WHAT THINGS COST
How much does it cost to build a web app?
Where the line is between a website and an application, and what crossing it costs.
Short answer
A first working version with a backend, a database, authentication, an admin surface and a deployment costs from $7,500 here. The line between a website and an application is whether something is stored and changed, and everything past that line is more expensive for real reasons.
The line is authentication
If a visitor only reads, it is a website. If a visitor creates, changes or logs in, it is an application. Authentication is usually the moment it crosses over, because from that point on the software has to know who somebody is, keep their data separate from everyone else's, and still be correct when two people do the same thing at once.
This is why a quote for "a site where users can upload things" is ten times a quote for "a site". It is not a bigger website.
The first version is the whole discipline
Most of the value in an application project is deciding what the first version does not do. Every feature deferred is money not spent and a decision not locked in before you have watched anyone use it.
The data model is the other place where the money is. Getting it wrong is the expensive mistake in software, because the cost of changing it grows with every week of data that already exists in the old shape. It is agreed before any code is written.
What $7,500 includes, and what it does not
Included: backend, database, authentication, an admin surface, and a deployment running in your own infrastructure with the code and the keys handed over. The interface is built against real data rather than mock-ups, which is why it still works when the data is not tidy.
Not included: payment processing, which depends on which provider you use and is quoted when that is known; ongoing maintenance and monitoring; native mobile apps; and the third-party service fees for hosting, database, email and storage, which you pay directly.
Why quotes for the same app differ tenfold
Usually scope, occasionally quality, sometimes both. A quote that omits authentication, the admin surface or the deployment is quoting a prototype, and a prototype is a demonstration rather than something a business can run on.
Ask what happens after launch, who holds the credentials, and whether the code can be picked up by another developer. An application you cannot leave is more expensive than the invoice suggests.
What moves the number
- Pushes it up
- Payments, roles and permissions, integrations, real-time features, compliance requirements
- Pushes it down
- A smaller first version. This is the only lever that moves the number a lot
- Pay separately, forever
- Hosting, database, email and storage, paid to those providers directly
The packages behind these numbers
Each one lists its full scope, what it excludes and how the work runs.