HOW MUCH IT COSTS TO RUN AN APP

A project ends, a product begins

Quotes include a figure for development. In budget plans, that same figure ends up as the total cost. This is the most common calculation error we see ‒ and it usually comes back to haunt you in the second year, when money is suddenly needed for something that wasn’t listed on any slide

An app isn’t a brochure that you print and put on a shelf. It runs on operating systems that change every year, in app stores with their own rules, and on servers that someone has to maintain. Here, let’s take a look at the list of ongoing expenses that we go over with our clients before launch.

What Happens Every Year

• Store Fees and Management

  The Apple Developer Program costs $99 per year, while Google Play Developer Access costs a one-time fee of $25. That’s manageable, but renewal notices can easily get lost in your inbox ‒ and an expired membership will remove the app from the store. In addition, there are occasional administrative tasks for the app owner to ensure ongoing account security

• Certificates

  Certificates expire, need to be renewed, and ‒ if left unattended ‒ can block an urgent release.

• Hosting and Database

  We typically use containers on DigitalOcean or AWS, with backups and recovery testing.

• Monitoring

  You should spot errors and crashes yourself before your users call. We use standard tools like Datadog, which incur licensing costs.

• Licenses for Third-Party Components

  Map services, payment providers, push notifications, error reporting. Any service that comes with a price tag grows in cost as the number of users increases.

What Strikes Irregularly

• New Operating System Versions

  iOS and Android release a new major version every fall. To avoid surprises for app users, we thoroughly test the apps we operate on these new versions. Sometimes the behavior changes with regard to permissions, background processes, or display ‒ and then your app may look incorrect on new devices.

• Store requirements

  Google Play regularly requires that apps be built against a current Android version. If you fail to meet this requirement, you will no longer be able to publish updates. In addition, there are changing requirements regarding privacy policies and age ratings.

• Library Updates

  Security vulnerabilities can arise over time in any integrated software component. If you go two years without updating, what follows isn’t a manageable update but a full-scale migration project.

• Product Development

  The budget item that everyone actually wants ‒ and the only one that gets cut regularly because the other four came as a surprise. That’s why we urge our clients to firmly factor in the expected costs from the very beginning, so they have a buffer for the product’s ongoing development.

A house number

As a rough guideline, we estimate 10 to 25% of the initial development costs per year for operation, maintenance, and minor adjustments—excluding new features.

This figure tends to be higher when there are a large number of integrated third-party systems, high user volumes, highly regulated industries, or very high requirements for availability and support (e.g., 24/7 support). It tends to be lower for lean applications with few dependencies and less stringent availability requirements.

For a medium-sized project budget, this amounts to approximately 500 to 1,500 euros per month, depending on the specific support requirements.

What's driving up operating costs

The greatest opportunities lie before the launch, not after it:

• documented architecture
• few dependencies
• automated testing & deployment

That’s why we like to take a close look at architectural decisions. The decision takes one to two days of analysis and design ‒ but the consequences last for years.