App design: end-to-end product from a single pair of hands

It depends on scope more than any other service, so be wary of any figure quoted before hearing about your project. As an honest reference: a tightly scoped web MVP — few screens, one user type, no exotic integrations — starts where a complex corporate website ends, from around €5,000–6,000. Every screen, user role and integration adds up; a native app with a dedicated team plays in a different budget league entirely.

What never changes: after the first call I send you a proposal with scope, timeline and a fixed price in writing. And if your idea can be solved with a €2,000 website, I'll say so and you'll save the difference.

Far more often than anyone admits, a website is enough — or a web app that opens in the browser and installs on your phone. An app in the stores makes sense if you need the phone's hardware (camera, background GPS, push notifications), serious offline use, or the stores themselves as an acquisition channel. If your product is "the user comes in, does something and leaves", a web app is usually cheaper, faster to launch and far easier to maintain.

We'll look at it frankly on the first call. I won't sell you an app if a website solves the problem — maintaining two binaries in two stores is a recurring cost that's only worth it when it adds something real.

An MVP (minimum viable product) is the smallest version of your product that already solves the core problem for real users. Careful: it's not a half-built app or a demo — it's a whole app with a smaller scope. The difference matters: minimum still has to hold up.

Starting there gives you two things: you reach the market months earlier, and you learn from real users before spending on features nobody may use. It's common for a good chunk of the "essential" features from the first meeting not to survive contact with actual users — better to find that out having invested little than after paying for the huge app.

Quick rule: native (Swift/Kotlin) when you need maximum performance and deep hardware access; hybrid (React Native, Flutter) when you want to be in both stores with one codebase; web app when what matters is reaching users fast without going through the stores. For most MVPs and business products, the web app wins: lower cost, instant iteration and no Apple review in the way.

My home turf is product design and web apps built with React and Next.js, and I'm upfront about it: if your project truly needs pure native, I'll say so on the first call and help you frame it properly — I can lead the design and product definition, but not the native development itself.

It depends on size and pace, and I'll tell you even when the answer doesn't favour me. A freelancer who designs and codes gives you coherence (no decision gets lost between departments), lower coordination cost and a single point of contact who knows every line of the product. An agency or in-house team gives you parallel work and capacity for big roadmaps with continuous releases.

For an MVP and the first iterations, a single pair of hands is usually faster and cheaper. When the product gains traction and needs a team, I'll support the handover: the code is yours, it's documented, and there are no hostages. I work solo and take on few projects at a time — which also means that if I have no room or I'm not the right option, I'll say so.