How much does a mobile app cost in 2026? Real prices

The short answer, based on offers published on the Romanian market and checked in September 2026: ranges run from 2,000 € for a simple app to over 100,000 € for a platform with several user types, payments and integrations. Most apps an ordinary business actually needs are quoted somewhere between 3,000 € and 20,000 €.

The gap between 2,000 and 100,000 is not the agency’s margin. It is the fact that “mobile app” does not describe a product, it describes a category. The same way “vehicle” covers both a hatchback and a truck. Let’s put the numbers on the table, then look at what pushes them up.

What published offers in Romania show

The figures below are public, taken directly from the respective websites and checked in September 2026:

Source	Published range
BFMedia (Jan 2026)	2,000 - 25,000 € for a mobile app
Merge-IT (Aug 2026)	simple 3,000 - 8,000 €, with business logic 8,000 - 20,000 €, platform above 20,000 €
360design	10,000 € up to over 100,000 €, depending on complexity
Up2date	MVP 25,000 - 70,000 €, full app 70,000 - 200,000 €+
Beyond Development	simple 18,000 - 55,000 €, medium 55,000 - 110,000 €, complex 110,000 - 280,000 €+

See the problem? Same question, answers that differ by a factor of tens. Not because someone is lying, but because each of them is answering for a different kind of client. Whoever quotes from 2,000 € is talking about an app with a few screens and a simple server behind it. Whoever starts at 25,000 € is talking about a product with a project team, testing across many devices and maintenance committed for years.

For reference on our side: a custom project (a web or mobile app built to your specification) starts at 4,500 €. The full price floors are on the pricing page.

Why the price climbs so fast

The cost of an app is not measured in screens. It is measured in what has to happen behind them. The things that move a project from one bracket to the next:

• User accounts and roles. A catalogue anyone can open is cheap. A system with customers, employees and administrators, each with their own permissions, is a different project.
• The server and the database. If the app only displays content, it is simple. If it writes data, syncs it, and has to behave correctly when two people edit the same thing, you are building an entire system, not a screen.
• In-app payments. For digital content, Apple and Google charge a commission per transaction and enforce strict integration rules. For services and physical goods you can use an ordinary payment processor.
• Integration with what you already run. ERP, invoicing software, the booking system. Here the price depends on the quality of the other system’s documentation, something nobody can estimate correctly without looking at it first.
• Working offline. It sounds trivial and it is among the most expensive requirements in mobile development.
• Maps and real-time location. They cost during the build and then monthly, because map services are billed by usage.

A loyalty app with an account, an offers list and notifications sits at the bottom of the ranges. A marketplace where users interact with each other sits at the top. Both are “a mobile app”.

What publishing to the stores costs

This is the part with fixed numbers, the same for everyone. Official fees, checked in September 2026:

Store	Fee
Google Play	$25, one-time registration fee
App Store	$99 per year, Apple Developer Program

Note the “per year” on Apple’s side. It is not a launch fee, it is a subscription. If you stop renewing it, the app leaves the App Store no matter what you paid to build it.

The accounts should be opened in your business’s name, not the agency’s. That is the only guarantee the app stays yours if you work with someone else tomorrow.

Not sure whether you need an app or something else? Tell us what you want to happen for your customers in a free 30-minute call or ask for a free audit of what you have now. Sometimes the honest answer is that a website solves the same problem at a tenth of the price, and you get that answer in the same half hour.

The costs that start after launch

This is where people lose money, because nobody asks about it in the first conversation. A website, once launched, can sit quietly for a year. An app cannot.

Every new version goes through store review. You do not publish when you want to, you publish when they approve. Which means an urgent fix is not an hour away, it is a few days away, unless you prepared another route in advance.

Users stay on old versions. People do not update. A year in, you have customers running the app from three versions ago, complete with the bug you fixed long ago. That is why a forced-update mechanism gets built in from the start, not when the first security problem shows up: later means you cannot push it onto exactly the users you need to move.

Updates that skip the store. Apps built with React Native can receive updates delivered directly, without going through the App Store or Google Play. You fix an issue and it reaches users the same day. It does not cover every kind of change, but it covers the category that hurts most: small, urgent mistakes. Worth asking for explicitly in the quote.

Operating systems change every year. iOS and Android ship new versions annually, with new store requirements attached. An app left untouched for two years has a good chance of not starting at all on new phones.

What does that cost? Merge-IT recommends setting aside 15 to 20% of the development cost per year, and Beyond Development puts it at 15 to 25%. Plus the server, billed monthly depending on how many people use the app.

Rule of thumb: if your budget covers the build and nothing else, you do not have an app budget yet.

One codebase, not two

For a long time, an iPhone app and an Android app meant two teams, two projects and, naturally, two prices. For most business projects, that is no longer the case.

With React Native you write a single codebase that runs on both systems. You pay for one build, and when you fix something you fix it once. Building separately for each system is still justified when the app leans heavily on device-specific capabilities, real-time video processing for instance.

When you collect quotes, ask directly: is this price for both platforms or just one? It is the number one cause of differences that look inexplicable between two offers for “the same” project.

The question to ask before the budget

Not “how much does it cost”, but “why would anyone install it?”.

An app asks for real effort from a person: they search for it, download it, create an account, grant notification permissions. They only do that if they use it often. If your audience interacts with your business a few times a year, a good website costs less, reaches more people and shows up in Google, where an app store never takes you.

An app makes sense when you have repeat usage (weekly orders, loyalty, a field team working in it daily), when you need push notifications or offline operation, or when your process is too specific for a website. Otherwise, the website, app or automation question is worth taking seriously before you sign anything.

How to request a quote that means something

Without a clear list of requirements, any price you get back is a guess. Write down on one page:

1. What the user does in the app, step by step, on first use.
2. What user types exist and what each of them can do.
3. Which systems it has to connect to (invoicing, stock, bookings).
4. Whether it has to work without internet.
5. Whether money is collected inside the app and for what exactly.
6. Both platforms or just one.
7. Who owns the developer accounts and the code at the end.

With that document, quotes become comparable. Without it, you are comparing numbers that describe different products.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a mobile app cost in Romania? Published offers run from 2,000 € to over 100,000 €. Simple apps, with an account and a few flows, are generally quoted between 3,000 and 8,000 €, and those with roles, payments and integrations between 8,000 and 20,000 €, according to the ranges Merge-IT published in August 2026.

How much does it cost to put an app on Google Play? $25, a one-time developer account registration fee, according to Google’s official page. For the App Store, Apple charges $99 per year for as long as you want the app to stay published.

How long does it take to launch? It depends on the list, not on luck. Up2date publicly states 2 to 4 months to first launch for most production apps. On top of that comes store review, which is outside anyone’s control.

What is the price difference between a native app and React Native? With React Native you pay for one build covering both platforms instead of two. Separate native builds stay justified only for requirements that lean heavily on device capabilities.

Do I need an app or is a website enough? If people interact with you a few times a year, a website costs less and gets you found in Google. The ranges for websites are in how much a website costs in 2026, and for selling online in how much an online store costs.

What are my yearly costs after launch? The Apple account ($99 per year), the server, and a maintenance budget that market sources estimate at 15 to 25% of the development cost annually. The Google Play account is paid once.

Want a number for your app, not a market range? Send us two lines about what it should do, or book a 30-minute call directly. If you already have an app or a website, you can ask for a free audit instead.