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How much does it cost to build an app?

Direct answer

A functional prototype costs roughly $875 to $3,000. A real MVP that pilot users can use costs roughly $1,875 to $12,000. A full public launch with payments, roles, and integrations costs roughly $4,250 to $40,000. The range within each band is driven by four things: screen count, number of integrations, how clearly the data model is defined, and whether compliance is in scope.

Estimate your specific build
Real numbers

Three bands, and what actually ships in each.

These are our published fixed prices, not industry averages. Scope is locked at kickoff, so the number you agree is the number you pay.

7-day build

The 7-day sprint

$875
starting price, fixed at kickoff

A functional prototype for pilot users, investor calls, or a hackathon deadline.

  • · Up to 6 core screens, pixel-designed
  • · Auth (sign-up, sign-in, session)
  • · One primary data model + one CRUD flow
  • · Deployed to Vercel with a real URL
14-day build

The 14-day MVP

$1,875
starting price, fixed at kickoff

A real product for real users. Pilot cohort, waitlist, or paid beta.

  • · Up to 15 screens, responsive on mobile + desktop
  • · Full auth + role-based access
  • · 3-5 primary data models with relationships
  • · Payments (Stripe) or a single custom integration
30-day build

The 30-day launch

$4,250
starting price, fixed at kickoff

Fundraising, public launch, or a product about to hit revenue.

  • · Unlimited screens, tuned for Core Web Vitals
  • · Auth + RBAC + audit log
  • · 10+ data models with proper foreign keys
  • · Payments + up to 3 custom integrations

Starting prices assume a clear brief and a defined data model. The estimator on the Launch page adjusts for your screen count, integrations, and expected users, and returns a band rather than a single number, because a single number before scoping would be a guess dressed as a quote.

By app type

What your kind of app typically costs.

Different shapes carry different amounts of inherent complexity. A marketplace has two sides and split payments; a dashboard has one side and a chart library. The tier each shape usually lands in:

Two-sided marketplace
30-day tier$4,250
6 core screens · Next.js
B2B SaaS / dashboard
14-day tier$1,875
6 core screens · Next.js
Booking / scheduling
14-day tier$1,875
6 core screens · Next.js
Social / community app
30-day tier$4,250
6 core screens · Next.js
Analytics dashboard
14-day tier$1,875
6 core screens · Next.js + Recharts
Directory / listings
14-day tier$1,875
6 core screens · Next.js + Mapbox
Content / publishing
7-day tier$875
6 core screens · Next.js
Ecommerce / storefront
14-day tier$1,875
6 core screens · Next.js Commerce
Internal tool
7-day tier$875
6 core screens · React + Tanstack Table
The four variables

What actually moves the price.

Feature lists are a poor predictor of cost. These four things explain most of the variance between a cheap build and an expensive one.

01

Number of screens

The single most predictable driver. Each distinct screen carries design, state, edge cases, and tests. A 6-screen prototype and a 40-screen product are not the same job even when the feature list sounds similar.

Effect: Roughly linear. Doubling screens roughly doubles build time.
02

Integrations

Every third-party service adds authentication, error handling, retries, webhook verification, and a failure mode you have to design for. Stripe plus a CRM plus one webhook is three integrations, not one line item.

Effect: $800–$2,500 each, depending on how well the vendor's SDK behaves.
03

Who owns the data model

A product with five clean entities is cheap. A product where nobody has decided what a 'customer' is costs far more, because the ambiguity gets discovered during the build rather than before it.

Effect: Unclear models are the most common cause of a 2x overrun.
04

Compliance scope

SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI each impose code-level controls, audit trails, and artifacts. They are not a phase at the end; they change how the thing is built from day one.

Effect: Adds 20–40% when in scope, far more when retrofitted later.
What people get wrong

The questions behind the question.

Why do quotes for the same app range from $5k to $150k?+
Because they are quoting different things. A $5k quote is usually a template with your logo and a fixed feature list. A $150k quote usually includes discovery, design, compliance, and a team that will still be around in a year. Neither is dishonest by default. The mistake is comparing them as if they describe the same deliverable.
Is it cheaper to build it on no-code first?+
Often yes, and frequently the right call. A no-code MVP can validate demand for a fraction of a coded build. The cost arrives later: migrating a live no-code app to production code typically runs $1,975 to $7,500 with us, and you pay it at exactly the moment the product is working and you least want to stop. Build on no-code if you are testing an idea; build in code if you already know the idea works.
Does offshore actually cost less?+
The hourly rate is lower. Whether the total is lower depends on how much management the arrangement needs. Rework, timezone latency, and specification overhead routinely consume the saving. What reliably works is offshore engineering with accountable management in your timezone, which is the model we run.
What about using AI to build it?+
AI will get you a working demo remarkably cheaply, and that is genuinely useful. It does not produce the accountability, security review, data-model discipline, or maintenance path that a business runs on. Most of our migration work now comes from AI-generated apps that worked in a demo and could not be extended safely.
After launch

The cost nobody quotes you.

Build cost is the smaller half. A live product carries hosting, monitoring, dependency updates, security patches, and the engineering time to keep shipping. Budget for it before launch rather than discovering it in month three.

Infrastructure
$40–$400
per month, typical early-stage
Maintenance
15–20%
of build cost, annually
Continued build
$4,200+
per seat/month if you retain a squad
The cheapest build is rarely the cheapest product.

A build that skips typed data models and tests costs less on day one and more every month afterwards. We price the version that stays maintainable, which is why our starting prices are not the lowest you will find.

Ready when you are

You can generate an app in an afternoon.
Owning one is a different job.

30-minute scoping call. Fixed-price plan in your inbox within 48 hours. Whichever service you need, Launch, FullCode, Codify Yo!, or Teams, you're talking to the team who'll do the work.

✓ 48-hour fixed-price quotes✓ North American oversight✓ Global engineering economics