Insights · 5 min read
What a mobile app actually costs in 2026, why the quoted range is so wide, and the two decisions that move the price more than anything else.
By GGP Editorial
Ask five agencies what a mobile app costs and you'll get five numbers that don't overlap. That isn't because anyone is lying. It's because "an app" covers everything from a two-screen calculator to a live trading terminal. The price range is real; the trick is figuring out where your idea lands.
I've spent the last eight years quoting app builds at GlobeSoft, and the honest answer to "how much" is another question: what does the app have to do. Here's how we break it down, with real numbers.
Three things move the price more than any other factor. Get clear on them before you ask for a quote and the quotes you get back will actually be comparable.
The first is the number of screens and flows. A login, a list, a detail page and a profile is maybe ten screens. An app with a checkout, messaging, live tracking and an admin backend is fifty or more. Every screen is design, layout, edge cases and QA.
The second is whether it's native or cross-platform. One codebase that ships to iOS and Android at once, usually with React Native or Flutter, is cheaper to build and maintain than two native codebases in Swift and Kotlin. For most business apps we recommend cross-platform. For games, heavy AR, or anything that needs deep hardware access, native still wins.
The third is the backend. Most "app" projects are really two projects: the app and the API behind it. If your app needs logins, payments or synced data, there's a server somewhere. That server is often where half the budget actually goes.
Here's the range we quote most often for a cross-platform app with a standard backend.
| App type | What it does | Cost range | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple utility | A few screens, no login, local data | $10k - $25k | 4 - 8 weeks |
| Business app | Login, payments, admin, push | $30k - $80k | 3 - 5 months |
| Complex product | Real-time, chat, IoT, heavy backend | $80k - $200k+ | 5 - 9 months |
The wide bands exist because scope moves. A "business app" that syncs with an existing ERP is a different animal from one that stands alone. IoT features, AI features and third-party integrations all push you toward the top of each band.
A lifestyle app we built for an African client, Africa Life, started small and grew: first a content feed, then user profiles, then social features. Starting narrow kept the first version affordable and let the client learn what users actually wanted before spending more.
Time is a cost too. A simple app can ship in six weeks, but every change after the designs are signed off costs more than the same change earlier. Lock the scope, approve the screens, and don't tinker mid-build. That discipline is worth more than haggling over the hourly rate.
The number in a quote is never the last number. A few costs show up after launch that no one budgets for.
App store fees are the smallest of them. Apple and Google both take a cut of in-app purchases, and both charge a yearly developer fee. Plan for them, but they won't break you.
The bigger hidden cost is maintenance. Operating systems update every year, and apps that don't keep up eventually break or get pulled. Budget roughly 15 to 20 percent of the build cost per year for upkeep. It's cheaper than a rebuild later.
Then there's the integration work. Payment gateways, push notification services and analytics all have their own rules and fees. A self-ordering app with a POS tie-in, like the one we built for a restaurant client, needs the ordering app and the in-store hardware to stay in sync, which means ongoing work, not a one-time build.
Cut the feature list for version one. Every founder I've met overestimates what users need on day one. Ship the core loop, watch what people do, then add. It's the single biggest money saver in the whole process.
Pick a team that stays. The cost of an app isn't just the build; it's what happens when the freelancer who wrote it disappears. We keep a dedicated chat group and an agreed overlap window for every project, and we work in English or Portuguese. That matters more than the quote when something breaks at month seven.
And don't overthink the industry. We've built apps for finance, property, restaurants, logistics and trading across Brazil, South Africa, Singapore and the US. If it's legal, we can build it. A cross-platform build on a boring, well-understood stack, Java and Spring Boot on the backend with React or React Native on the front, is usually the cheapest thing to run for the next five years.
Tell us what you are building and where you are today. We typically reply within 24 hours.
