Costs
A simple mobile app usually costs between $1,800 and $8,000. A production app with accounts, payments, notifications, an admin panel, and store submission typically costs $8,000 to $40,000 or more. The largest cost drivers are the number of distinct user roles, offline behaviour, third-party integrations, and whether the app needs native device capabilities.
A screen count is a poor estimate. The expensive work is everything behind the screens: identity, permissions, data synchronisation, payment state, push notifications, and the rules that decide what each user can see. Every one of those adds states that must be designed, built, and tested.
Store submission is a small but real cost. Apple and Google require privacy disclosures, screenshots, review notes, and a credible account-deletion path if users can create accounts. A build that works in a simulator is not the same as a submission that passes review.
A cross-platform build (React Native or Flutter) is usually the right first choice for a business app: one codebase, two stores, and native access where it matters. A fully native build makes sense when performance, deep device integration, or platform-specific interaction is the product.
Sometimes the honest answer is a mobile-first web app. If the app does not need push notifications, offline use, or a store presence, a well-built responsive web application can reach users faster and cost less to maintain.
Scope the first release around one job the user must complete. Defer social features, elaborate onboarding, and dashboards nobody has asked for. A smaller release that reaches real users produces better evidence than a larger one that never launches.
Bitecodes builds mobile apps from $1,800. A written fixed quote follows a short discovery conversation, and the quote separates must-have functionality from later phases so the first release can ship on a real budget.
Get a range for your app scope, then confirm it against a written, fixed-scope quote.
Last reviewed 22 October 2026. If this answer is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
A focused business website typically costs between $500 and $10,000 in 2026. A small, well-built marketing site starts around $500; a larger site with custom design, many templates, integrations, and copy support usually lands between $3,000 and $10,000. E-commerce, membership, and multilingual sites cost more because the complexity sits in the workflows, not the page count.
Build an MVP in eight weeks by fixing one user and one job, writing a short scope with explicit exclusions, designing only the screens that job needs, building in weekly increments, and launching to real users before polishing anything else. Eight weeks is realistic for a single-role product without complex billing or heavy integrations; it is not realistic for a multi-tenant platform with several roles.
Custom software is better when your process is a competitive advantage, no product fits it without expensive workarounds, or you need control over data and integrations. Off-the-shelf software is better when the need is common, the budget is limited, and the tool's standard workflow is acceptable. Most companies should buy commodity functions and build only the parts that are genuinely different.