Price your app
Free account · Two quick questions · Personalized cost breakdown
What drives the cost?
The preset includes message sync and device recovery plus accounts / profiles, chat / live updates, notifications, security / audit controls. Direct text messages, one device session model, and reconnect handling.
Compare build options
Public example using the default preset. Get your free estimate above for a breakdown of your selected scope.
| Build option | One-off labor | Recurring budget |
|---|---|---|
| DIY builder | $0 paid labor; your time excluded | $339 + your maintenance time |
| Freelancer | $27,900–$147,225 | $2,499–$5,019/year |
| Agency | $38,750–$184,975 | $3,339–$6,219/year |
| Superapp Pro | You build and review the app | $639/year illustrative budget |
Default preset breakdown and assumptions
- Estimated effort
- 1550–3775 hours
- Delivery effort at 30 productive hours/week
- 51.7–125.8 person-weeks
- Global agency hourly range
- $25–$49
- Global freelancer hourly range
- $18–$39
- Custom design adjustment
- +25% effort (planning assumption)
- Hosting / platform
- $240/year
- Maintenance labor
- $3,000–$5,880/year
- Additional services
- $0/year
- Apple membership
- $99/year
Hours include implementation and testing, not a delivery guarantee. Website scope starts at 12–140 hours plus 2–5 hours for each additional page. App scope starts at 400–5,000 hours depending on complexity. Selected features add the effort below. Annual domain and hosting budgets are placeholders, not provider quotes.
Selected feature assumptions
Incremental engineering hours used by this calculator.
| Feature | Hours |
|---|---|
| Accounts / profiles | 40–80 |
| Chat / live updates | 80–160 |
| Notifications | 20–50 |
| Security / audit controls | 120–300 |
| Message sync and device recovery | 180–430 |
Message sync and device recovery
Ordering, delivery receipts, unread counts, and reconnect synchronization need explicit rules. Offline sends must not create duplicate messages when a connection returns.
Is end-to-end encryption part of basic chat
No. Key management, device verification, backups, and recovery require specialist design. Do not label ordinary transport encryption as end-to-end encryption.
A cheaper way to start with Superapp
Build a focused version yourself before commissioning a full custom project. Superapp Pro is $25 a month; the subscription covers its plan allowance, while your time, extra usage, integrations, hosting, and specialist work remain part of the budget. A Superapp site is an alternative implementation, not a guarantee of WordPress or Shopify compatibility.
Compare Superapp plansSources and methodology
Rates are global marketplace benchmarks, not US-only agency quotes. Freelancer and agency ranges overlap because they describe different samples. WordPress.com Personal and Shopify Basic use annual billing, exclude introductory promotions and taxes, and replace the hosting budget. Feature hours and recurring budgets are our explicit planning assumptions.