App development cost in the UK: what SMEs actually pay
Easy Insight Team ·
An app is a five-figure project for most UK SMEs, and the build is only part of it. The costs that decide whether it was worth doing are the ones after launch: store fees, operating system updates every year, and the maintenance that keeps the thing from quietly breaking. Here is how to price all of it.
What are the realistic bands?
The bands below are our own scoping assumptions, not market research. The build-cost column is arithmetic at the median UK mobile developer contract rate, included so you can sanity-check a quote rather than as a price list.
| What you are building | Typical scope | Planning band (days) | Build cost at £388/day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internal tool | One workflow, one user type, no store listing | 20–35 | £7,760–£13,580 |
| Single-purpose app | One clear job, accounts, one platform | 40–70 | £15,520–£27,160 |
| Customer-facing app | Two platforms, accounts, payments, notifications | 70–130 | £27,160–£50,440 |
| Platform or marketplace | Multiple user types, matching, payments, moderation | 150+ | £58,200+ |
The bottom row is where budgets go to die. Anything described as "like Uber, but for X" is not a project with an end date — it is a product with a roadmap, and it should be funded as one. If that is what you have, the honest first step is a scoped MVP rather than a full build; our six-week SaaS MVP approach describes how we cut a large idea down to something shippable.
What does the rate data say?
The median contract day rate for a mobile developer in the UK was £388 in the six months to 1 September 2026, down 17.33% year on year from £469 (IT Jobs Watch).
Treat that with more caution than most figures on this site. It is drawn from a small number of advertised contract vacancies, and a double-digit fall in a thin sample is as likely to reflect which roles happened to be advertised as any real market shift. What it is useful for is the order of magnitude: mobile contract rates sit below general web development rates, not above them, which is the opposite of what most people assume when they see an app quote.
What is not in the build price?
Four lines that belong in the budget from day one:
Store fees. As of September 2026, the Apple Developer Program is $99 a year and a Google Play developer account carries a one-time $25 registration fee. Small numbers, but the Apple one recurs, and letting it lapse takes your app off the store.
Store commission. If you sell anything through the app, the platforms take a percentage. This is the store cost that actually affects a business model, and it should be in your pricing from the start rather than discovered later.
Backend and hosting. Most apps are a front end attached to a server, a database and some integrations. That infrastructure has a monthly cost that grows with users.
Maintenance. The big one — see below.
Why does year two cost more than people expect?
Because apps decay, and websites mostly do not.
Apple and Google ship major operating system releases every year, and each one can change what your app is allowed to do, how it looks, or which SDK versions the stores will accept. An app left untouched for two years will not simply carry on working — at best it looks dated, at worst it is rejected at the next update or pulled from sale.
So an app is a subscription you pay in developer time. Our planning assumption is that annual maintenance runs at a meaningful fraction of the original build, and that is before any new features. Businesses that budget for the build and nothing else end up with an asset that degrades until it needs rebuilding — which costs more than maintaining it would have.
Price the first three years, not the first three months. If the three-year number does not justify itself, the project is not ready, and it is far cheaper to learn that now.
Do you actually need a native app?
This is the question that saves the most money, so it is worth asking properly.
A native app earns its place when you genuinely need device capabilities — camera, offline working, background location, reliable push notifications — or when the usage pattern is frequent and habitual enough that an icon on a home screen changes behaviour. Field engineers logging jobs with no signal need an app. A quarterly customer portal does not.
If neither applies, a responsive web app does the same job without app store review, without two codebases and without asking anyone to install anything. It is usually faster to build and considerably cheaper to keep alive — the trade-offs are set out in what a custom web app actually costs, and our mobile apps and SaaS pages cover where each approach fits.
The most expensive app is the one built because everyone assumed an app was needed. We would rather tell you that before the invoice than after.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to build an app in the UK?
For an SME, a genuinely useful first app is usually a five-figure project. A tightly scoped internal tool or a single-purpose app can land in the £15,000–£30,000 range, a consumer-facing app with accounts, payments and two platforms typically runs higher, and anything described as "like Uber but for X" is a multi-year product, not a project. These are our own scoping bands, not survey data.
What is the UK day rate for a mobile developer?
The median contract day rate for a mobile developer in the UK was £388 in the six months to 1 September 2026, down 17.33% year on year from £469 (IT Jobs Watch). That figure comes from a small number of advertised contract roles, so treat it as directional rather than a market price.
What does it cost to publish an app?
As of September 2026, the Apple Developer Program costs $99 a year and a Google Play developer account costs a one-time $25 registration fee. Both stores also take a commission on in-app purchases, which is the cost that actually matters if you are selling through the app.
Why does year two cost more than people expect?
Because apps decay in a way websites do not. Apple and Google ship operating system releases every year, and an app that is not maintained eventually breaks or gets removed. Budget an annual maintenance allowance from the outset rather than treating it as an unpleasant surprise.
Do we actually need a native app?
Often not. If your users will reach you through a browser and you do not need camera, offline or push notification behaviour, a responsive web app does the job without app store review, two codebases or install friction. Native earns its place when the device capabilities or the usage pattern genuinely require it.
Easy Insight is a UK consultancy for AI, web, apps and data — senior specialists only, no juniors.
Next step
Have an app or a product in mind?
We build mobile apps and SaaS products end to end, and run two of our own, Manifold and Quarterly, so the advice comes from production, not a pitch. Apps from £6,000, SaaS and MVP builds from £12,000, fixed price in writing.