How much does it cost to build an app?

Every app-cost calculator online is an agency's lead form. TrueBallpark is not quoting you. We show the arithmetic instead.

How the range is worked out

Four steps, and you can read every one of them.

A vaguer idea gets a wider range.

STEP 1

Tickets

Your idea is broken into the pieces of work a developer would actually do. "Walker can set their hourly rate."

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STEP 2

Match

Each piece is matched to one of roughly 100 standard components, priced from real builds — not guessed at from scratch every time.

How the library is calibrated →

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STEP 3

Hour band

Each match carries an hour range. The low end assumes nothing goes wrong. The high end assumes the normal amount of surprises.

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STEP 4

Dollar band

Hours × our $85/hr US benchmark, with the typical $75–95/hr senior-freelancer band shown underneath. Then the same scope, priced as an agency instead.

Worked example · dog-walking marketplace

“A marketplace where dog owners book local walkers, pay in-app, and rate them.”

Rough range · freelance

$24k–40k

Module

Hours

Dollars

Accounts & profiles — sign-up, owner and walker profiles

22–36

$1,870–3,060

Walker listings & search — postcode, availability, filters

40–66

$3,400–5,610

Booking & calendar — request, accept, reschedule, cancel

48–80

$4,080–6,800

In-app payments & payouts — card checkout, walker payouts, refunds

62–102

$5,270–8,670

Messaging — owner and walker chat, notifications

30–50

$2,550–4,250

Ratings & reviews — post-walk rating, public review

22–36

$1,870–3,060

Admin & moderation — suspend accounts, resolve disputes

40–66

$3,400–5,610

Launch readiness — end-to-end QA, security review, deployment

24–40

$2,040–3,400

Total · 8 modules

288–476

$24,480–40,460

Same scope, an agency instead of freelancers:

$44k–89k

Roughly 1.8–2.2× the freelance band. Agency pricing typically also covers project management, QA, account management, delivery risk and post-launch support.

What you can buy

Free: what will this cost? $79: what exactly needs building? $199: everything you need to start building it.

$79

Itemised spec

Every ticket, its size and the reason for that size, hours, dollars, subtotals per module. Two to four scope levers showing what the range does when you cut something. Methodology and rate sources.

spec.md · spec.pdf

Buy the spec

$199

Execution pack

Go from an app idea to something you can hand to a developer or an AI coding agent. The spec, plus the same work written as ready-to-run tickets, a product requirements doc and a short architecture note.

tickets/ · prd.md · architecture-note.md

Buy the pack

One-time purchase. No account, no password. You give an email at checkout so we can send the link and resend it later.

Where we stand

Not an agency. Not selling the build. Just the maths.

We do not take referral fees and we will not pass your idea to a development shop. There is no lead form here because we have nothing to follow up on. If the range tells you the app is too expensive to build right now, we have done our job.

Questions

Is this a quote?

No. It is a range built from a ticket list you can read, priced against published rate bands. Nobody here is bidding for the work.

Why a range and not a number?

Because anyone giving you one number before the work is specified is either guessing or selling. The low end assumes an experienced developer and no surprises. The high end assumes the normal amount of surprises.

Where do the rates come from?

Freelance hourly bands from Gun.io and Toptal ($75–95/hr) and agency MVP totals from AgencyCluster ($25k–200k). Both are cited on every estimate.

Will you introduce me to developers?

No, and we take no referral fees. The spec is written so you can take it to anyone and compare their answers.

Do I need an account?

No. The rough range needs nothing. If you buy, you give an email at checkout for the download link, and you can have it resent any time.