Apps, cost, scope

What does it cost to build an app?

It depends on four things more than on the app itself: whether it has to be in the App Store or can live in the browser, whether people log in and pay, how many other systems it has to talk to, and who looks after it once it is live. A narrow first version that does one job well is typically a couple of months of work. The price follows what the app has to do, and the number of screens says little about that.

Published: September 27, 2026

What decides the price

The store or the browser. A web app is one product that works everywhere. A native app is a product plus two store reviews, two sets of rules and releases that wait for approval. Both are right for some jobs, and the choice moves the price more than anything you can see on a screen.

Login and payment. An app anyone can open is simple. Accounts, passwords that get forgotten, roles, and payment with receipts and refunds each add work that nobody sees in a sketch.

The systems it talks to. Accounting, a booking system, a door lock, a CRM: every integration is its own piece of work, with its own permissions and its own way of failing when the other side is down.

Who looks after it. An app is never finished. Somebody has to answer when it breaks, update it when the phones change, and decide what comes next.

A first version in a couple of months

The fastest way to a good app is a narrow first version: one job done well, login if it needs it, payment if it needs it, and a simple admin view for you. That is typically a couple of months of work, with a demo you can try every week so you see it take shape before it is finished. Everything after that is added in phases, in the order your users show you.

What a quote tends to leave out

The admin view. Somebody has to change prices, answer customers and fix a booking by hand. That screen is rarely drawn and always needed.
Moving the old data. Customers, memberships and history in the old system do not move themselves.
The second language. Adding it later costs more than planning for it.
Store reviews. Apple and Google review every release, and a rejection costs days you did not plan for.
Maintenance. See above. It is the line that decides whether the app still works in two years.

How to find out in an hour

We do not put a price on an app before knowing what it has to do. An app that books a sauna and one that runs a hundred technicians in the field share a name and little else.

Describe it in the Living Brief and you get an architecture sketch, phases and a range in weeks straight back, without anyone phoning you. If you are not sure an app is the right answer at all, the free AI review starts from the business instead.

Field notes

Questions we get

The same questions, every time. These are the answers we give across a table.

Do we need an app in the App Store, or is a web app enough?

A web app is enough more often than people expect. It works on every phone, needs no approval from Apple or Google, and is updated the moment we deploy. The store earns its place when you need what a native app does best: notifications that reach every iPhone, Bluetooth, work that carries on in the background, or a place in the store where your customers expect to find you.

Can one app run on both iPhone and Android?

Yes. With a cross-platform framework such as React Native, one codebase produces both apps and most of the work is shared. A few things still have to be done per platform, and each store has its own review, but you are not paying for two apps.

Can customers pay with Vipps inside the app?

For physical goods and services, such as a booking, a delivery or a session in a sauna, yes: Vipps and Stripe both work. Selling digital content that is used inside an iPhone app is different, because Apple has its own rules for that and usually takes a share. Which one applies to you is worth settling before the design, while it is cheap to change.

What does it cost after launch?

Hosting, the developer accounts with Apple and Google, and maintenance. The last one is the one people forget: the phone operating systems change every year, and an app nobody updates starts to break sooner than most people expect. Plan for somebody to look after it, whoever that is.

Do we own the app?

Yes. The code and the data are yours, and the app should be published under your own developer accounts with Apple and Google rather than the agency’s. Otherwise moving it to someone else later becomes a negotiation.

Field notes