How much will it cost to
build your app?
Pick your platform, features and scope for a realistic cost & timeline range — the same way a senior tech lead would ballpark it.
Describe your product
Adjust anything — the estimate updates live.
Your estimate
Ballpark range — refine it in a free session.
Free report + a no-obligation sanity check from Stratgik.
What actually drives app development cost
Ask five agencies “how much to build my app?” and you’ll get five wildly different numbers — because cost isn’t about the idea, it’s about scope, platform, and how production-ready it needs to be. This estimator models the same variables a senior engineering lead weighs, so you walk in with a realistic number instead of a guess.
Feature surface area
Every feature is engineering time. Login is cheap and well-trodden; payments, real-time chat and anything touching AI/ML are where budgets balloon — edge cases, third-party dependencies, security and testing. A lean MVP that does one thing well beats a feature-complete v1.
Platform choice
A web app is the fastest, cheapest path to market. Cross-platform mobile shares one codebase across iOS and Android at a modest premium. Truly native iOS and Android roughly doubles front-end effort. “Web first, mobile later” is one of the biggest budget levers.
Design polish
A functional standard UI is enough to validate demand. Premium, fully-branded design with custom interactions costs more and is rarely worth it before you have users. Spend design budget once the product has proven it deserves it.
Build quality & scale-readiness
A throwaway MVP, a growth-ready build, and a system engineered to scale (tests, CI/CD, resilient infra) can differ by 50%+ for the same feature set. The right answer depends on your stage — over-engineering pre-PMF wastes runway.
How this estimate is calculated
We total the engineering effort for your selected features plus a foundation baseline (architecture, auth scaffolding, deployment, QA), then adjust for platform, design level and build scope. Effort is converted to a cost and calendar timeline using blended senior-team rates, and shown as a ±25% range because every real project has unknowns. It’s a ballpark to plan around — not a quote. The fastest way to tighten it is a short conversation about what you’re actually building.
Want this number pressure-tested — for free?
Book a free 30-minute session with Stratgik. We’ll challenge the scope, flag what you can cut, and give you an honest build-vs-buy call. No pitch, no obligation.
Book your free sessionFrequently asked questions
Is this estimate accurate enough to budget around?
It’s a realistic planning range based on typical senior-team effort — accurate enough to sanity-check a budget or a quote you’ve received. For a firm number, the scope needs a short conversation, which is exactly what the free session is for.
Why is there such a wide range?
Because real software has unknowns — integrations that turn out to be fiddly, requirements that shift once users touch it. The ±25% band is honest about that. Tighter scope means a tighter range.
Should I build web or mobile first?
For most founders, web first: it’s faster and cheaper to validate demand, and you can add mobile once you know what people actually use. The estimator lets you compare both instantly.
Can Stratgik build this for me?
Yes — Stratgik provides fractional senior tech leadership and can scope, oversee or build your product. Start with the free session; if it’s a fit, we’ll map a plan.
Get your cost breakdown
We’ll email your full cost & timeline breakdown, plus how to bring it down.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.