Application development cost
In 2026, developing a web application generally costs between 15,000 and 200,000 €. A simple, working first version sits between 5,000 and 30,000 €, a complete business application between 30,000 and 80,000 €, and a complex platform with high volumes, integrations, and multiple roles often tops 100,000 €. The gap is huge, and there's a reason for it. This page breaks it down.
The real information isn't the range. It's understanding why two quotes for the same application can run from one to five times each other, and where your money actually goes.
In 2026, expect 15,000 to 200,000 € on the traditional market depending on complexity. A simple first version runs from 5,000 to 30,000 €, a complete business application from 30,000 to 80,000 €. At 5000.dev, it's 5,000 € per brick, fixed price, delivered in two weeks, source code included.
The price of an application doesn't depend on "size" the way you picture it. It depends on five concrete things.
The more screens and flows there are to build, the more the development time climbs.
Showing a list is trivial; syncing stock in real time with third-party software or handling payments is where the time goes.
Each external tool to connect adds work and error cases.
An application where everyone sees everything costs far less than one with differentiated permissions.
Payments, personal data, health: the higher the security stake, the more rigorous and therefore longer the development.
An idea often fits in one sentence. The price hides in the action behind the button, not in the button.
Because a quote bills more than code. On a typical agency quote, the share that actually funds development rarely tops a quarter of the total. The rest pays a middle project manager, a sales team, offices, a margin, and the months of back-and-forth on a spec document nobody will read in full. So two providers can offer the same application at 18,000 € and at 90,000 € without one scamming the other: they're not selling the same cost structure. To go deeper, read our guide on choosing an application development agency.
Most agencies bill by the day: a daily rate times the number of days. The problem is mechanical. The slower the provider, the more it earns. The faster and better it is, the less it bills. You pay for inefficiency, never for the result. With AI, this model becomes absurd. Senior developers who orchestrate AI well produce in two weeks what used to take two months. The fixed price fixes the problem: you pay for a bounded result, at a price known in advance, and the productivity gain goes back in your pocket.
Our answer to all of this is a fixed price: 5,000 € for a first working brick, delivered, live, with the source code that belongs to you. Two weeks of development. No endless quote, no hour counter. If your full application is bigger than what we can ship cleanly in one brick, we don't inflate the price: we cut it. You start with the brick that holds the most value, it runs in two weeks, and you decide what's next with a real tool in hand rather than a spec on paper. That's the foundation of the custom web application, and you can see a business application example.
Properly orchestrated by our senior team, AI divides the time it takes to produce code by about four.
For the same scope, for an equivalent delivered application, that's on average what we see against our competitors.
The price gap with a classic agency isn't a random discount. Most agencies keep the AI productivity gain as margin: you pay the same rate as before, they pocket the difference. We do the opposite. We pass that productivity straight into the price, without cutting quality or offshoring. We take the real gain AI delivers today and hand it back to you. It's also why the price is fixed rather than time-based. Billing by the hour would charge you for time AI has already melted away.
An honest caveat: AI replaces neither the scoping nor the senior developers who drive it. That framed productivity is what separates a fair price from technical debt. A non-developer's vibe coding produces the opposite.
| Application type | Traditional market price | Usual timeline | The 5000.dev approach |
|---|---|---|---|
| First working version | 5,000 to 30,000 € | 1 to 3 months | 5,000 € per brick, 2 weeks |
| Complete business application | 30,000 to 80,000 € | 3 to 9 months | Several bricks at 5,000 € |
| Complex platform | 80,000 to 200,000 €+ | 9 months and up | Cut into successive bricks |
| Project type | Market range | Usual timeline | The 5000.dev approach |
|---|---|---|---|
| First version / MVP | 15,000 to 30,000 € | 1 to 3 months | 5,000 € per brick, 2 weeks |
| Complete business application | 40,000 to 150,000 € | 3 to 9 months | Several bricks at 5,000 € |
| Platform / complex SaaS | 80,000 to 250,000 €+ | 9 months and up | Cut into successive bricks |
| SaaS (subscription, around €600/month) | Custom software (5000.dev) | |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 7,200 € | 5,000 € (one brick) |
| Year 2 | 7,200 € | 0 € (you own the code) |
| Year 3 | 7,200 € | 0 € (changes = optional bricks) |
| 3-year total | 21,600 €, and you own nothing | 5,000 €, and the code is yours |
At €600 a month, a SaaS passes the cost of a first custom brick within the first year. After three years, you have paid a subscription three times the price of software you would have owned. This is the math most small businesses never do.
The only way to know the price of your application is to describe what it must do, not to tick a range. Tell us the problem you want to solve, and we'll point out which brick to start with and what it costs.