How much does a custom app cost?

Asking what an app costs is like asking what a building costs: it depends on what is inside. But the ranges are not a mystery, and you should know roughly where your project falls before you talk to anyone. Here is how we, and most small US development teams, think about price.

Typical ranges

These are for a professional team in the US building production software you own, not a template or a prototype.

• A focused first release: $15,000 to $40,000. One workflow done well, like a customer ordering portal, a technician app or an intake form with booking. One or two integrations. Usually 4 to 8 weeks.
• Several connected parts: $40,000 to $120,000. A web app plus a mobile app, several user roles, two to four integrations, reporting. Usually 2 to 5 months.
• A platform: $120,000 and up. Many user types, complex rules, heavy integrations, or a SaaS product you sell to others. Built in phases over 6 months or more.
• Discovery before any of these: $3,000 to $10,000. A short, fixed-price sprint that ends in a clickable prototype and a fixed quote. It is the cheapest way to find out what you actually need.

Offshore and freelance rates can be lower, and large agencies can be several times higher. The bigger difference is usually not the hourly rate but how much rework, management and maintenance you inherit.

What makes it cost more

• Integrations. Each system the app reads from or writes to (an ERP, QuickBooks, Shopify, a carrier) adds work, and messy data adds more.
• User roles and permissions. Customers, staff, managers and admins who each see something different multiply the screens and the testing.
• Native mobile apps. A phone app adds app store work, offline support and device testing on top of the web app behind it.
• Rules that live in people’s heads. Pricing exceptions, approval chains and special cases are the most common source of surprise cost. Write them down first.
• Compliance. Health data, payments and regulated records need extra security work, vendors who sign agreements, and audit logs.

What keeps it down

• Start with the one workflow that costs you the most today, and launch that first.
• Use proven building blocks for sign-in, payments and email instead of building them.
• Keep your existing systems as the system of record and build around them.
• Have one decision-maker who can answer questions within a day.

What it costs after launch

Software is not done at launch. Plan for:

• Hosting and services: usually $50 to $500 a month for a business app, more for heavy data or AI use.
• Maintenance and support: security updates, monitoring, backups and small changes, commonly $500 to $3,000 a month, or about 15 to 20 percent of the build cost per year.
• New features: most good software keeps growing. Budget for a second phase once people are using the first.

Custom or off-the-shelf?

If a subscription tool does the job for a few hundred dollars a month, it is almost always cheaper. Custom pays off when you are paying for several tools that each do part of the job, when per-user fees grow with your business, or when the workflow is how you compete. Our guide on custom software vs off-the-shelf walks through the decision.

How to get a real number

• Write down what happens today, step by step, and what it costs you in hours or errors.
• List who would use the software and the systems it must connect to.
• Decide what the first release must do, and what can wait.
• Ask for a fixed price on a discovery sprint, then a fixed quote for the first phase.

Send us that list and we will tell you plainly which range you are in, usually within a day. You can also try our live demos to see what a focused first release looks like.

More guides: Custom software or off-the-shelf? How to decide · What to prepare before you hire an app developer · Adding AI to business software, safely · How to stop taking orders by email · A customer portal on top of NetSuite or QuickBooks · Shopify app or custom build? How to tell · How to forecast inventory for retail stores