How much does it cost to put an app on the App Store and Google Play?

Apple’s Developer Program costs $99 a year, and Google Play charges a one-time $25 registration fee. Neither covers building the app or preparing it to pass review.

Is a web app cheaper to build than a mobile app?

Usually. Clutch’s guides show typical web development projects under $10,000 and typical app projects at $10,000–$49,999. A web app also skips store review and doesn’t need a second platform.

How much does an MVP cost?

An MVP costs whatever its scope costs: one core workflow, the users who need it, and the integrations it can’t work without. Clutch’s typical app project range of $10,000–$49,999 is a fair outer bound. A tightly scoped one-week build usually costs less.

How long does it take to build an app?

Clutch’s guide puts the typical app project at about 11 months. A single product with one core workflow can be built and launched in about a week when the scope is fixed first.

What are the hidden costs of an app?

Running costs (hosting, database, monitoring and email, about $91 a month for a small stack), store fees, yearly SDK updates, and anything production-critical that was skipped in the first version, such as access rules, backups and payment reconciliation.

How much does it cost to build an app in 2026?

How much does it cost to make an app?

The most current figures come from Clutch, a directory that collects verified reviews from clients of development firms. Its September 2026 guides say app projects typically cost $10,000–$49,999, and web development projects typically cost less than $10,000. The averages are much higher, at $90,780 for apps and $66,499 for web projects, because a small number of large projects pull them up. The typical range describes what most buyers actually pay.

What published surveys say an app costs
Source	Figure	Based on
Clutch, app development (Sept 2026)	Typically $10,000–$49,999; average $90,780	Verified client reviews; sample size not published
Clutch, web development (Sept 2026)	Typically under $10,000; average $66,499	Verified client reviews; sample size not published
GoodFirms survey (May 2022)	Simple app $12,960–$30,240, in 3–7 weeks	267 development companies describing their own pricing
GoodFirms survey (about 2020)	Simple app $24,830–$59,150, in 4.5–11 weeks	167 agencies describing their own pricing

Two of those four sources are agencies describing their own prices, and one is six years old. That is roughly the state of the evidence. Treat any single range, including ours, as a starting point for a conversation about scope rather than a quote.

Why do app cost estimates vary so much?

Search for the price of a “simple app” and you will find figures from about $5,000 to $100,000 for the same words. The estimates disagree for three reasons:

The tiers are adjectives. “Simple”, “medium” and “complex” are never defined in screens, user roles or integrations, so two guides can both be right and differ fivefold.
Averages hide the typical project. Clutch’s own numbers show it: most app projects fall between $10,000 and $49,999, yet the average is $90,780.
Most guides are sales pages. Agencies selling months-long builds publish high ranges, no-code tools selling subscriptions publish low ones, and some still quote a survey median from 2015.

What actually sets the price of an app?

Price comes from what gets built, not from the category. A booking app and a marketplace can cost the same or ten times apart depending on these drivers:

What moves the cost of an app
Driver	Why it moves the price	Cheaper end	Expensive end
Kinds of users	Each role needs its own screens, permissions and tests	One role, plus an admin	Buyers, sellers, staff and admins
Core workflows	Each end-to-end journey has to be built and tested	One journey, done properly	Several independent journeys
Integrations	Every outside system adds setup, failure cases and upkeep	Payments and email	A CRM, an ERP and custom APIs
Platforms	Web, iOS and Android each have their own release process	A web app	Separate native apps
Data	Moving, cleaning and protecting data takes time	A fresh database	A migration from an old system, or regulated data
Production basics	Access rules, backups, monitoring and deploys	Built in from the start	Retrofitted after launch

The last row is the one estimates leave out. Access rules, payments that reconcile, backups that have been restored, and monitoring cost the least when they are part of the first version, and the most when they are added after something breaks. Our list of the 20 ways AI-built apps fail in production shows what goes missing.

What do app developers charge per hour?

Clutch puts the most common rate for app development firms at $25–$49 an hour worldwide, and US web developers at $100–$149 an hour. For comparison, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median salary of a software developer at $135,980 a year (May 2025). That is what a developer earns, not what a firm bills.

Simple arithmetic turns rates into a week: 40 hours at $100–$149 is $4,000–$5,960, and 40 hours at $25–$49 is $1,000–$1,960. That is a calculation, not a survey result, but it explains most of the spread between quotes: the same week of work is priced very differently depending on where the team is.

How much does it cost to run an app each month?

Building is one bill; running is another, and few cost guides price it. Here is a typical stack for a small production app at the vendors’ list prices in September 2026:

List prices for a small production stack
Service	Plan	Price	What it covers
Supabase	Pro	$25 a month	Database, sign-in and file storage, with 100,000 monthly active users included
Vercel	Pro	$20 a month per seat	Hosting and deploys, with $20 of usage included
Sentry	Team	$26 a month, billed yearly	Error monitoring, 50,000 errors a month
Resend	Pro	$20 a month	Sending email, 50,000 a month
Apple Developer Program	Standard	$99 a year	Publishing to the App Store
Google Play Console	Registration	$25 once	Publishing to Google Play

That comes to about $91 a month before store fees, and it grows with usage. Free tiers exist but aren’t built for production: Supabase pauses free projects after a week of inactivity, and Vercel’s free Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use.

How much does app maintenance cost per year?

Most guides say 15–25% of the build cost every year. We could not find an independent source for that figure. It is an agency rule of thumb, and the closest thing to data is a GoodFirms survey in which agencies reported charging an average of 25%.

A better way to budget is to list what maintenance actually is: dependency and security updates, the SDK changes Apple and Google require each year, monitoring and alerts, and a few hours of fixes a month. Our Care plan prices exactly that at $499 a month, with four hours of fixes included.

Can you build an app in a week?

Yes, if it is one product with one core workflow, and the scope is fixed before the week starts. A week covers sign-in and roles, payments, an admin view, two or three integrations, and the monitoring, backups and deploys around them. It does not cover several products at once, heavy offline or real-time work, formal compliance programs, or a large migration out of an old system. The details are in Can you build an MVP in a week?.

Is a fixed price or an hourly rate cheaper?

Neither is cheaper by default; they decide who carries the risk. With an hourly rate, you pay for every surprise. With a fixed price, the builder does, which is why a fixed price only works when the scope is written down first. We explain our reasoning in why we don’t bill by the hour.

Is a no-code or AI app builder cheaper?

For a first version, usually yes. Tools like Lovable, Bolt and Bubble get a working demo in days for a monthly subscription. The cost comes back when real users and real money arrive: access rules, payments that reconcile, backups and monitoring are where these apps most often fall short. If you already have one, an AI-Built App Audit Report ($349, two business days) tells you what it needs before launch, and the fee is credited against any fix.

What does PutThrough charge?

Our prices are published, fixed and in US dollars:

AI-Built App Audit Report: $349, a written report in two business days, credited against any sprint booked from it.
Launch Hardening Sprint: from $1,800, to take an existing app safely to production.
Store-Ready Mobile Sprint: from $2,500, to get a web app into the App Store and Google Play.
Care: $499 a month, to keep it running.
One-week builds: web apps, mobile apps, AI agents and internal tools, at a fixed price agreed in writing after a free scoping call. See what we build.