How much does an MVP app cost? What moves the number

An MVP app starts at $12,000 with us. That is the floor for a web or mobile product that is designed, built and shipped to your own repository. If you need something working before you commit that much, a Starter Build starts at $1,500: a scoped prototype you can click through, live at a preview link.

We name the exact price in writing before any work begins. Everything below explains how we get to that number.

What the starting price buys

For an MVP, the starting price covers four things:

• Product scoping and flows. One core user journey, agreed in week one and written down in one line you can hold us to.
• UI design for every screen that ships. Not a style guide and a promise: the actual screens.
• Front end and back end in your repository. The code sits in your organisation from the first deploy, not in ours.
• Launch support and a handover document. Every decision is already on the log, so the handover is a summary, not an archaeology dig.

The four things that move the price

When a quote goes above the starting price, it is almost always one of these:

1. Platforms. Web only is the cheapest start. Web plus iOS plus Android is three surfaces to design, build and test.
2. Integrations. Every third-party system (a CRM, a data provider, a messaging API) adds build time and, more importantly, test time against someone else's sandbox.
3. Auth. Email login is small. Social login, roles and permissions, or single sign-on for teams each add real work.
4. Payments. Taking money means handling failures, refunds, receipts and edge cases. It is rarely the feature founders expect to be expensive, and it usually is.

Screen count matters less than people think. Ten simple screens can cost less than three screens with a live integration behind them.

How to spend less without shipping less

• Cut to one journey. Pick the single path a user must complete for the product to prove itself. Everything else waits for version two.
• Start on the web. A responsive web app reaches every device on day one. Native apps can follow once the journey is proven.
• Fake the back office. Admin panels and reporting can start as a spreadsheet or a simple internal page.
• Start with a Starter Build. For $1,500 you get a working prototype to test with users or show investors, and a clear brief if you build the rest.

What to watch for in any quote

Whoever you hire, ask three questions:

• Is the price fixed, or an estimate? An hourly estimate with no cap moves the risk onto you.
• What happens when scope changes? It will. With us, every change becomes a log entry with its cost and time, approved before we start.
• Where does the code live? If the answer isn't "in your repository, from week one", ask why.

How we take payment

A fixed price is paid in milestones tied to watches (our word for a week of work): 50% commitment to open the log, 30% at the midpoint watch, 20% when it ships. Starter Builds are 50% to start and 50% on delivery. Work starts when the commitment clears, and your log opens the following Monday.

If you want a real number for your product, book a 30-minute scoping call. You get a written brief and a fixed price within three working days of the call.