How much does it cost to build an app in 2026?
From a $25 AI builder to a six-figure agency project: what each way of building an app costs, what pushes the price up, and how to estimate your first year, not just your first release.
As of 30 September 2026, building an app costs anything from $25 a month to well over $100,000, depending on who builds it and what has to be true before real users arrive. An AI app builder such as Lovable starts at $25 a month on its Pro plan. Clutch, which collects reviews of software firms, reports an average software development project cost of $132,480. A software developer in the US earns a median $135,980 a year before benefits, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The build is rarely the biggest cost; running, securing and changing the app every month usually is.
This guide sets out what each way of building costs, what drives the price up, and how to estimate your own app over its first year rather than its first release. Every figure is dated and sourced at the end.
How much does it cost to build an app in 2026?
It depends first on who does the work. The table compares six common routes using each provider's own published prices or an independent survey. It shows what you pay, not what you get; the next sections cover that.
| Route | What it costs | What the price does not include |
|---|---|---|
| AI app builder (Lovable Pro) | From $25 a month for 100 credits, or $21 a month billed yearly; higher credit tiers cost more | Code review, tests, security checks, on-call support |
| Your own backend (Supabase Pro) | From $25 a month, including $10 of compute credits | Anyone to design, secure or operate the database |
| Software firm, by the hour | Most firms on Clutch charge $24 to $49 an hour; US firms $50 to $99 | Anything outside the agreed scope, and running the app after handover |
| Software firm, by the project | Clutch's average project cost is $132,480 | Changes after launch, unless you buy a support contract |
| In-house developer (US) | Median pay $135,980 a year (May 2025), before benefits and recruiting | Holidays, cover and the skills one person does not have |
| Development subscription (Plutonapps Starter) | $2,999 a month paid annually, or $3,999 month to month | Third-party infrastructure you own, billed to you at cost |
Prices for Lovable, Supabase and Plutonapps are from each company's pricing page. Clutch's figures come from the reviews on its site, updated 21 September 2026. For what one developer really costs once benefits are added, see our in-house developer vs subscription comparison.
What drives the cost of building an app?
Screens are cheap to build. Rules are what cost money: every rule about who may see what, what happens when a payment fails, or what the app must never do twice has to be designed, built, tested and kept working. These are the drivers that move an estimate most:
- Users and roles. One kind of user is simple. Teams, admins, guests and customers who must never see each other's data need access rules enforced by the database.
- Money. Taking a card is quick. Keeping renewals, refunds, failed payments and disputes in step with who has access is most of the work.
- Integrations. Every outside service, from email to calendars to AI models, adds keys to protect, limits to respect and failures to handle.
- Platforms. A web app runs anywhere. Apps in the stores also cost $99 a year for Apple's Developer Program and a one-time $25 to register with Google Play, plus the work of building and reviewing for each store.
- Rules you must meet. Health, finance, children's data and selling to large companies all add legal and security requirements that have to be designed in, not bolted on.
- Who runs it. An app with paying users needs someone to watch it, release fixes safely and answer when it breaks.
How much does it cost to build an app with AI?
The tools themselves are inexpensive. Lovable's Pro plan costs $25 a month for 100 credits, or $250 a year; its tiers scale up to $2,250 a month for 10,000 credits, and Business starts at $50 a month. The Free plan gives 5 build credits a day, up to 30 a month. If your app runs on your own Supabase project, the Pro plan starts at $25 a month and includes daily backups kept for seven days; point-in-time recovery is an add-on at $100 a month for seven days of history.
What an AI app builder does not buy is assurance. Veracode's 2026 GenAI Code Security Report, published 28 July 2026, found AI models chose a secure option in only 56% of coding tasks, although their code now compiles nearly every time. So the honest cost of an AI-built app is the subscription plus the engineering that makes it safe to put real users and real money through it.
That engineering can be done once, by a freelancer or firm, or continuously. The difference shows up after launch, when every new prompt changes code that real people depend on.
What does it cost to run an app after launch?
Running costs fall into two groups, and most first estimates count only the first.
| Cost | Examples | How it is usually billed |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure | Hosting, database, file storage, email sending, error monitoring, domains | Monthly, rising with users and data |
| Third-party services | Payments, AI model calls, maps, SMS | Per use; AI calls can spike without limits |
| Engineering | Bug fixes, security updates, new features, releases, incident response | Hourly, per project, salaried or by subscription |
| Your own time | Writing specifications, checking work, answering users | Rarely counted, always spent |
Supabase gives a sense of the infrastructure end. Its Pro plan includes 100,000 monthly active users and 250 GB of data transfer, then charges per extra user and gigabyte. Free projects are paused after a week of inactivity, which is fine for a prototype and not for a product. Engineering is the larger and less predictable line, because it depends on how often the app changes and how much breaks when it does.
