How much does it cost to build an app in the UK?
A web app starts at £4,000 and a mobile app at £7,000. Finishing an app you’ve already started costs from £3,000, and fixing one problem £500–£1,000.
Answer a few questions to see your price, part by part. No email address needed.
Estimate your project
Step 1
What an MVP usually costs.
An MVP, the smallest version of your app that does its main job well, starts at £4,000 as a web app and £7,000 as a mobile app. With the features most apps need first, such as sign-in, payments or a dashboard, the total usually comes to between £5,000 and £13,500. The price is fixed and agreed in writing before any code, and it includes the design, the build, a separate test version, analytics and the launch.
- A web app with sign-in
- £5,000
- A mobile app with sign-in
- £8,000
- A subscription web app with branding and SEO / GEO
- £8,500
- A web and mobile app with sign-in
- £10,000
- A mobile app with sign-in, payments, a management dashboard, branding and SEO / GEO
- £13,500
Each total is the starting price for that set of features. The estimator above gives yours, part by part.
What your app costs to run each month.
You pay these providers directly, from accounts in your name. These are the usual ones, at their own prices, most of them in US dollars.
Running your app
- Database, sign-in and file storage
- $25 a month
- For example, Supabase’s Pro plan, which suits most live apps. Cheaper routes exist, such as a free plan or your own small server, but they give you less and take more setting up, so we choose together.
- Web hosting
- Free
- Netlify and Cloudflare Pages both host web apps free, with your own domain. A very busy app may need a paid plan, from about $9 a month.
- Domain name
- About £10 a year
- Your app’s own address, such as yourapp.co.uk, needs one. An app can also run at a free address such as yourapp.netlify.app. The price depends on the ending, such as .com or .co.uk.
- Card payments
- 1.5% + 20p
- Per payment with a standard UK card on Stripe, with no monthly fee.
Publishing a mobile app
- Apple App Store
- $99 a year
- Apple’s developer membership, needed to publish an iPhone app. The price is shown in pounds when you sign up.
- Google Play
- $25 once
- A one-off fee to register as a Google Play developer.
- Store commission
- 15%
- Of subscriptions and paid features sold inside a mobile app, at Apple’s and Google’s rate for developers earning under $1 million a year (Apple’s needs you to join its Small Business Program). Real-world services, such as a training session, are paid by card instead.
Before we choose any of these, you’ll know roughly what each will cost you every month.
Current prices: Supabase, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, Stripe, Apple, Apple’s small-business rate, Google Play fees.
Why it pays to launch with fewer features.
A bigger first build would pay me more, but I always recommend launching your first app as a minimum viable product: the smallest version that does its main job well.
You spend less before you know what works
You find out what your users actually use before most of the budget has gone.
Your users show you what to build next
What people do with the app is a better guide to what to add next than any list of features.
You have something real to show
Early users and investors can try the working app, not a mock-up.
Later features aren’t lost
What waits is written into the plan and priced as the next phase, for when you want it.
Get a fixed price for your app.
Book a free 15-minute call. If I can help, I’ll send you a fixed price in writing, with what’s included and the dates.
