How much does it cost to build an app? What drives the price, and what comes after launch

How much does it cost to build an app in 2026?

A product with accounts, a backend and payments usually lands in the tens of thousands of dollars, and the range is wide because “app” covers wildly different things. A few screens reading data from a spreadsheet and a marketplace with payments, chat and location tracking are both apps; they have nothing in common on a quote.

Vendor guides give you an order of magnitude. Techstack, a software company headquartered in Poland, quotes basic apps from about 15,000 dollars, mid-range apps from 25,000 and advanced apps from 50,000 (April 2026), and suggests setting aside 15–20% of the build cost every year for maintenance.

That figure explains most quotes better than any price list. An app is mostly hours, and every decision that adds hours of design, development or testing shows up on the invoice. Rates differ a lot between the US, the UK and continental Europe, but the logic is the same everywhere.

What makes an app more or less expensive?

Product decisions move the price far more than technology choices. Each extra flow, integration or user role adds hours across design, build and QA, so the table sets the lean and the heavy version of each decision side by side.

The strongest lever for a smaller first cheque is a tighter first release, the same logic we apply in MVP development cost. If the app is the front end of a subscription platform, read SaaS development cost too: most of the money will sit in the backend.

Is an iOS app more expensive than an Android app?

Building both natively is what costs more, far more than the choice between them. With a cross-platform approach most of the code is written once and shipped to both stores; native features and review differences still need their own attention. We compare the options in React Native vs Flutter vs Capacitor.

What do Apple and Google charge?

You pay for a developer account and, if you sell digital content inside the app, a commission on each transaction. The Apple Developer Program is 99 dollars per membership year, with regional pricing; Google Play Console has a one-off 25-dollar registration fee.

Apple's Small Business Program cuts the commission on paid apps and in-app purchases to 15% for developers with up to 1 million dollars in proceeds the previous year; above that the standard rate applies, and the EU has separate alternative terms. Google revised its structure in 2026 with new rules for the EEA, the UK and the US, so check the Google Play service fee table against your own case before you build a revenue model on it.

How much does it cost to maintain an app after launch?

Expect a steady yearly share of the original build, because an app that nobody touches still stops working. Operating systems change every year and both stores raise their minimum requirements, which is where the familiar 15–20% rule comes from.

• Store requirements. Since 28 April 2026 Apple only accepts uploads built with Xcode 26 and the version 26 SDKs; since 31 August 2026 Google Play requires new apps and updates to target Android 16 (API level 36).
• Infrastructure. Servers, database, file storage, transactional email, push delivery and monitoring all grow with usage.
• Security and data. Dependency updates, tested backups, handling privacy requests.
• Support and small changes. Store reviews, bug reports, copy and store listing updates.

Is an app built with AI cheaper?

Getting to a prototype is cheaper; getting to production is not automatically so. Coding assistants speed up writing code, but they do not remove the work on security, payments, store review and maintenance, and sometimes they push it later, when fixing it costs more. Our guide on how to build a mobile app shows where these tools fit.