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MVP · Founders · 10–16 weeks

Build the version
that proves it works.

Most failed builds are not engineering failures — they are scoping failures. We help founders cut to a version one that a real user can actually use, then ship it in roughly 10–16 weeks of senior engineering effort, on a fixed price agreed before any code is written.

Book a free scoping call → Estimate your MVP cost
The hard part

Deciding what not
to build.

An MVP is not a cheap version of your product. It is the smallest thing that produces a real answer. Sort every feature into three buckets and be strict about the first one.

Core

Without it, there is no product

If you can describe a usable product without the feature, it is not core. Most scopes have far fewer core features than the founder first thinks.

Supporting

The core genuinely depends on it

Sign-in, basic settings, the plumbing the core cannot run without. Keep this list short and treat every addition with suspicion.

Later

Scheduled, not cancelled

Everything else. Writing it down as later matters — a feature with a date stops being argued about every week.

A practical test: for each feature, ask what actually happens if it ships three months after launch. “Some users would find it inconvenient” means it is not core. “The product makes no sense” means it is.
What you get

A real product,
not a demo.

Cross-platform from one codebase

iOS and Android from a single React Native codebase, so you are not funding two teams before you have proof anyone wants it.

A backend that survives launch

MERN or PostgreSQL, real auth, and an architecture that will not need a rewrite the week after you get traction.

AI only where it earns its place

Claude or GPT features when they solve a real problem — see AI app development. We will talk you out of it when they do not.

Store submission handled

Review-ready builds, listings and the back-and-forth with Apple and Google, included rather than quoted separately.

Analytics from day one

An MVP that ships without instrumentation cannot answer the question you built it to answer. Events and funnels are part of the build.

Code and accounts you own

Your repository, your infrastructure, your IP. Nothing to extract if you take it in-house or to another team later.

Timeline

Where an MVP sits.

These bands are engineering effort — the working time of a senior team — not calendar time with more people thrown at it. Adding people to a late project reliably makes it later.

~10–16 weeks
MVP / focused first product. One core loop, a handful of screens, standard auth, a straightforward backend, one or two integrations. This is what you build to test demand. An attendance and payroll platform we built shipped in around 16 weeks, at the fuller end of this band.
~24–32 weeks
Standard / market-ready. Several connected modules, custom interface work, real-time features, payments and a proper admin side. Most funded products land here — it is a step beyond an MVP, not an MVP.
32+ weeks
Complex / scale. Multi-sided platforms, heavy integrations, strict compliance or high concurrency. If your idea only works at this size, an MVP may not be the right first move — and we will say so.

More detail on how these are estimated: how long it takes to build a mobile app.

Budget

What it costs,
honestly.

A focused MVP typically starts in the low five figures (USD), and scales from there with feature depth. Anyone quoting a single number for “an app” without asking about your backend is guessing.

The thing that moves the number most is not screen count — it is what has to be true underneath. Real-time updates, payments, offline behaviour, role-based access and third-party integrations drive far more cost than another screen does. That is the question we spend most of the scoping call on.

Estimate your scope → Read the full cost breakdown
Process

Idea to launch,
without the drama.

01

Scope call

30 minutes on your goals, users and constraints — with an honest read on feasibility. If the idea has a serious problem, you hear it here, not in month three.

02

Fixed-price proposal

Scope, timeline and a fixed price within 48 hours. Version one separated from later phases explicitly, with the assumptions written down.

03

Build

Weekly demo builds you can hold in your hand from the first sprint — working software, not a status report describing it.

04

Launch & learn

Store submission handled, then monitoring and iteration once real usage starts telling you what you actually built.

Proof

Products we shipped.

Real builds, live in users' hands. Product names are withheld under client NDAs — every metric and timeline below is real.

16 weeks
HR & payroll platform — the closest of our builds to MVP scale, live on both stores
See the case study →
 +35%
Downloads after launch for a creator–venue marketplace
See the case study →
 ~3 min
Average booking time on a ride-hailing platform with AI fare prediction
See the case study →
Before you commit

Worth reading first.

Validate before you build

The cheapest MVP is the one you did not need. How to validate an app idea before spending on engineering.

Choosing the stack

Framework choice is mostly a hiring decision, not a benchmark one. How to choose your MVP tech stack.

Can AI just build it?

A straight answer rather than a sales one: what AI genuinely accelerates, and what it still cannot own.

After launch

What changes once real users arrive: from MVP to product-market fit.

Scope it yourself

The five questions we ask on every scoping call, as a free 8-page guide: the app scoping guide.

Need a team, not a project?

If you have ongoing capacity needs rather than a fixed scope, you can hire a dedicated team instead.

FAQ

Common questions.

A prototype answers “could this work?” and is usually throwaway. An MVP answers “will people actually use this?” and has to survive real users, real data and real edge cases. That difference is most of the cost. If you only need to test a concept with a few people, a prototype is cheaper and faster — and we will say so on the call.
Most focused MVPs land in roughly 10–16 weeks of senior engineering effort. That is effort, not calendar time with more people added — adding people to a late project reliably makes it later. For reference, an attendance and payroll platform we built shipped in around 16 weeks, at the fuller end of that band.
A focused MVP typically starts in the low five figures (USD), and scales from there with feature depth — particularly the back-end surface: real-time data, payments, offline behaviour, role-based access and third-party integrations move the number far more than screen count does. Use the app cost calculator for a range against your own scope, then a free call gets you a fixed-price proposal within 48 hours.
Sort every feature into Core, Supporting and Later. Core means the product does not do its one job without it. Supporting means the core genuinely depends on it. Everything else is Later — scheduled, not cancelled. A practical test: ask what actually happens if a feature ships three months after launch. If the answer is “some users would find it inconvenient”, it is not core.
Yes. You own the repository, the infrastructure accounts and the intellectual property. We build in your accounts where possible so there is nothing to extract if you take the product in-house or to another team later.
Launch is the start of the cost, not the end of it. App stores need ongoing releases, OS versions change, and real usage produces work no plan anticipated. We stay for monitoring and iteration sprints, or hand over cleanly if you are building an in-house team — both are normal.

Get a fixed price
for your MVP.

A 30-minute scoping call, then a fixed-price proposal within 48 hours. If an MVP is not the right first move, we will tell you on the call. NDA on request.

Book a free scoping call → See our work