Runwayby Dubai Diary

Know your number before you go

Everyone asks us the same question about moving to Dubai: what does it actually cost? Runway is our answer. Build the life your family wants and get the three numbers nobody gives you straight, priced from real rents, published school fee ladders and our own invoices.

33 communities, real rents 47 schools, real fee ladders hand-checked quarterly
The promise

Three numbers, and then a date

A worked example, priced live by the same engine you would use: two adults, two children at The Winchester School, a four-bed villa in Arabian Ranches 3. Your own numbers come from your own choices, and change the moment you change your mind.

Have this in the bank before you go
£126k
£96.2k – £164k · the number this is all about
A normal month, all in
£8k
£6.3k – £10.3k
Year one, before normal life starts
£70.2k
£55.3k – £87.8k

Bands, never points: every figure is a researched range with a source behind it, and the biggest lines carry our actual invoices.

What is inside

A planning platform, not a calculator

Calculators answer once. Runway is the loop you come back to for the whole eighteen months: decide out in the real world, then come home and watch the money follow.

The briefing

One screen that tells you where you stand: your number or the honest placeholder it earns, one sentence on how the plan is doing, and the one thing worth doing next. Nothing is guessed for you. Until you choose a school, an area and a home, the figures wait, and say so.

Year one, sequenced

The wall of one-off costs nobody warns you about: cheques at signing, the deposits, the agency fee, school registration, shipping, the landing weeks. Laid out in the order the money actually leaves, so nothing ambushes you.

Your path to the number

Tell it what you have and what you honestly save, and it answers with a month. The maths runs in your browser: savings and income never touch our servers, and we could not read them if we tried.

The monthly ritual

Thirty seconds a month: what is the pot today? The plan answers with what your month did to your date, kindly, in both directions. Months where nothing moved get the honest boring truth: the date holds.

Decisions made elsewhere, priced here

Nobody picks a community from a screen. You will watch the videos, ask friends and fly out to look. Runway is where changing your mind is cheap: swap the school or the area and the whole plan reprices in a tap, with the school run to every one of our 33 communities already measured (1,551 pairs).

And the day it is all for

When your line first crosses inside your target month, Runway marks it properly, shows the decomposed total so you can check it really is enough, and hands you the plan as one page to show the person who is not in the room. Made for couples: the readable page carries the plan, never your money, unless you choose to add it.

Why trust it

Built by a family who kept the receipts

Bands, not points. Every cost is a researched low-typical-high range. A single confident number would be a guess wearing a suit.
Sources on the line. Government tariffs, published fee schedules, dated market scans, and our own invoices where we have them.
Hand-checked quarterly. Data last refreshed August 2026; next refresh November. Rents move here, and stale data is the one way this product could lie to you.
Private by architecture. Your savings and income live in your browser and are never sent to us. Not policy: there is no server for them to sit on.
Your financial details never touch our servers. The savings maths runs on your device, in your browser. We store the lifestyle you design, never your money.
The pass

One price, twelve months, never auto-renews

£149for a full year · about 0.5% of the move it de-risks
  • The whole platform: the briefing, the year-one wall, your monthly number, the runway target and your ready date
  • All 47 school fee ladders and 33 communities, with the plan repricing on every swap
  • The monthly ritual, the movement notices and the crossing, for the long middle of the journey
  • Quarterly hand-checked data refreshes, and every improvement we ship during your year
  • The plan as one page, made for the other adult in the decision
Get the pass · £149Payment opens here at launch. The product is finished; the till is being wired in.
How buying works right now, honestly: you pay with a Stripe link, and one of us personally sets up your access and sends you a welcome note, usually the same day. At our size you get people, not a platform team, and we think that is a feature.

14-day money-back guarantee, no questions. After twelve months nothing auto-renews: your plan stays readable, and another year of fresh data is the same £149 if you want it.

Want the human version? The Relocation Package (£949) includes the pass, consultation calls with Sara, viewings arranged before you land, and WhatsApp support for the wobbly bits.

Before you ask

The questions families ask us first

Is this financial advice?

No. It is lived experience and research: researched ranges, published tariffs and our own invoices, arranged so your family can make its own decision. Nothing here is regulated advice and we never pretend otherwise.

Where does my money data live?

In your browser, full stop. Savings, income and your saving rate are never sent to us; the readiness maths runs on your device. If you want to move machines, there is an encrypted export you hold the key to.

What happens when Dubai prices move?

We re-research the catalogue every quarter by hand, and your plan reprices against the fresh data with a note about what changed and what it did to your date. Rents moved 8 to 12% in 2025; pretending otherwise is how other calculators lie.

What happens after my twelve months?

Nothing sneaky. The pass never auto-renews. Your plan stays readable, and if you want another year of fresh data and new features it is the same £149, by your choice.

We are a couple. Does this work for two of us?

It is built for exactly that. One of you will drive the tool; the other gets the plan as a single readable page: the month, the numbers and the life you priced, with your private money figures left off unless you choose to include them.

Something else on your mind? Ask us from inside the product, or watch the channel: two years of us actually doing this, receipts and all.