The Next Beacon"How much does an app cost?" is the first question almost everyone asks, and the honest answer, "it depends", is useless on its own. So here is what it depends on, with real ranges, so you can plan before you talk to anyone.
The short answer
For a custom app built by a professional team in Western Europe in 2026, typical budgets look like this:
| What you are building | Typical budget | Typical time |
|---|---|---|
| Clickable prototype to test or pitch an idea | €3,000 to €8,000 | 1 to 3 weeks |
| Simple app with a few screens and no accounts | €8,000 to €20,000 | 3 to 6 weeks |
| First version (MVP) with accounts, core features and an admin area | €15,000 to €40,000 | 6 to 12 weeks |
| Platform with payments, several user roles and integrations | €40,000 and up | 3 to 6 months |
These are ranges for the first version. Successful products keep evolving, so plan for ongoing work too (more on that below).
Get a rough number for your idea
Answer a few questions for an indicative budget and timeline. You can send the result to us for a real quote.
What drives the cost
1. How many things a user can do. Every screen and flow has to be designed, built, tested and maintained. A first version with five core actions costs a fraction of one with twenty.
2. Accounts and data. Sign-up, login, profiles and saving data across devices add a server side to the product. Most real apps need this.
3. Money. Taking payments, subscriptions or deposits adds flows, receipts, refunds and store rules. Selling digital content inside an iPhone app means Apple's in-app purchase system, with its own requirements.
4. Different types of users. Customers, staff and administrators each need their own views and permissions. An admin panel is often a small product on its own.
5. Connections to other systems. Payment providers, calendars, maps, accounting or an existing database. Each one is quick if it has a good interface and slow if it does not.
6. Real-time features. Live chat, live locations or instant syncing between people are more complex than screens that load and save.
7. Design ambition. A clean, standard design is quicker than custom illustration, animation and a distinctive visual identity. Both are valid; the second costs more and is often worth it for consumer products.
8. Platforms and languages. iPhone and Android from one shared codebase keeps the cost close to a single app. Every extra language adds translation and testing.
Hourly rates, for reference
In the Netherlands in 2026, experienced freelance developers commonly charge roughly €70 to €120 per hour, and agencies €90 to €160. Offshore teams can be cheaper per hour, but communication, time zones and rework often eat the difference. Fixed-price quotes, like ours, turn all of that into one number agreed up front.
The costs people forget
- Store accounts: Apple's developer programme is $99 per year; Google Play is a one-off $25.
- Hosting and services: often tens of euros a month for a young product, growing with use.
- Maintenance: new phones and OS versions arrive every year, and store rules change. A common rule of thumb is to budget 15 to 20 percent of the build cost per year to keep a product healthy, before new features.
- Getting users: a launched app still needs marketing. Do not spend the whole budget on the build.
How to spend less without cutting corners
- Cut the first version down to its core. The best saving is the feature you do not build yet. Launch, learn, then add.
- Build once for iPhone and Android. Modern cross-platform tools make one product feel native on both.
- Use proven services for payments, email, maps and logins instead of building them yourself.
- Prototype before building. A few days of clickable prototype catches the expensive misunderstandings.
- Agree a fixed price for a fixed scope. It removes the open-ended risk for you.
How we price
We scope every project after a free first call and give you a fixed price for an agreed scope, paid in milestones. Ongoing work runs on a monthly retainer. See pricing or send us your idea for a real number.