Picture yourself on a Monday morning in your office somewhere between Mönchengladbach and Düsseldorf. On your desk is an idea that has been on your mind for weeks: an app that makes life easier for your customers, cuts your processes in half or opens up a sales channel your competitors don't have yet. What holds you back isn't the idea. It's the question behind it: What will this cost me? How does a project like this actually work? And who can I trust with my idea?
Those are exactly the three questions we answer here. No marketing fog, with real figures and an honest look at where projects get expensive and where you can save.
How much does it cost to have an app developed?
The short answer nobody wants to hear: it depends. The honest answer you can actually work with: there are clear ranges that German projects fall into.
A simple app with three to five screens and basic features typically costs between €15,000 and €40,000 in the DACH region. That covers concept, design, development and initial testing. As soon as you add your own backend, user accounts, payment processing or integrations with your existing software, the budget climbs. Complex platform apps can run to six figures and quickly pass the €100,000 mark.
Your biggest lever on that figure is a single decision: native or cross-platform.
| Approach | What it means | Cost range (starting at) |
|---|---|---|
| Native (separate iOS + Android) | Two separate codebases, top performance, full access to all device features | from approx. €50,000 |
| Cross-platform (React Native / Flutter) | One codebase for both stores, 85–95% shared code | from approx. €30,000 |
| Web app / PWA | Runs in the browser, no app store needed | from approx. €15,000 |
Native development means that iOS and Android are essentially two projects of their own. That costs around 30 to 50 per cent more, because two development cycles run in parallel. Cross-platform frameworks such as React Native and Flutter, on the other hand, share 85 to 95 per cent of the codebase between both systems.
“Cross-platform means one app, two stores, one budget instead of two – at 30 to 50 per cent lower starting costs.”
For the vast majority of SME and start-up projects, that is the right path. Native pays off where you need every last bit of performance or dig deep into specific device features, for example in compute-heavy games or demanding camera and sensor processing.
One figure many people forget when they get their first quote: launch isn't the end. Budget 15 to 25 per cent of the initial development cost per year for maintenance, updates and new operating system versions. An app isn't a piece of furniture you buy once. It's a product that lives.
The process: from idea to app in the store
A reputable app agency doesn't sell you a black box. It takes you through clearly defined phases, and at every handover you know what you'll get and what it will cost. This is what the journey looks like:
1. Concept & design. Before a single line of code is written, your idea becomes a plan. Which features are really needed for launch, and which can wait? This is where the MVP takes shape: the smallest version of your app that delivers real value. Clickable prototypes and the interface design are created in parallel. This phase decides between success and expensive rounds of corrections later on.
2. Front-end development. Now what used to be a sketch becomes visible. The screens, the navigation, everything your users touch takes shape. Good teams work in sprints and show you a working version every one to two weeks.
3. Backend development. The invisible backbone: databases, user management, integrations with your existing systems. This is often where the effort is underestimated, because your app rarely stands alone – it has to talk to your inventory management, CRM or shop.
4. Quality assurance & testing. On real devices, not just in the simulator. Different screen sizes, Android and iOS versions, poor network connections. Whatever isn't found here, your users will find. And they'll leave one-star reviews.
5. Deployment & maintenance. Publishing in the App Store and Google Play comes with its own rules and review processes: Apple rejects around a quarter of all submissions on the first attempt, and for new personal developer accounts Google requires a closed test with at least twelve testers over two weeks before launch. Then there are the account fees: US$99 a year with Apple, a one-off US$25 with Google. We have broken down how to avoid a rejection in review in our article on App Store review and ASO. After that, operations begin: monitoring, updates, further development. A good agency doesn't disappear after launch; it stays your partner.
“You don't have to build everything at once. A clearly scoped MVP gets you into the store on a small budget – and real user feedback beats every assumption.”
The beauty of this approach: you don't go all-in with a huge budget. You start lean, learn from real user data and keep investing where things prove themselves. If you want to know more about how we set up cross-platform app development in practice, you'll find the technical groundwork there.
What to look out for when choosing an app agency
This is where the wheat is separated from the chaff. Having an app developed isn't an off-the-shelf purchase; it's a partnership that lasts months. These points decide whether it holds up:
A firm concept before a firm price. Anyone who quotes you a flat price after five minutes on the phone is guessing. A reliable quote requires a concept phase. The serious ones understand first and calculate second.
Transparency about the codebase. Ask who owns the code at the end. The answer has to be: you. You don't want to end up dependent on a single agency that is the only one who can ever touch your app again.
Contacts you can reach instead of a ticket system. During a project you'll have questions, change requests and sometimes worries too. A team you can call, in the same time zone and speaking the same language, is worth its weight in gold.
References you can get your hands on. Ask to see real projects and download the apps. A good agency is proud to show what it has built.
Accessibility from the start. Since 28 June 2025, Germany's Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG) has been in force: consumer apps – from shops and banking to appointment booking – must be accessible, with EN 301 549 and WCAG 2.2 as the benchmark. An agency that only “bolts on” accessibility afterwards creates expensive rework. Ask specifically how contrast, screen reader support and operability are tested during the process – our BFSG checklist shows what the law requires in detail.
A look beyond the app itself. The best partners don't just think about the app but about your whole digital ecosystem: how does the app work together with your shop, your marketing and your data? An app that stands in isolation gives away half its value.
App agency in Düsseldorf, Mönchengladbach & across NRW: why proximity matters
In theory, you can have your app developed anywhere in the world. In practice, the difference shows in the details. With a local partner, you clear up a misunderstanding in the concept in half an hour around a table, not in three rounds of emails across two time zones. A workshop where everyone stands in the same room in front of the same whiteboard gets you further in one morning than weeks of back and forth in a chat.
The Mönchengladbach and Düsseldorf area, and North Rhine-Westphalia as a whole, is home to a dense landscape of mid-sized companies with exactly this need: digital products that don't look like they came out of a standard kit but fit the business. If you want to have an app developed here, you benefit from a partner who knows the region, the industries and the rules of the German market, from data protection to customer behaviour. That is exactly why we exist: as an app agency based in Mönchengladbach, a short trip from Düsseldorf, we at Next Levels build apps like these as part of our app development full-service offering, from the first sketch to the store and beyond.
“The right app is the one that fits your business – not the one with the most features.”
Got an idea and want to know what it will realistically cost and what the first step looks like? Then let's talk. A first conversation costs you nothing but half an hour, and at the end you'll have clarity on budget, process and the fastest route to the store. Get in touch and we'll look at your idea together.