Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors affecting students' satisfaction with university portals in developing countries. The factors examined are educational services availability, user ability, system quality and information quality. Design/methodology/approach: A self completion questionnaire was developed and distributed to a sample of 550 students in several universities. Correlation and regression analysis were used to identify relationships and explore which of the factors had the strongest explanatory power. Findings: The results showed that educational services availability, system quality and information quality influence students' satisfaction, with service availability being the major determinant. The cultural perspective was employed to explain these results. Originality/value: Understanding what students expect from a university portal should increase their satisfaction and consequently have a positive impact on universities' performance. The results of this study also contribute to the current literature, which is very limited in developing countries. The paper concludes by discussing implications for both research and practitioners.