App Development Cost in 2026: What You Will Really Pay (US and UK, Agency vs One Senior Developer)

Short answer: with one senior developer, a simple app costs roughly $1,500 to $4,000 (£1,200 to £3,200), a standard app with accounts, payments and an admin area costs $4,000 to $10,000, and a multi-user platform like a marketplace costs $8,000 to $20,000. Agencies quote far more for the same scope, usually $30,000 and up, because you are also paying for project managers, designers and their overhead.

Search "app development cost" and nearly every result is an agency page starting at $40,000 or £60,000. That's accurate for what they sell. It just isn't the only way to get an app built, and if your budget is in the low five figures or below, those pages are useless to you. This guide covers both ends, with the numbers I use when I quote projects.

I'm a developer, so treat the freelance tiers below as my own pricing from about 150 client projects, not an industry survey. The agency figures come from published guides, linked where I use them.

What agencies quote (and why it's so high)

Here is what the big cost guides publish:

• Topflight, a US app agency, puts a simple app at $30,000 to $40,000 and a mid-size app at $40,000 to $60,000.
• Pocketworks, a UK agency, quotes £60,000 to £250,000 for an MVP and lists UK agency day rates of £650 to £1,200, against £400 to £600 for a freelancer.

The gap isn't that agency developers are five times better. An agency project usually has a project manager, a designer, a QA tester, a couple of developers and a sales team to pay for. You need some of those roles on a large product. On a focused app with a clear scope, you mostly need one person who can design sensibly, build it and answer your messages.

App development cost by type, with one senior developer

These are fixed-scope ranges, meaning you agree the feature list first and the price doesn't drift. All assume one senior developer, design included.

The UK figures are simply the US ones converted at roughly 0.8, rounded. UK freelance rates are in a similar range, so I don't price the two markets differently.

What actually moves the price

Five things explain almost every quote.

1. Number of user types. An app with one kind of user is simple. An app with customers, business owners and an admin is three apps sharing one backend, each needing its own screens and permissions. This is the single biggest jump between tiers.

2. Payments. A basic checkout with Stripe is a day or two. Splitting payments between a platform and its sellers, handling refunds, or invoicing in several currencies adds weeks. If you want to see the options first, I've broken them down in how to add online payments to your website.

3. Native iOS and Android, or one codebase. Building two separate native apps roughly doubles the work. With React Native and Expo, one codebase ships to both stores, which is what I use for almost every mobile project. You give up a few edge cases (heavy graphics, very platform-specific features) and avoid paying for the same screens twice.

4. The backend. Users see the screens, but the server that stores data, runs logic and talks to other services is often half the work. Most app cost estimates underweight it. I wrote a separate breakdown in how much a backend API costs.

5. Changes after you start. Scope creep is the usual reason a $6,000 project becomes a $9,000 one. Fixed scope with a written feature list protects both sides. New ideas go on a v2 list and get quoted separately.

A real budget: a multi-restaurant ordering app

The clearest example I have is an app for a client in Poland, built so that many independent restaurants could sign up on their own and list their menus in one shared app, a bit like a local food delivery marketplace. You can read the details on the case study page.

• Scope: restaurant self sign-up, menu and profile management, browsing across all restaurants, iOS and Android, and a Node.js backend.
• Stack: React Native with Expo, plus Node.js.
• Budget: about $3,000 to $4,500 across the main phases.
• Timeline: 6 months for the main build, then a 4-month second phase as the client's plans grew.

A few things to notice. That's a platform-tier app at the very bottom of the range, and it stayed there because the scope was tight and the client kept later ideas for separate follow-up orders instead of stuffing them into the first build. The client came back for eight orders in total, which is how a $3,000 to $4,500 first phase turned into a 10-month relationship.

I'd be lying if I said every platform app lands under $5,000. A team that wants payments, delivery tracking and an admin panel from day one is closer to the top of the range.

The costs nobody puts in the quote

The build price is not the total. Plan for these:

• Developer accounts. Apple's developer program is $99 a year. Google Play is a one-time $25.
• Hosting and services. A small app usually runs on $20 to $100 a month in hosting, database, email and push notification services. It grows with users.
• Maintenance. Operating systems update every year and things break. A common rule of thumb is to budget 15% to 25% of the build cost per year. Topflight quotes 25%.
• Store review. Apple can reject a first submission. A good developer knows the usual reasons and plans for one round of fixes, but it can add a few days.
• Content and legal. Privacy policy, terms of service, and app store screenshots. Not expensive, but someone has to do them.

Web app or mobile app first?

If you're not sure you need an app in the stores at all, start with a web app that works well on phones. In my experience it's noticeably cheaper, there's no store approval, and you can change it the same day. Go to the stores when you need things only a mobile app does well: push notifications that people rely on, the camera, offline use, or a home-screen icon your customers expect.

Plenty of founders pay for a full mobile app when a web app would have told them whether anyone wants the product. If you're building a software product and validating first, the SaaS MVP guide covers that path, and there's a separate price breakdown for a SaaS MVP.

Freelancer, agency or in-house hire?

The real risk with a freelancer is that they disappear. Ask for the code in your own repository from day one, written handover notes, and a payment schedule tied to working milestones. I've covered the longer version in freelance developer vs agency.

How to get an accurate quote in one afternoon

Developers can only give you a real number if you can answer these:

1. Who are the different users, and what does each one do?
2. What's the one thing the app must do on day one?
3. Does money move through it? How?
4. Does it need to connect to another system (a booking tool, accounting software, a CRM)?
5. iOS, Android, web, or all three?
6. Is there an existing design, or do you need one?

Write the answers in plain language, one paragraph each. If a developer quotes you a price without asking any of these, the number isn't worth much.

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I build web and mobile apps for founders and growing companies, from first release to follow-up phases. If you have a rough idea and want a realistic number, send me a short brief and you'll get a written plan with scope, timeline and a fixed price.