What an MVP really costs in the UK

UK agencies quote £20,000 to £60,000 for an MVP. Here is where that number comes from, what you can get for a tenth of it, and how to tell the difference.

The App14 team1 min read

The short answer

UK agencies typically charge £20,000 to £60,000 for an MVP over three to four months. Our fixed-price sprint delivers a launched MVP for £2,999 or £5,999 in fourteen days. The gap is almost entirely about what the word "minimum" is allowed to mean.

The problem with most MVP quotes

An MVP is meant to be the smallest thing that lets you learn whether people want your product. In practice, most agency MVPs are a full first version with the roadmap attached.

That is how a £20,000 quote happens. Not because the agency is greedy, but because nobody pushed back on the feature list, and once the list is long the timeline follows, and once the timeline is months the price follows that.

What the market charges

RouteCostTimeWhat minimum means in practice
UK agency£20,000 to £60,0003 to 4 monthsA full first version
Freelancer£8,000 to £25,0002 to 5 months, variableDepends entirely on the person
Offshore£6,000 to £20,000Often longer than quotedUsually what you specified, literally
No-code£0 to £3,000 plus your timeWeeksWhatever the platform allows
App14 sprint£2,999 or £5,99914 daysOne job, done properly

What an MVP should actually contain

One job. Something real users can do, end to end, that tells you whether the idea works.

In an MVP

  • The single core actionThe thing the whole product exists to enable.
  • Enough account handling to make that action repeatable
  • A way for you to see what is happeningAn admin view. You cannot learn from a product you cannot observe.
  • A route to real usersWhich usually means the app stores, not a TestFlight link to your friends.

Not in an MVP

  • A settings screen nobody asked for
  • Multiple user roles, unless the core action genuinely needs two sides
  • Analytics dashboardsYou have almost no data yet.
  • Anything justified by "we'll need it eventually"

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
Book this sprint

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
Book this sprint

When to spend more

Common questions

How much should an MVP cost?

Less than you think, and less than most quotes suggest. UK agencies typically charge £20,000 to £60,000 over three to four months. A fixed-scope sprint delivers a launched MVP for £2,999 to £5,999 in fourteen days.

Why do agency MVP quotes start at £20,000?

Because most agency MVPs are not minimum. They are a first version with a full feature set, priced over three to four months of open-ended work with the timeline risk sitting on you.

Is a two-week MVP really viable?

It is viable if it does one job that real users will actually use. If it needs six features to be usable at all, it is not an MVP and two weeks is the wrong container for it.

Want to talk it through?

Tell us what you're trying to build and we'll tell you honestly whether a 14-day sprint is the right way to do it.

Full refund any time before we start work.

About the author

The App14 team · Design and engineering, Appetite Studio

App14 is the 14-day app sprint run by Appetite Studio, a London-registered design and engineering studio. We design, build, and ship production iOS and Android apps in two weeks, at a published fixed price. Everything we write here comes out of work we have actually delivered: the prices are our real prices, the timelines are our real timelines, and the limits are the ones we genuinely hold to.

Our articles are drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by the App14 team before publication. The prices, timelines, delivery record, and client outcomes described are our own.

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