“How much will it cost to build our app?” is one of the hardest questions for any agency or development partner to answer – and the one every founder wants a straight answer to. In 2025, the honest response is still “it depends”, but we can be much clearer about what it depends on.
Let’s start with ballpark ranges for a professionally built app in the UK market:
- Simple proof-of-concept / prototype: £10k–£30k
- Typical MVP with core features: £30k–£100k
- Feature-rich product with integrations: £80k–£250k+
Anything under £10k is usually either a very narrow, low-risk experiment or a sign that corners are being cut. Anything above £250k suggests significant complexity, multiple platforms, or enterprise-grade requirements.
So what drives the number up or down?
The biggest factor is scope. A focused app that does one thing well – say, booking appointments and sending reminders – is dramatically cheaper than a sprawling platform with chat, payments, loyalty schemes, offline sync and complex admin. Every extra feature brings design, development, testing and support overhead.
Platform choice matters too. A cross-platform approach using Flutter or React Native can cover iOS and Android from a single codebase, which is why many new products go this route. Native builds for each platform tend to cost more but can be justified for high-performance consumer apps, or where deep hardware integration is crucial.
Design is another variable. If you’re happy with a clean, standard component-driven UI, you’ll spend less than if you want heavily customised animations, micro-interactions and brand flourishes. Good UX work is worth paying for, but not every screen needs to be a design award candidate.
Then there’s the backend. Some apps can lean on existing tools – authentication providers, headless CMSs, low-code backends – to avoid reinventing the wheel. Others need bespoke APIs, complex data modelling, or deep integrations with legacy systems. Backend complexity often separates the £40k projects from the £140k ones.
Don’t forget ongoing costs. App stores change rules, operating systems update, and users expect bugs to be fixed. Budget at least 15–25% of your initial build cost per year for maintenance and incremental improvements. If you spend £80k on an MVP and nothing thereafter, it will quickly feel stale.
How do you control costs without sabotaging quality?
First, be ruthless about the MVP. List every feature you think you need, then mark the ones that are truly essential for launch – the things without which the product doesn’t make sense. Everything else belongs on a “later” roadmap. Your goal is to launch the smallest thing that delivers real value to a specific group of users, not to build the final vision in one go.
Second, invest in scoping. Vague briefs lead to vague estimates, which later turn into painful change requests. Work with your partner to create a simple service blueprint, user stories and a clickable prototype before committing to full build. It’s cheaper to change your mind in Figma than in code.
Third, consider a phased engagement. Start with a paid discovery phase – perhaps £5k–£10k – to nail requirements, architecture and UX. From that, you can derive a more accurate build estimate and decide whether to proceed. If a partner won’t entertain this and insists on a fixed quote from a sketchy spec, be cautious.
Finally, weigh up no-code options. For some products, especially early-stage B2B tools, platforms like FlutterFlow or Bubble can get you to users faster and cheaper. You might spend £15k–£40k with a no-code studio instead of £60k–£120k on a fully bespoke build. As we’ve discussed in earlier posts, that can be a smart way to learn before hardening key parts in code.
In 2025, building a mobile app in the UK is still a serious investment – but it needn’t be a blind one. If you’re clear on scope, ruthless about the MVP, and honest about ongoing costs, you can set a budget that reflects reality rather than wishful thinking.
