at three months. If what the plan includes is not live on time, the following month is free.
Your next step
Property development is capped at 3 standard seats per area. Check availability in Abu Dhabi, and measure your starting point first with the free website score. The Visibility Audit will then tell you, within 48 working hours, which plan fits your projects and your competition.