Cost comes from three parts: engineering time, third-party services, and infrastructure. Engineering time dominates, and it is driven by countable dimensions of scale — how many screens and API endpoints, how many roles and permission levels, one platform or two, whether payments are involved, whether it runs on-premises. The same category of product can take twice as long at the top of its range as at the bottom, so a price quoted without knowing the scale is not worth much. Our approach is to run a requirements review first, reduce the scale to things you can count, then give a fixed quote.
"What does an app cost?" has no single answer — but there is a method behind the number, and it can be explained. Below is how we estimate internally. You can use it to judge any vendor's quote, not just ours.
| Part | What it covers | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering time | Requirements, design, development, testing, launch | The bulk of the cost, and it grows faster than scale does |
| Third-party services | LLM APIs, SMS, maps, payment channels, push notifications, identity verification | Usage-based; charges begin only after launch |
| Infrastructure | Servers, bandwidth, storage and databases — plus GPUs for on-premises deployments | Ongoing, budgeted annually |
Most arguments over a quote come down to the first item. The other two have published pricing — estimate the usage and you can calculate them.
Instead of asking "roughly how much?", count the items below — the range narrows immediately:
| Dimension | How to count it | Effect on time |
|---|---|---|
| Screens | Customer-facing plus admin — count every distinct screen | The most direct measure of scale |
| API endpoints | How many distinct actions need to talk to the backend | Drives backend and integration work |
| Roles and permissions | How many roles, and whether permissions differ field by field | Each extra role multiplies the test combinations |
| Platforms | Mini-program only; both mobile platforms; either of those plus an admin console | The backend and design carry over to a second platform; the client build and its testing do not |
| Payments and reconciliation | Do you take payments, split settlements, or handle multiple currencies? | Payments add noticeably to both testing and compliance |
| Data source | Your own data, or integration with the client's existing systems | Third-party integration carries the most uncertainty |
| Deployment | Cloud, or on-premises | On-premises adds environment setup and acceptance work |
Once you have counted, use the table below to place your own project:
| Dimension | Bottom of the range | Top of the range |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | One platform | Two platforms, or two plus an admin console |
| Roles and permissions | One or two roles, permissions set per module | Several roles, permissions set field by field |
| Payments | No payments, or single-payment checkout only | Split settlement, refunds, reconciliation, multiple currencies |
| Data source | All data is your own | Integration with existing client systems |
| Deployment | Cloud | On-premises, including environment fitting and audit |
| Compliance | No sensitive personal data | Personal data, finance or healthcare |
If most rows land on the left, budget for the bottom of the range. If two or three land on the right, budget for the top. The right-hand column carries more weight for these reasons:
These are our time ranges for common project types; where a given project falls in its range depends on the dimensions above. These are timelines, not prices — but timeline is the main driver of cost.
| Project type | Phase | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Mini-program (with admin) | MVP | 3–5 weeks |
| AI application (LLM integration) | MVP | 2–4 weeks |
| E-commerce app (both platforms + payments) | MVP | 6–12 weeks |
| AI agent | Proof of concept | 1 week |
| AI agent | MVP / full version | 2–4 weeks / 6–12 weeks |
| Custom AI skill | Scoping, build and delivery | 1–2 weeks |
| Enterprise knowledge base | Standard edition | A few weeks (depending on document volume and number of data sources) |
| GEO foundation work | First round | 2–4 weeks |
Every figure above is for an MVP or a first round of delivery; a full version is quoted per module on top of the MVP. The spread within each row comes from the table in the previous section. Whether an e-commerce app lands at six weeks or twelve depends on multi-merchant support, whether reconciliation is built in-house, and how many currencies are involved.
After launch, budget these four items separately; together they are your annual running cost:
| Item | Basis | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| LLM calls | Token usage | Daily active users, conversation length, whether retrieval is involved |
| Cloud servers | Instance spec and runtime hours | Concurrency, and whether autoscaling is needed |
| Bandwidth and storage | Traffic and capacity | Images and video, and whether a CDN is used |
| On-premises | One-off hardware plus hosting | Model size determines GPU memory requirements |
A small cloud project and an on-premises deployment with GPUs can differ substantially in annual cost, depending on model size and concurrency. We estimate against your actual expected usage rather than quoting a generic figure.
We do not publish prices on the site, for exactly the reason this page describes: a number detached from scale tells you nothing and can mislead your budget. For a number you can actually use, send us your situation and we will quote a fixed price after the review.
Our position on acceptance criteria, source-code ownership and the maintenance period is in the FAQ.
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