App development cost

App development cost

Most business apps cost anywhere from a small fix to a full agency build, and the biggest swing in price is who you hire, not the app. At Continuum a first version starts at $15,000 on a fixed price agreed before work begins.

What the market charges

Clutch builds its guide from reviews by verified clients of the firms it lists. It reports that most firms charge $25 to $49 an hour worldwide, and $50 to $99 an hour in the US. The average reviewed project comes to about $132,000 and takes around 13 months (Clutch, updated September 2026).

Freelancers sit lower. Upwork shows a median of $30 an hour for web developers, with most between $15 and $50 (Upwork, captured December 2025). A salaried US software developer has a median wage of $135,980 a year, before benefits and the cost of managing them (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025).

Those are rates, not quotes. An hourly rate tells you little until you know how many hours the job takes, and that is where the real gap between bids comes from. For a longer look at who to hire, read agency vs freelancer vs one senior developer.

What moves the price

Four things decide the number far more than the app’s category:

• Platforms. One web app costs less than a web app plus iOS plus Android, because each one is its own build and its own review process.
• Logins and payments. Accounts, roles and taking money add the most careful work, since mistakes there cost you customers.
• Connections to what you already run. Your booking tool, accounting system or old database often takes longer than the screens do.
• Who builds it. A team with a project manager charges for the coordination as well as the code.

If you are choosing between building and buying, see off the shelf vs custom software first. A subscription tool that does 80% of the job is often the cheaper answer.

What we charge

Our prices come straight from our price list, and none are hourly. Fixing an app that was built fast and now breaks runs $4,000 to $15,000. A new build starts at from $15,000 and takes six to twelve weeks. A written read of your code, before you commit to either, is $299.

If the app already exists, start with the Ship Fix page. It is the cheapest honest route when the thing mostly works. For a new build, MVP Build has the scope and timeline, and pricing lists everything else.

The cost after launch

Launch is not the end of the bill. Hosting, security patches and library updates carry on, and now and then something breaks at 2 a.m. Keeping an app monitored and patched is $500/mo with us. If you want a few small features a month on top, the retainer levels run from $500/mo to $4,500/mo a month and up. Ask any bidder for this number in writing, because a cheap build with no plan for upkeep gets expensive later.

What to watch out for

• A quote with no scope attached. If the document does not say what is included, the price will move.
• Code you do not own. Make sure the repository and the hosting accounts are in your name from day one.
• A very low bid. It usually means a thin plan for testing, security and the hard parts like payments.
• No one to call. The person who built it should still be reachable in a year.

What to do next

Write down what the app must do on day one, and what can wait. Get two quotes against that same page. If you already have code, pay for a read of it before you pay for more work. The Ship Fix page explains how that goes, and you can also hire a fractional CTO to judge the quotes with you.

Tell me what you need built

Thirty minutes, and you leave with a rough range and a plan, whether or not you hire me.