Do you need an app at all
An app pays off when there is repeated use and a need for phone features: notifications, camera, offline use, background location. If the goal is for people to find you and send an enquiry, a website does that better because it asks for no installation. The most expensive mistake is an app as a catalogue: the user installs it once, opens it twice and deletes it.
Ranges
- Simple app with login, a list and notifications: 3,000 to 8,000 EUR.
- Medium complexity with accounts, payment and an admin area: 8,000 to 20,000 EUR.
- Complex platform with real time features and integrations: from 20,000 EUR upward.
The price rises with screen count, but much faster with the number of systems the app has to talk to.
Native or cross platform
Native means separate code for iOS and Android, the best performance and the most expensive maintenance, because everything is done twice. A cross platform approach shares one codebase across both and usually cuts cost by a third to a half, with small compromises on very demanding graphics. For most business apps cross platform is the sensible choice.
Costs people forget
An Apple App Store account is paid yearly, Google Play once. The app has to be updated every year because the platforms change their rules, and that is not optional but the condition for staying in the store. Add the server where the app keeps its data. Totalled up, yearly upkeep is usually fifteen to twenty percent of the build price.
We build mobile apps and websites, so we will say honestly if a site is enough, describe the idea.