How Much Does an App Cost? Real Numbers from a Freelancer
App development costs: real price ranges and budgeting tips from a freelancer. MVP from 15,000 €, e-commerce from 40,000 €, enterprise from 80,000 €.
For founders, product owners, and CTOs budgeting an app project. No technical background required.
TL;DR: A simple app starts around 15,000 €, a mid-complexity app runs 40,000–80,000 €, and complex apps can exceed 150,000 €. The range is wide because apps differ wildly in scope. The biggest price drivers: feature set, whether you want an MVP or a finished product, and who you hire (freelancer vs. agency). On top of that come ongoing costs after launch that many people forget to budget for.
How much does an app cost? The short answer
| App type | Price range | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Simple app (info, content, minimal interaction) | 10,000–25,000 € | Company showcase, event app |
| Mid-complexity app (user accounts, API, backend) | 40,000–80,000 € | E-commerce app, booking app |
| Complex app (custom backend, real-time, integrations) | 80,000–200,000+ € | Fintech app, healthcare app, marketplace |
These are ballpark figures from my experience as a freelancer based in Germany. Agencies typically charge 30–60% more. Offshore teams can be significantly cheaper, but I’ll get to that.
These numbers include concept, design, development, and testing for iOS and Android using a cross-platform framework like Flutter — whether you call it “app development” or “app programming.” Going native (separate apps for each platform) doesn’t quite double the cost, but adds 40–70%.
Why the range is so wide
“How much does an app cost?” is about as useful as “How much does a house cost?” The answer depends on the same things: size, location, finishes, who builds it.
The biggest lever is feature scope. An app with login, profile management, push notifications, search, and payment integration is a different beast than an app that displays content. Every feature that talks to a backend increases the price — because it needs to be built, tested, secured, and maintained.
Then there’s design. A standard UI using Material Design or Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines costs less than a fully branded custom design with animations. At Purelei, design ate a significant chunk of the budget because the app needed to reflect the brand’s visual identity. For an internal enterprise app, standard UI might be the right call.
Backend complexity gets underestimated. User management, database, APIs, maybe real-time communication — most apps need this. A Firebase backend for an MVP is cheaper than a custom server architecture. But at some point you outgrow Firebase, and the migration gets expensive.
Then there’s platform choice and integrations: cross-platform frameworks like Flutter or React Native save 30–40% compared to two native apps, and every integration (Stripe, CRM, analytics) costs development time and testing.
App development cost by app type
It gets more concrete with examples.
MVP / Minimum Viable Product (15,000–30,000 €)
An MVP has one purpose: find out if your idea works. Minimal feature set, one platform, maybe a lightweight backend. The design doesn’t need to be perfect, edge cases can wait. Learning speed beats perfection.
I recommend almost every founder start with an MVP. A friend once spent 120,000 € on an app that had 200 active users after six months. A 20,000 € MVP would have given him that answer in eight weeks. I walk through the founder’s journey from idea to app step by step in my founder’s guide.
E-commerce app (40,000–80,000 €)
Product catalog, shopping cart, checkout, user accounts, push notifications, maybe wishlists and reviews. Plus a backend or integration with an existing shop system (Shopify, WooCommerce, Shopware). The complexity here is in the payment flows, syncing between app and shop, and platform-specific requirements (in-app purchases, App Store guidelines).
Enterprise / Health / Fintech (80,000–200,000+ €)
At MediaMarktSaturn, we built an app for 13 countries. That’s a different level: localization, country-specific features, compliance (GDPR, accessibility), complex backend architectures, extensive QA. Health and fintech apps add regulatory requirements that increase effort further.
Freelancer vs. agency: what costs more?
| Freelancer | Agency | |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly rate (Germany) | 80–130 €/h | 120–200 €/h |
| Typical project size | 15,000–100,000 € | 50,000–500,000 € |
| Overhead | Low | PM, QA, account manager |
| Flexibility | High | Process-driven |
| Risk | Key-person dependency | Distributed across team |
A freelancer like me is cheaper per hour and has less overhead. You pay for development work, not for project management meetings. The downside: if I’m sick or on vacation, nobody is working on the project. For larger projects (above ~100,000 €) or when you need a permanent team, an agency can make sense.
Offshore teams
Offshore teams (India, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia) charge 20–50 €/h. This can work, but in my observation it rarely does on the first try. Communication issues, time zones, and different quality standards often mean the result needs rework. The cheapest projects are rarely the least expensive.
Hidden costs: what comes after launch
Paying for the launch is the easy part. What comes after is what many people forget to budget for.
Start with App Store fees: Apple charges $99/year for the developer account, Google a one-time $25. On top of that, 15–30% commission on in-app purchases and subscriptions.
Then hosting. Firebase, AWS, or your own server — costs depend on user count. For an MVP, expect 50–200 €/month. For an app with hundreds of thousands of users, it can quickly reach 1,000+ €/month.
Maintenance is the one people forget most. iOS and Android release new OS versions every year. If you don’t update your app, something will eventually break. Budget 10–20% of development costs per year. For a 50,000 € app, that’s 5,000–10,000 € annually.
And then the first version of an app is never the last. User feedback, new features, performance work — most successful apps invest more in ongoing development than in the initial build.
How to budget realistically
A few things I’ve learned from projects:
Always add a 20–30% buffer to the quote. Not because the developer estimates poorly, but because requirements change. “Can we quickly add X?” is the most expensive sentence in app development.
Start with an MVP. Build the version that solves your most important problem and nothing beyond that. Show it to real users. Learn. Then invest in the next version.
Fixed price or time & material — settle this upfront. Fixed price gives you budget certainty but limits flexibility. Time & material (billing by effort) is more flexible but requires trust and good tracking. I mostly work with time & material, because requirements almost always shift during the project.
AI tools can cut development time by 20–40% — more on that in my post about AI in app development.
And ask for a cost estimate broken down by phase: concept, design, development, testing, launch. That way you can see where the money goes and decide after each phase whether to continue.
What an app costs with me
I work with an hourly rate and bill by effort. My projects typically start at 15,000–20,000 € for an MVP and range from 40,000–80,000 € for a full-featured app.
Founders often come to me after getting an agency quote for 80,000 € — and we deliver the same result for 40,000–50,000 €. Not because the agency is overpriced, but because I have less overhead and can make decisions faster.
You get direct contact with no project managers in between, handover-ready code that your team or another developer can pick up immediately, and no dependency on me — no vendor lock-in.
That includes concept, UX/UI, development (Flutter, cross-platform for iOS and Android), and testing.
What’s not included: ongoing maintenance (I can offer that separately), backend infrastructure (I set it up, you pay for hosting), and App Store fees.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a simple app cost? A simple app (info, content, minimal interaction) runs 10,000–25,000 €. That includes concept, design, development, and testing for iOS and Android.
What does an app cost monthly? After launch, expect 50–200 €/month for hosting (MVP) plus 10–20% of development costs per year for maintenance and updates.
Freelancer or agency — which costs more? Agencies typically charge 30–60% more than freelancers. A freelancer has less overhead; the tradeoff is key-person risk.
How long does it take to build an app? An MVP typically takes 6–10 weeks, a full-featured app 3–6 months. The biggest time killers: unclear requirements and late decisions.
If you’re planning an app and want to know what it will actually cost — book a free intro call. I’ll give you an honest assessment, even if the answer is that you’re not ready yet.
More about my work and approach on the app development page.