The short answer
UK app pricing in 2026, from published sources: a simple app is £12,000 to £30,000, an MVP is £20,000 to £60,000, and the national contractor median is £500 a day, up about 26% from £457 in early 2024. Annual maintenance runs 15 to 25% of the build.
Methodology, stated before the numbers
Read this first, because it determines how much weight the figures deserve.
How figures were normalised. Prices quoted in USD were left in USD and labelled, rather than converted at a rate that would be stale by the time you read this. Hourly rates were converted to day rates at 8 hours where a source gave only one. Ranges spanning wildly different scopes were excluded rather than averaged into something meaningless.
What we deliberately excluded. Vendor pages quoting a single price with no scope attached. Anything undated. Offshore rates presented as UK rates.
Updated: August 2026. We intend to revise this annually.
1. Agency project pricing
| Project type | Published UK range | Typical timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Simple app, few screens, standard features | £12,000 to £30,000 | 10 to 16 weeks |
| MVP | £20,000 to £60,000 | 3 to 4 months |
| Complex or enterprise product | £60,000 to £250,000+ | 6 months+ |
| Bespoke internal system | £30,000 to £80,000 | Varies |
| Enterprise platform | £500,000+ | 12 months+ |
The spread inside each row is mostly scope, not quality. A £12,000 and a £30,000 simple app are frequently the same product with a different number of user types.
2. Contractor and freelancer day rates
This is the most reliable data in the report, because rate benchmarks are published more consistently than project prices.
| Level or location | 2026 day rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| National median, all developers | £500 | Up about 26% from £457 in early 2024 |
| Junior | £400 to £500 | |
| Mid-level | £500 to £600 | |
| Senior, cloud and ML specialists | £650 to £900+ | |
| London | £600 to £650 | 20 to 30% above national |
| Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol | £525 to £550 | 5 to 10% above national |
| UK agency average hourly rate | About £122 | Roughly £1,000 a day |
| Agency day rates, quoted range | £350 to £800+ |
The 2026 trend worth noting. Remote work is eroding the regional gap in both directions. London clients increasingly hire regional contractors at close to national rates, which lifts regional pay and narrows the London premium.
3. Internal tools and business systems
| System | Published UK range |
|---|---|
| Simple internal tool | From about £10,000 |
| Staff portal or admin system | £8,000 to £25,000 |
| Admin dashboard and reporting | £8,000 to £20,000 |
| Custom CRM, mid-tier | £8,000 to £25,000 |
| Standard bespoke business build | £15,000 to £30,000 |
| Standard business system | £30,000 to £80,000 |
4. AI feature development
The widest spread in the report, and the least settled pricing in the market.
| AI build | Published range | Currency as published |
|---|---|---|
| UK SME chatbot | £3,000 to £25,000 | GBP |
| Rule-based chatbot | $5,000 to $15,000 | USD |
| LLM-powered with RAG | $15,000 to $40,000 | USD |
| Advanced multi-modal | $40,000 to $100,000 | USD |
| Enterprise, multi-agent | $100,000 to $300,000+ | USD |
| RAG knowledge base, added to a build | £3,000 to £6,000 | GBP |
Running costs are the part people miss. LLM API usage £50 to £300 a month depending on volume, cloud hosting $200 to $1,000 a month, vector database $50 to $500 a month. Regulated sectors add 25 to 35% to the baseline build.
5. Timelines
| Stage | Published duration |
|---|---|
| Discovery and planning | 2 to 4 weeks |
| UX and UI design | 2 to 6 weeks |
| Development | 6 weeks to 6 months+ |
| QA and testing | 2 to 5 weeks |
| App store review | 1 to 3 days |
| Deployment | 1 to 2 weeks |
| **Simple app, end to end** | **2 to 4 months** |
| **Medium complexity** | **4 to 8 months** |
| **Complex or compliance-heavy** | **9 to 12 months+** |
Development consumes 50 to 70% of budget and QA 15 to 20%. Sources consistently recommend adding a 10 to 20% buffer for revisions and blockers.
6. Maintenance and year-two costs
| Cost | Published figure |
|---|---|
| Annual maintenance | 15 to 25% of original build cost |
| Year one specifically | Often 40 to 50%, while the codebase stabilises |
| Annual fee, typical range | £5,000 to £25,000 |
| Cloud hosting | £200 to £5,000 a month |
| Third-party APIs and licences | £100 to £3,000 a month |
| True year-one cost | Add 20 to 30% to the build quote |
On a £100,000 build, that is £15,000 to £25,000 a year, every year, before any new features.
7. Our own data
Labelled separately because it is first-hand rather than compiled, and because we are an interested party. Judge it accordingly.
Starter App
Launch fast£3,999£2,999
For small and medium businesses ready to launch their first app.
- iOS & Android app
- User login & accounts
- Push notifications
- Admin dashboard
- 14 day delivery
Advanced App
Built to scale£6,999£5,999
For advanced apps with complex and heavier customer usage.
- All starter app features
- Complex app logic
- AI and blockchain features
- Security audits
- 14 day delivery
We sell a fixed price on a fixed fourteen-day window. Against the ranges above that looks implausible, so here is the mechanism rather than a claim:
- Scope is fixed on day one, in writing. Most of what makes a project cost £30,000 is not the building. It is months of re-scoping, coordination and waiting, all of which a fixed deadline removes.
- There is no sales layer. No proposal, no pitch, no account manager. In an agency that overhead is real and it is inside your quote.
- We carry the overrun risk. If the work takes longer than we estimated, the price does not move.
- We decline more work. Games, real-time infrastructure, and regulated clinical or financial products are outside what a sprint can honestly deliver.
The trade is real: you get a focused version one, not everything on your list. If your project genuinely needs four months, one of the £30,000 quotes is the honest one.
How to cite this report
Published under CC BY 4.0. Use the figures freely, commercially or otherwise, with attribution.
App14, UK App Development Cost Report 2026. https://app14.appetite.studio/app-development-cost-report-2026
If you are a journalist or researcher and want the underlying source list, or a figure we have not published, email hi@appetite.studio and we will send it.
Sources
Agency and project pricing: Pocketworks, Foresight Mobile, Appinventiv, Inoxoft. Contractor rates: CalcKit UK freelance rates 2026. Internal tools and CRM: Jabu Designs, Softomate, Fulminous. AI development: OpenKit, Janus Compliance. Maintenance: Nordstone, Cleveroad. Timelines: Designveloper, Topflight.
Common questions
How much does it cost to build an app in the UK in 2026?
Published UK pricing puts a simple app at £12,000 to £30,000, an MVP at £20,000 to £60,000, and a complex product at £60,000 to £250,000 or more. The UK agency average hourly rate is around £122, and the national contractor median is about £500 a day.
What is the average day rate for a UK developer in 2026?
The national median is around £500 a day, up roughly 26% from £457 in early 2024. London runs 20 to 30% above that at £600 to £650, while Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol add 5 to 10%.
How much does app maintenance cost per year?
Published figures cluster at 15 to 25% of the original build cost annually, with year one often higher, at 40 to 50%, while the codebase stabilises.
How long does app development take in the UK?
Three to nine months is the common range: two to four months for a simple app, four to eight for medium complexity, and nine to twelve or more for complex or compliance-heavy products.
Can I cite this report?
Yes. It is published under CC BY 4.0. Cite it as: App14, UK App Development Cost Report 2026, and link to this page.