Mobile App Development: Real Costs and Process (2026)

I've taken two mobile apps from first commit to the App Store and Google Play, so when someone asks what mobile app development costs, I answer from invoices and store dashboards, not from an agency pricing page. Here are the real 2026 numbers — including the Swiss and French markets where this question gets asked the most.

A serious product app costs €15k–60k to build and roughly 15–20% of that per year to keep alive. The two biggest cost levers are chosen before any code: native vs cross-platform, and how much product you stuff into version one.

The 2026 price map

App type	Independent (remote)	Local agency (FR/CH)	Timeline
MVP — one core flow, auth, payments	€10k–25k	€40k–90k (CHF ≈ ×1.05)	6–10 weeks
Full consumer app — offline, push, analytics	€25k–60k	€80k–200k	3–5 months
Platform — marketplace, multi-role	€60k+	€200k+	6+ months

Swiss agencies bill CHF 140–220/hour; French agencies €90–160. A senior independent in the same timezone bills €40–80 — same stores, same review process, same Swift-free React Native codebase.

The decision that halves (or doubles) your budget

Cross-platform (React Native, Flutter) vs native (Swift + Kotlin). One codebase for both stores cuts build and maintenance roughly in half, and in 2026 cross-platform covers 90% of product apps — both of my published apps are React Native. Go native only for heavy games, extreme performance needs, or deep hardware work. If a provider pushes native "for quality" on a standard product app, they're selling hours.

What the quotes always hide

• Store publication: provisioning, review rejections, staged rollouts — real work, often "extra".
• The yearly cost of staying alive: OS updates, dependency upgrades, small fixes — budget 15–20% of build cost per year.
• Backend and admin: "app development" quotes sometimes cover only the app. Ask what happens server-side.

How to keep it in the low ranges

Same discipline as any MVP budget: one core workflow in v1, boring proven stack, production from week one. And vet the builder on shipped apps you can install — my checklist is in hiring React Native developers.

Get a real number

Describe your app — market, core flow, platforms — and I'll reply with a fixed quote and timeline, in euros or francs. Both my store-published apps were built end to end: UI, API, release pipelines, submissions. My mobile service · contact.