How Much Does A Mobile App Cost To Develop? [1-14-2021]

@Dustin McCaffree

I've read too many articles about how much an app or a website would cost... And they ALL say the same thing:

Sure, every project is different, blah blah blah. But you need a starting point as an idea for how much a project would cost you! I'll try to work that out here.

Let's talk real numbers that we charge as a starting point. We charge $250/hr. That's a lot, huh? Especially for most people that are still at a point where they are Googling "How much does an app cost to build?"

I get it. When I did freelance work on my own, I charged about half of that before I started Terrible. But if you go through an agency, they typically have a lot more costs to cover than a freelancer does! They also have a higher standard of work to maintain a long-term positive brand.

Added expenses for an agency include bigger office leases, customer acquisition costs, employee wages, down time (work typically lulls and goes in feast-and-famine waves 🌊 for agencies), education, benefits, etc.

And you pay for that stuff, not them. 😂 There are absolutely agencies that would charge you $1,000/hr or more. And that is okay too! People will pay for companies and people that they like to work on their projects with them.

And I know I said we charge $250/hr, but that’s for new features and maintenance hours! We actually use our own approach to price new apps.

Some agencies/freelancers won't want to discuss an hourly rate. They would rather do a "value-based" or "project-based" cost. This can work well for you in some situations, because you know exactly what you expect to pay when all is said and done. After the project, you can usually keep the agency or freelancer on retainer for ongoing maintenance or feature hours.

At Terrible, we focus on getting your project to fit OUR budget. So, we charge $10k and help you figure out how to get a beautifully polished V1 of your app for that price. It’s a win-win, but definitely not the traditional way to price things.

Here's our best guess at what you'll pay for each of these examples. We'll try to be unbiased and give you a pretty good guess at what it will cost you for each thing:

First, I'll note that my estimated hours is what I have personally seen. In real life. For these exact kinds of projects. I've either sent estimates, billed clients, or seen others bill clients for these exact types of apps and these are the prices and hours, assuming $30/hr for a freelancer and $85/hr for the agency. However, this is on the lower end. So know that you absolutely can find pretty good work for these prices, but the best work will usually cost more. Okay. Lecture over.

A freelancer is usually a good option if you feel confident with you hiring skills. They will be more of an employee, so assessing their technical skills and making sure that you lead the project is important. I highly recommend this option if you have experience in hiring, especially for developers/designers.

The risk is that you can easily get freelancers that don’t actually have the right skill set, some that have poor communication, and others that take a first payment and downright disappear! I’ve seen it all with freelancers...

But frankly I’ve had about 70% good experiences with this one. Plus, once I find a freelancer that I like and can afford for the project, I usually can reuse them for a longer period of time before they disappear or get too expensive.

The place I’ve had the most success both as a freelancer and when looking to hire a freelancer is Upwork. Listing a project there is free, and the freelancer actually pays a % fee of each dollar earned.

Do keep in mind that you’ll find freelancers from $5/hr all the way up to $300+/hr. And often you get what you pay for, but not always. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Agencies tend to be a safer option, and it’s even safer the higher your budget. Reputation matters more to an agency, so they are willing to go out on a limb to make you happy more often.

I find this to be less true over seas, but I’ve worked with amazing teams from 10’s of countries and had good experiences with many!

I’ve paid agencies anywhere from $18/hr to $400/hr, so it’s going to be most important for you to do what you feel comfortable with. At a higher price point, I recommend working with agencies that someone you know has had successful experiences with and recommends.

I’ve had about 95% success working with agencies, even when the project ends up being a little bigger than I originally expected.

Communication tends to be better, there’s a full team working on your project, they usually communicate well, and they have a lot of diverse experience (whereas a freelancer may specialize in something very specific).

This is probably the most unique offering that we know of (although we love what the guys at AJ&Smart are doing with Design Sprints)! Let’s talk about what changes with Terrible.

I won’t go into any more depth than that, but if you decide to go the MDP route with us, we’ve got your back. Just send me a message at dustin@terrible.app.

And if you’d like to read more of my thoughts and fancies...