How much does app design cost?

In short

There is no single answer to “How much does app design cost?”, because the word “app” means different work in every quote. One means a five-screen concept, another a product live on two platforms.

That's why I recommend writing down the scope before you ask for a price. Once the scope is fixed, quotes can be compared too.

• The price is set mostly by screens and flows, platform, research and code. The design system and the accessibility target aren't visible at first glance, but they lengthen the work.
• At ux.center the prices are public. The picker below shows which offer your scope fits.

What sets the price of app design?

The number in a quote is an estimate of the hours needed. Each item below makes those hours more or fewer.

Number of flows and screens

A flow is the sequence of screens a user goes through for one goal, such as signing up or paying. A screen is a single view in that sequence. I count the scope first in flows, then in screens.

The number of screens is bigger than it looks. Each screen also has an empty state, a loading state and an error state. The “cart” looks like one screen, but the empty cart and the invalid promo code are designed separately.

When you ask for a quote, list the screens one by one. Without the list the vendor estimates the number, and the estimate is usually rounded in their favour.

Platform

Web, iOS and Android do the same job with different rules. On Android with gesture navigation on, the user goes back with a swipe from the left or right edge. With button navigation they tap the back button. Android's developer guidelines ask you to account for several navigation types.

According to the same guidelines, edge-to-edge display is mandatory in Android 15 and the status bar is transparent by default. The guidelines ask you to check that content and buttons don't sit under the system bars. So that area is considered separately on every screen. iOS has its own rules too. I describe the differences between the platforms in the guide to mobile app design.

Two platforms means thinking through some of the screens twice. If code is needed too, the work grows further, because two separate apps are built.

User research

Research measures whether the design solves the right problem. Interviews or tests need their own time, from recruiting participants to analysis. They belong in the quote as their own line.

The question asked most is about the number of participants. Jakob Nielsen recommends 5 users for a qualitative usability test. According to him, more than 5 people in the same test add little, while the cost rises with every person.

For big products with many features, Nielsen recommends several separate tests instead of one big one. Each test looks at a smaller part of the features. Details are in the guide to the usability test.

Design system

A design system is the set of reusable components and rules: colours, type, buttons, form fields and their states. NN/g describes it as a set of standards to manage design at scale using reusable components and patterns.

In the same article NN/g is also open about the cost. The more custom the system, the more time and money it takes to build. For a prototype or proof of concept that is likely to change, a full system doesn't pay off in the short term.

My practice: for a small piece of work I don't build a custom system, but keep the product's components and its design tokens tidy. If the product is going to grow, the design system goes into the quote as its own item.

Code

Design-only work ends with the Figma file. When design and code are sold together, the result is working screens. That's why two quotes with the same number of screens can differ a lot.

If you buy design only, count one more cost: the team that turns the design into code. Details can get lost in that handoff, and fixing them takes another round.

Accessibility target

Fix the target from the start. The W3C's WCAG 2.2 standard has three levels: A, AA and AAA. For AA conformance, a page meets every success criterion at levels A and AA. For example, 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) and 2.4.7 Focus Visible are at level AA.

In my experience these rules get more expensive when added afterwards. I describe the levels in the WCAG guide.

Revisions and scope changes

The number of revision rounds affects the price too. My observation: a quote with unlimited revisions is either more expensive from the start or drags the work out. Get in writing how many rounds there are and what a round covers.

A change of scope is a topic of its own. A flow added along the way I count as new work. How it affects the price is worth discussing from the start.

Why there's no market price range here

This page has no range like “app design in the US costs between this and that”. That would need a public, dated price study. Without having opened and read such a source, any number would be a guess.

A range also says little while the scope is open. A five-screen web concept and a product coded for two platforms don't fall into the same range.

There's a more useful way: write down your scope and get several quotes with the same text. Then put the quotes side by side using the items below.

How do you compare quotes?

Compare two quotes by their contents first. I want to see the answers to these questions in writing in a quote:

• Which flows and which screens are designed? Are empty, loading and error states included?
• For which platforms? Web, iOS, Android or all.
• Is there user research? If so, how many interviews or test sessions?
• Is a design system built, or are existing components used?
• Who does the code? Who turns the design into code, and which repository does the code go to?
• How many revision rounds are there, and how does the price change if the scope changes?
• When is the delivery date, how is payment made, and is tax included or added?

Every line without an answer is a candidate for an extra invoice later. If you find it hard to describe the scope, the MVP page helps you pick what goes into the first version.

Example: how do you write a scope?

Imagine a coffee shop chain wants an ordering app. If it asks for quotes with the sentence “We need an ordering app”, every studio imagines a different app.

Written like this, the quotes become comparable:

• Flows: sign-up and sign-in, choosing a product from the menu, cart and payment, order status, loyalty points.
• Screens: the screen list of each flow, including states such as empty cart, payment error and closed store.
• Platform: iOS and Android first. Web comes in the next version.
• Research: after the design, one test round with 5 users.
• Design system: brand colours and type exist; a component library doesn't.
• Code: the mobile code is needed too, connected to the existing ordering system.
• Accessibility: WCAG 2.2 AA.

This list isn't longer than a page, but it takes most of the guesswork away from the vendor. If it's hard to choose which flow matters to users, a customer journey map is a good start.

Mark in the list what the first version really needs. If the loyalty points drop out of the first version, one flow and all its screens drop out of the quote.

Which offer does your scope fit?

Choose your scope below with five questions. The picker doesn't estimate a price. It shows which ux.center offer your scope fits, and why.

Match your scope

The picker needs JavaScript. The same matching rules are also in the table below.

This picker doesn't estimate a price; it matches your scope to a ux.center offer. The matching rules are my own. With every choice the recommended offer and the reasoning change.

The same rules as a plain table:

Your scope	Matching offer	Price
1–30 screens, one platform, no research, with code	Design & Ship Sprint	$999 for 1 week, $1,949 for 2 weeks
Design only, no code	Fixed-price project	Quote in 24 hours
More than 30 screens	Fixed-price project	Quote in 24 hours
With user research	Fixed-price project	Quote in 24 hours
iOS and Android, or web and mobile, with code	Fixed-price project	Quote in 24 hours
Product is live, you want to find the problems first	UX Audit or UX Audit Pro	$79 one flow, $399 up to 10 flows

The rules are a starting point. For a scope on the edge, the decision gets made in the 15-minute call.

UI/UX design prices at ux.center

I write my own prices openly. Once the scope is fixed, the number is fixed too, before the work starts.

• UX Audit: $79, one flow, delivered within 48 hours.
• UX Audit Pro: $399, the whole app, up to 10 flows, delivered within 48 hours.
• Design & Ship Sprint: $999 for 1 week or $1,949 for 2 weeks. Design and code, into your repo. Starts the next business day.
• Fixed-price project: you describe the scope, and within 24 hours I send one price and a delivery date.

Prices are in USD and exclude VAT. Book a sprint within 30 days and I take the audit fee off the sprint price. All offers with duration and payment method are in one table on the pricing page.

My note

The most common problem in pricing conversations: the scope was never written down. Work that starts with “We want an app” grows at the first delivery with “We were also thinking of this”.

That's why I ask for the screen list first. If there isn't one, we draw it up together. Often part of the list doesn't make it into the first version, and the price drops by itself.

The second most common problem: design and code are priced separately and done by separate teams. The design is delivered, the code team starts months later, and some screens get rethought. Because I do design and code myself, that handoff doesn't exist with me.

If your product is live, I recommend an audit before a redesign. New screens drawn without knowing what doesn't work carry old problems into a new look. More on this in the post audit first, then design.