How Long Does It Take to Build an App? A Real Timeline for Small Businesses

"How long will it take?" is the second question after "what does it cost?", and most answers to it are as vague as the price ranges. Ours is published: a small-business app takes 3–6 weeks from kickoff to submission to the App Store and Google Play. This post shows where those weeks go, what pushes a build toward the long end, and what you can do to keep yours short.

The short answer

• Most apps: 3–6 weeks, kickoff to store submission. One app, one codebase, both stores.
• The short end is a App Starter build ($5,950): one feature, no sign-in, and your store accounts ready on day one.
• The long end is a App Authority build ($19,500): payments, staff roles, or a connection to the software you already run.
• Store review comes after. Apple and Google each check the app before it is listed. That usually takes a few days and is outside anyone's control, so we submit as soon as the app passes our own testing.

Your written quote carries the dates for your app before any work starts. The range above is what those dates fall inside for the tiers on our app development page.

Where the weeks go

The first week: scope and screens

Before anything is built, we pin down the one thing a customer opens the app to do, list the screens, and design them. This is also when the fixed price is set: each tier is a defined scope, a number of screens and a list of features, so the timeline and the price come from the same list. A week spent here saves two later, because nothing gets built twice.

The build

The bulk of the range. One codebase, written once with Expo and React Native, becomes the iPhone app and the Android app. A App Starter build is a handful of screens and one real feature. A App Growth build adds customer accounts, a hosted database, an owner admin screen, and ordering or booking. A App Authority build adds payments, several staff roles, integrations and offline support. Each of those is its own piece of work, which is why it sits at the long end.

Your phone, before the stores

You get the app on your own phone before it goes anywhere public. This is where the small things get caught: a label, a color, a step that takes one tap too many. They are fixed while they are cheap.

Submission and review

We prepare both store listings, submit the app, and handle whatever Apple's and Google's review asks for. The accounts are yours: the Apple Developer Program ($99 a year) and the Google Play Console ($25 once) are opened in your business name, and the app is published under it.

What makes an app take longer

The same four things that set the price (what an app costs, in detail):

• Sign-in. Accounts, a database and an admin screen are more to build and more to test.
• Payments. Taking money inside an app means failed cards, refunds, receipts, and the stores' own rules for what can be sold in an app.
• Integrations. Every connection to a point-of-sale, CRM or calendar is its own job, and it depends on the other company's system.
• Waiting. The most common delay is not code. It is a logo, a menu, a price list, a store account that has not been opened, or a decision about what the app is for.

What keeps it short

• Decide the one thing. An app built around the one action your customers repeat (book, order, check in, show a card) is faster to build and better to use than one that tries to do everything.
• Open your store accounts the week you sign. The Apple Developer Program and Google Play Console accounts are in your name, and Apple's approval for a business can take days on its own.
• Answer within a day. A build moves as fast as the feedback on it. One review pass returned the same day keeps a week from slipping.
• Ship version one, then add. Anything past the agreed scope is a written change request with its own dates. Version one on time beats version three late.

Does the timeline change the price?

No. The price is set by the tier, and the tier is set by what the app has to do. A build that lands at the long end of the range costs the same as one that lands at the short end of the same tier.

After launch

An app is never finished, because phones change under it. App Care covers backend hosting, store releases, basic analytics, monthly minor updates, and rebuilds when Apple or Google change their requirements. It is free for the first 3, 6 or 12 months depending on tier, then $99, $179 or $299 a month with the backend included.

FAQ

Can you build an app in two weeks? Not one we would put our name on. Even a one-feature app needs its own days for scope, design, a round on your own phone and the store submission, which is why the range starts where it does.

Do Apple's and Google's reviews count toward the 3–6 weeks? The range runs to submission. Review usually adds a few days per store and is outside our control; we plan for it, and we handle whatever it asks for.

Do updates take as long? No. Small changes ship through App Care's monthly minor updates. New screens or new features are change requests with their own written timeline.

Want the dates for your app? Tell us what it needs to do and we will reply with the tier, the scope and a timeline in writing.