A focused mobile app MVP costs €25,000–70,000 and ships to both app stores in 2–4 months — those are the real ranges we quote at UP2DATE. The difference between the bottom and the top of that range is almost never technology; it is scope discipline. An MVP is not a cheap version of your product — it is the smallest version that can prove or disprove your riskiest assumption with real users.
What actually counts as an MVP?
One core flow, done properly. If your product is a booking app, the MVP is: find, book, pay, get confirmation. It is not: loyalty points, referral codes, chat, dark mode and an admin dashboard with charts. A useful test we apply in discovery: if you removed this feature, would the first 100 users still get the core value? If yes, it is not MVP scope.
Where does the budget actually go?
On a typical €25,000–70,000 MVP, the split looks roughly like this: about a third goes into the core product flow, a quarter into the unavoidable foundation (authentication, accounts, notifications, the backend and API), and the rest into design, quality assurance, store submission and project management. Two things surprise first-time founders: the “invisible” backend is a real cost even for a simple app, and QA plus store review cycles are not optional — Apple and Google both reject apps for issues you stopped noticing weeks ago.
What is a realistic timeline?
Two to four months from kickoff to both stores, in four phases: discovery and design first (the cheapest place to change your mind), then development in weekly increments you can install via TestFlight and internal testing tracks, then a hardening pass, then store submission — including the review buffer. If a vendor promises a production MVP in four weeks, ask what they are silently cutting; it is usually QA and the backend.
What to cut without regret
- The second platform — sometimes. If your audience is heavily one platform, launch there first. If it is genuinely both, a cross-platform approach can save 40–60% versus two native apps — the choice should follow your users, not the vendor's preference.
- The admin dashboard. For the first months, an internal tool with basic tables — or even direct database views — does the job. Polished back-office UI is a scale-up cost, not an MVP cost.
- Onboarding tours and gamification. If the core flow needs a tutorial, the core flow needs redesign, not a tutorial.
- Settings screens. Ship sensible defaults. Users change fewer settings than founders think.
- Chat and social features. Real-time infrastructure is expensive and empty social features are worse than none.
- Custom animations everywhere. One signature moment is branding; forty micro-animations are budget.
- Multiple languages. Launch in the language of your first market. Localization is straightforward to add once the copy stabilises.
- “While we're at it” integrations. Every third-party integration adds a contract, a failure mode and a maintenance line. Keep only the ones the core flow cannot exist without — usually payments and analytics.
What you should never cut
Security and data protection (cutting corners here costs more than the whole MVP later — it is why we hold ISO 27001), crash reporting and analytics (without them you learn nothing from launch, which defeats the point of an MVP), automated tests around payment and account flows, and store-compliance basics. These are not features; they are the instrument panel.
How do you keep an MVP on budget?
Fix the scope in writing before development starts, pay against milestones you can see — working builds, not status reports — and route every “can we also add…” through a simple question: does it help the first 100 users complete the core flow? Park everything else in a version-two list. That list is not a graveyard; it is your roadmap, now informed by real usage instead of guesses.
We build MVPs as native iOS and Android apps first and foremost, with Flutter or React Native when the case genuinely favours cross-platform — and a specialist consultant walks you through scope and trade-offs before anything is quoted. If you want a milestone plan against these numbers for your own idea, get in touch.
