"How much does it cost to build an app?" is the question I get most. The honest answer is: it depends, but not as much as developers want you to think. After scoping more than a thousand briefs through FindDevs, the numbers cluster into pretty narrow bands. Here's what an Australian founder actually pays in 2024, and what to look out for.
I'll break this down by app size, by the choices that matter, and by the costs nobody warns you about until you're three months in.
The honest AUD ranges
For a mobile app built by a vetted Australian developer or small studio, expect these bands:
- MVP, single platform: $9k–$18k. One platform (iOS or Android), 4–6 core flows, basic backend. Six to ten weeks. Designed to test a hypothesis, not to scale to 100,000 users on day one.
- Production, both platforms: $24k–$45k. iOS and Android, 12–20 screens, push notifications, payments, auth, analytics, App Store optimisation. Fourteen to eighteen weeks.
- Flagship: $50k–$120k+. Native code on both platforms, custom motion, deep integrations, localisation, often a backend rebuild. Five months and up.
These are end-to-end numbers, design, build, store submission, three months of post-launch support. They assume you're working with a senior contractor or a small Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane studio. Offshore agencies will quote 30–50% lower; you usually get back what you save in rework, communication tax, and a codebase nobody at home can maintain.
What actually drives the price
Three things move the number more than anything else: scope, platform decision, and how complete your backend is. Most founders fixate on the third (because it's measurable), but scope is by far the biggest lever.
Every feature you cut from the v1 saves around 1–2 weeks of work. A login flow with social providers, password reset, magic link, and email verification is two weeks of engineering all on its own. So is offline-first sync. So is in-app purchase. The fastest way to halve your quote is to cut three of those.
The cheapest feature is the one you don't build. The second cheapest is the one your users actually use.
For platform: cross-platform (React Native or Flutter) typically saves 30–40% over going native on both. For most apps with standard UI, that saving is real and won't hurt you. For apps that lean heavily on animation, AR, audio processing, or platform-specific features, native is worth the premium.
The costs nobody mentions
Here's where founders get blindsided. The build quote is usually 60–70% of the total first-year cost. The rest is:
- Apple Developer Program: $149/year. Required to ship on the App Store. Easy to forget at quote time.
- Google Play Console: US$25 one-off. Cheap, but the verification can take a week.
- Backend hosting: $30–$300/month. Until you have load, AWS or GCP usually lands around $50–$80/month.
- Push notifications, analytics, crash reporting: $0–$200/month. Free until you hit certain thresholds.
- Design assets and App Store screenshots: $1,500–$3,500. Often quoted separately or assumed in scope. Always ask.
- Ongoing maintenance: 15–25% of build cost per year. Apple and Google ship breaking changes; you'll hit one of them in your first 12 months. Budget for it.
What "fixed price" actually means
Fixed price is a marketing term. What you're really getting is a fixed price against a fixed scope. The moment scope changes, the fixed price evaporates. That's not a scam, it's how the maths works. Two-week sprints with re-estimation if anything new lands is the honest middle ground.
What to push back on: any fixed-price quote without a written scope you can read in fifteen minutes. If the developer can't write down what they're going to build, they can't price it. Walk away.
How to get realistic quotes
The best brief I see is two pages. Page one: who's the user, what problem are they solving, what's the smallest thing that would prove this works. Page two: a flat list of screens with one sentence each. That's enough for any senior developer to give you a real number within 24 hours.
Skip the wireframes if you can. They tend to anchor the build before you've validated anything. Skip the tech stack, let the developer pick. The two pieces of information they actually need are: what does success look like, and what's your hard ceiling on time and budget.
The bottom line
An MVP in Australia in 2024 costs between $9k and $18k if you scope it ruthlessly. A production app on both platforms is $24k to $45k. Anything outside that band is either a flagship product or someone is paying for something you don't need.
Want three quotes from vetted Australian mobile developers in 24 hours, free? That's what we do. Two-minute brief, three real prices, no obligation.