Mobile app quotes can range from a few thousand dollars to well into six figures, and both can be honest. The difference comes down to what the app does, who builds it and how it's built. Here's how to make sense of it.
The ranges below are typical market ranges for small and mid-sized businesses in the US, Canada, UK and Australia in 2026. They're a guide, not our price list. Use our free App Cost Estimator for a ballpark based on your own features.
Typical ranges by app type
| App type | Examples | Typical cost (USD) | Typical timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple | Info app, simple booking, loyalty card | $15,000–$40,000 | 6–10 weeks |
| Medium | Booking with payments, customer portal, staff app | $40,000–$100,000 | 10–16 weeks |
| Complex | Marketplace, real-time features, AI, heavy integrations | $100,000–$250,000+ | 4–9 months |
What drives the cost
- Screens and user roles. A customer app plus a staff app plus an admin panel is three products, not one.
- Backend. Logins, data storage, notifications and payments need a server side. Using managed services like Firebase or Supabase keeps this cheaper.
- Integrations. Payments, calendars, CRMs, POS systems and maps each add work.
- Design quality. Custom animations and polished onboarding cost more and are often what makes people keep the app.
- Platforms. iOS, Android and sometimes a desktop app too.
Cross-platform or native?
For most businesses, a cross-platform app built with React Native or Flutter is the right call. You get one codebase for iOS and Android, so it costs much less than building twice, and users rarely notice a difference. Native development makes sense for apps that lean heavily on device hardware, complex graphics or the very latest OS features.
Our own AI sales assistant, Ylper, runs on the web, as a mobile app and as a Windows desktop app, sharing as much code as possible across all three.
Ongoing costs to budget for
- Store fees: Apple charges $99 a year for a developer account; Google Play has a one-time $25 fee.
- Hosting and services: servers, databases, push notifications and email, often $50–$500 a month for a small app.
- Maintenance: new iOS and Android versions arrive every year. Many teams budget around 15–20% of the build cost per year for updates and fixes.
- Improvements: the best apps keep evolving based on how people use them.
How to spend less without cutting corners
- Start with an MVP. Launch the one or two features your customers use most, then add more.
- Consider a web app first. If your users don't need push notifications or offline access, a web app can be faster and cheaper.
- Use proven building blocks for logins, payments and notifications instead of building them from scratch.
- Write down your must-haves before talking to developers, so quotes are comparable.
Next step
Try the App Cost Estimator to scope your idea, then see how we approach mobile app development. We'll turn your idea into a fixed scope and quote after a short call.