An app development company designs, builds, tests and launches your software, and usually keeps it running. UK agencies typically charge £80 to £150 an hour, UK contract mobile developers about £375 a day and many offshore firms under $50 an hour. The lowest rate rarely buys the cheapest app, though, because code ownership and maintenance matter more.
Founders rarely ask us "which company?" What they actually want to know is whether they need one at all, or whether a freelancer would do, or the firm abroad that quoted half the price. Each option puts the risk somewhere different, and it's worth knowing where before you choose.
The short version
- UK agencies typically charge £80 to £150 an hour, UK contract mobile developers about £375 a day, and offshore firms often under $50 an hour.
- A day rate tells you little on its own: agency days usually include design, testing and project management that a freelancer bills separately or skips.
- Budget 15 to 20% of the build cost every year for maintenance, plus 99 USD a year for Apple and a one-time US$25 for Google Play.
- In the UK, an outside developer usually keeps copyright in the code unless a written contract assigns it to you.
- For non-technical owners building an app the business depends on, a UK studio is usually the safest first choice; freelancers and offshore teams suit tighter, well-specified work.
Freelancer, UK studio or offshore agency, side by side
| UK freelance developer | UK app development company | Offshore agency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical rate, 2026 | £375 a day median for a contract mobile developer, £475 for a senior Android developer | £80 to £150 an hour, roughly £600 to £1,125 a day | Under $25 an hour in India, $25 to $49 in Ukraine and the Philippines |
| Who runs the project | You | The company | The company, across a time difference |
| Design and testing | Usually extra people you find | Usually included | Usually included |
| If someone leaves | Work stops | Someone else picks it up | Someone else picks it up |
| Biggest risk | One person is a single point of failure | The highest rate | Specs, communication and code handover |
| Best for | A small, well-defined job | An app the business depends on | A tight spec with your own technical lead |
Everyone reads the rate row first, and it tells you the least. A freelancer at £375 a day, the IT Jobs Watch median for the six months to 25 October 2026, is one developer. An agency at two or three times that usually means a developer, a designer, a tester and someone who tells you each week what's slipping. Offshore teams sell that same bundle for far less, according to Clutch's 2026 pricing guide, but you pay for it in the hours you'll spend writing specifications and checking work across time zones, which a non-technical owner rarely has spare.
How much does it cost to have a developer make an app?
Most app projects reviewed on Clutch cost between $10,000 and $49,999, according to its 2026 guide, and the average was $90,780 over about 11 months. The typical rate behind those figures is $25 to $49 an hour, which is well below UK prices, so a UK build of the same size will cost more.
£20,000 buys about 53 days of a £375-a-day freelancer, or roughly 18 to 33 days of a UK agency at £80 to £150 an hour if you take a seven-and-a-half-hour day. Fifty-three days sounds like more app, but often it isn't, because the agency's days include design, testing and project management that a freelancer will skip or bill separately.
The decision that moves the total more than any rate is whether you build separate native apps for iPhone and Android. Clutch says doing both natively will double the overall price, because each platform needs its own code. For a first version we'd usually build a minimum viable product, meaning the smallest version real customers can use, on one cross-platform codebase or as a web app. That's where our MVP development work starts, and our UK app cost guide breaks build budgets down further.
The bills that keep coming after launch
App store fees are the small part. Apple's Developer Program costs 99 USD a year, charged in local currency, and Google Play takes a one-time US$25 registration fee. The real cost is upkeep, and Cleveroad's maintenance guide cites a rule of thumb of 15 to 20% of the original build cost every year. On a £50,000 app, that's £7,500 to £10,000 a year for fixes, phone software updates and security patches.
This is where your choice of team really bites. A freelancer may well have taken a permanent job by year three, and an offshore firm may have moved your developers onto someone else's project. We'd ask every bidder who will maintain the app in two years' time, and how much that will cost a month.
Who owns the code when the app is finished?
In the UK, outside developers and agencies usually keep the copyright in the code they write unless a written contract transfers it to your company, as Sprintlaw explains. Paying the invoice doesn't change that, which surprises a lot of people. The contract should spell out exactly what you're getting, so the source code, design files, documentation and everything a new developer would need to take over.
A few things in a proposal should make you stop and ask questions. One is a missing clause assigning the intellectual property to you, another is code or app store accounts set up in the developer's name rather than your company's, and the others are most of the money due up front or a fixed price before anyone has asked how your business works. We'd tie payments to milestones you can see and use, such as a working login or a first version on your own phone, so you're never paying far ahead of what's been delivered.
Which kind of app development company is best for you?
A UK freelancer is the right pick when the job is small and clearly defined, such as adding a feature to an app that already works, and you have someone technical to review it. An offshore agency suits companies with an in-house technical lead who can write tight specifications and check the code. Without that person, the savings tend to leak away in rework. For most non-technical owners whose app will sit at the heart of the business, we'd choose a UK studio, because one accountable team handles design, build, support and handover.
Whoever you shortlist, judge them on evidence rather than their own website, which means reviews from named clients on Clutch, a check on Companies House, apps you can actually download and a past client you can call. Swarm Labs is a small Manchester studio building custom software, MVPs and SaaS products, and our case studies show the kind of work we mean, including a Shopify pipeline that took product uploads from 40 to 50 a day to 5,000 in minutes.
Before you sign with anyone
Put the proposals side by side and compare who owns the code, what year two costs and who you'd ring when something breaks, not just the day rate. A bidder who can't answer those plainly has told you more than any portfolio could. If you'd like a second pair of eyes on a quote or a straight estimate for your idea, talk to us about your app.
Sources
- Clutch: Mobile App Pricing Guide 2026
- IT Jobs Watch: Mobile Applications Developer contractor rates
- IT Jobs Watch: Senior Android Developer contractor rates
- Purrweb: Best software development companies UK, 2026 list
- Sprintlaw: Who owns custom software code in the UK?
- Apple Developer: Program enrollment
- Google Play Console Help: Get started with Play Console
- Cleveroad: How much does it cost to maintain an app