You’ve got an idea for an app.
Great.
Then comes the slightly harder question:
How much does it actually cost to build one?
The short answer is: it depends on what you’re building.
A relatively simple app with a small number of features could start somewhere in the tens of thousands of pounds. A more involved app with user accounts, payments, integrations, dashboards or more complex functionality can quickly move into £50,000, £100,000 or considerably more.
That’s quite a range.
But there’s a reason for it.
You’re not really paying for “an app”. You’re paying for everything the app needs to do.
What actually affects app development cost?
Imagine asking how much it costs to build a house.
You’d probably want to know how big it is, how many rooms it has, where it’s being built and what’s going inside it before giving someone a price.
App development works in much the same way.
A simple app that lets users log in, view information and update a profile is very different from a platform handling payments, live data, bookings, notifications and several different types of user.
The more the app needs to do, the more planning, design, development and testing goes into it.
That’s why any mobile app development cost you see online should be treated as a rough guide until somebody understands what you actually need.
What does a simple app cost?
Let’s say you need something relatively straightforward.
Maybe users create an account, access some information, receive notifications and manage a few basic details.
There’s still plenty of work involved.
Someone needs to understand the requirements, plan how the app works, design the screens, build the functionality, test everything and get it ready for launch.
For a professionally developed app, even a relatively simple project can therefore run into the tens of thousands of pounds.
If somebody offers to build your complete business app for £2,000, we’d probably want to understand exactly what you’re getting for that.
Cheap development can become pretty expensive if the app needs rebuilding six months later.
What makes an app more expensive?
Usually, complexity.
The cost starts moving as you add more functionality.
Things like:
User accounts and different permission levels.
Payment processing.
Booking systems.
Live data.
Maps and location services.
Push notifications.
Messaging.
Dashboards and reporting.
Integration with existing software.
Custom admin systems.
Offline functionality.
More complicated security requirements.
None of those features are necessarily unusual.
But every new feature needs to work properly alongside everything else.
That means more development and, importantly, more testing.
iPhone, Android or both?
Another factor is where the app needs to work.
If you’re building specifically for iOS, you’ve got one environment to focus on. The same applies if you’re only targeting Android.
Most businesses, though, want both.
There are different ways to approach that.
Sometimes it makes sense to build separate native apps. In other cases, cross-platform development can allow much of the same codebase to work across iOS and Android.
There isn’t a universal right answer.
It depends on what the app needs to do, how it needs to perform and what you’re likely to add in the future.
That’s something we’d work out before development starts rather than choosing the technology first and trying to make the project fit around it.
Don't forget about what happens behind the app
What the customer sees on their phone is only one part of the project.
There’s often quite a lot happening behind it.
You might need an admin area where your team manages users, updates content, checks orders or pulls reports.
The app might need to connect to your CRM, ecommerce platform, booking system or another piece of bespoke software.
You may also need databases, APIs and other systems working behind the scenes.
That backend development can be just as important as the app itself.
If the app looks brilliant but your team has to manually copy information between three systems every day, we haven’t really solved the problem.
Design matters too
Development isn’t just writing code.
Someone has to work out how people are actually going to use the thing.
Where should they go first?
How do they complete the main task?
What happens if they make a mistake?
What information do they actually need on each screen?
Good app design makes all of that feel simple.
And simple can take quite a lot of thinking.
Spending time planning the user experience before development usually saves a lot of headaches later because changing a flow on a design is much easier than rebuilding a chunk of an app that’s already been developed.
Can we start with an MVP?
Absolutely.
In fact, sometimes that's the better approach.
An MVP, or Minimum Viable Product, is a first version of the app focused on the features people actually need.
Instead of trying to build every idea you've ever had into version one, you get the core product working, put it in front of real users and learn from what happens.
Maybe people love the feature you thought was secondary.
Maybe they never touch the feature you were convinced would be essential.
Finding that out before spending another £40,000 developing it isn't a bad thing.
An MVP can help keep the initial app development cost under control while giving you a much better idea of what should come next.
What about apps that connect with existing systems?
This is where things can get more complicated.
Maybe your business already uses a CRM, booking platform, stock system or piece of custom software and you need the app to talk to it.
Sometimes that's straightforward.
Sometimes the existing system was built 15 years ago, nobody really knows how it works and the documentation disappeared with someone who left the company in 2019.
We've seen both.
This is why the discovery stage matters.
Before promising that everything can connect perfectly, we'd rather understand what already exists, how the data works and what needs to talk to what.
The cost doesn't end at launch
This is worth thinking about before you set the budget.
Apps need maintaining.
Apple and Google update their operating systems and app store requirements. Third-party services change. Bugs occasionally appear. Your users ask for new features. Your business changes.
So the initial development cost isn't the only number to think about.
You should also budget for ongoing support, maintenance and future development.
At Surge, we've rebuilt apps where outdated third-party components had made the original product increasingly difficult to maintain. Our Your Voucher Book project, for example, involved rebuilding an existing app so it could keep its existing functionality while becoming faster, more stable and easier to develop in the future.
That's the sort of thing worth thinking about when choosing how your app is built in the first place.
Bespoke app or off-the-shelf software?
Before building anything, we'd also ask whether you actually need an app.
Seriously.
Sometimes a mobile app is exactly the right solution.
Other times, a web platform, booking system or existing piece of software could solve the same problem for a fraction of the investment.
We'd rather work that out first.
Custom development makes the most sense when your process is specific enough that existing tools don't really fit, or when you're constantly working around the limitations of the systems you already use.
The solution should fit the business.
Not the other way around.
So, how much does it cost to develop an app?
If you're looking for a rough starting point, think tens of thousands rather than a few thousand pounds for a professionally designed and developed app.
A relatively focused MVP might sit towards the lower end. An app involving payments, integrations, multiple user types, complex backend systems or more demanding security requirements can move well beyond £50,000 and into six figures.
But the most useful way to price an app isn't to start with:
“How many screens does it have?”
It's to start with:
“What problem are we trying to solve?”
Once we understand that, we can work out what the app actually needs, what it doesn't need and the best way to build it.
If you've got an app idea but aren't sure what it would take to bring it to life, take a look at our Mobile App Development, Software Development and Bespoke Software services.
Sometimes all you need at the start is a proper conversation about what's possible.