Is an agency, freelancer, in-house hire or subscription cheapest?
For one bounded job, a freelancer usually is. For a defined build with a clear end, an agency or software firm. For a product that changes every week and needs running, compare the yearly cost of each option against what it covers, not the day rate. We have written the full comparisons separately: agency vs freelancer vs in-house developer and development subscription vs agency.
A year of our Starter plan billed yearly is $35,988 ($2,999 a month). It includes unlimited changes within fair use and available engineering capacity, code review, regression and security checks on every change, two production releases a week, monitoring, and emergency production support up to five times a month. It is not a full-time person in your team: it is reserved capacity from a team that builds, tests, releases and runs the product.
How do you estimate the cost of your own app?
- 01Write down the first releaseList what a user must be able to do on day one, and nothing else. That is your minimum viable product: the smallest version that gives real users real value.
- 02Count the rules, not the screensFor each feature, note who may use it, what it costs if it fails, and what must never happen twice. Those notes are what an engineer prices.
- 03Price twelve months, not the launchAdd infrastructure, third-party services and engineering for a year. An app nobody maintains gets more expensive, not less.
- 04Decide who is accountableName who fixes the app at 2 a.m. and who approves releases. If the answer is nobody, that is a cost you are carrying as risk.
- 05Check how far your prototype already isIf you have built a version in Lovable or another AI builder, find out how close it is to production before you price the gap.
If the first step is hard, our glossary entry on the minimum viable product shows how to cut a first release down. The free production-readiness check takes 19 questions and gives your app a score out of 100 and the three risks to fix first.
What did real products take to build?
Our case studies record time, not invoices, because each was built within a monthly plan rather than a project quote. Looph, customer-feedback software shaped in Lovable, was engineered on the Starter plan in 28 working days and is live in production. Ekko, a viral waitlist platform, was designed in Lovable in under two weeks and built in 36 working days on the Starter plan; it is pre-launch. The Looph case study lists what that time bought: row-level security on all 172 database tables, custom domains, an MCP server for AI agents, and 10,387 automated tests passing in CI.
Our plans and what each includes are on the pricing page.
Sources
Each figure above comes from one of these pages, checked on 30 September 2026.
- Lovable: Subscription plans and Plans and credits (docs.lovable.dev).
- Supabase: Pricing (supabase.com/pricing).
- Clutch: Software development pricing guide, updated 21 Sep 2026 (clutch.co/developers/pricing).
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Occupational Outlook Handbook, Software Developers, median pay May 2025 (bls.gov).
- Apple: Apple Developer Program enrollment (developer.apple.com); Google: Play Console registration fee (support.google.com).
- Veracode: 2026 GenAI Code Security Report, 28 Jul 2026 (veracode.com).
- Plutonapps: our pricing page and our Looph and Ekko case studies, as published on this site.
Common questions
How much does it cost to build a simple app?
A simple web app built with an AI app builder can cost as little as the builder's subscription, from $25 a month for Lovable Pro as of September 2026. The price rises with every rule the app must enforce: sign-in, roles, payments and private data all need engineering before real users rely on them.
Is it cheaper to build an app with AI?
The first version is far cheaper. The saving shrinks after launch, because AI-generated code still needs review, tests and security checks: Veracode's 2026 report found AI models chose a secure option in only 56% of coding tasks.
How much does it cost to put an app in the App Store and Google Play?
Apple's Developer Program costs $99 a year and Google Play charges a one-time $25 registration fee. Building, testing and submitting a separate store version of the app is extra work on top.
How much does it cost to maintain an app?
It depends on how often the app changes. Budget for infrastructure, which grows with users, third-party services such as payments and AI calls, and engineering time for fixes, security updates and releases. Engineering is usually the larger share.
How much does Plutonapps cost?
The Starter plan costs $2,999 a month paid annually or $3,999 month to month, for products with up to 25,000 users. Growth, for higher volumes, is custom-priced. Third-party infrastructure you own is billed to you at cost.
More on this: Product strategy & scoping
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