Restaurant app cost: ordering, click & collect and loyalty
10 min read
Key takeaways
- A serious mobile MVP is the most economical entry point; a full app costs noticeably more, depending on scope.
- Development accounts for only 45 to 55% of the budget: scoping, design, back end, testing and deployment make up the rest.
- Cross-platform saves 30 to 40% across two platforms, except for very hardware-heavy uses.
- Allow 15 to 20% of the initial cost per year for maintenance, otherwise the app degrades within 18 months.
- A quote without a priced scoping phase is a quote that will overrun.
"How much does a mobile app cost?" is the first question we get asked, and it's also the worst-framed. You might as well ask how much a house costs: it depends on the floor area, the plot, the finish and who builds it.
We can still answer honestly, provided we break it down. This article opens up our methods: the tiers we actually work with in 2026, the budget breakdown item by item, and the five factors that mean the same project can cost up to three times as much.
The three budget tiers
After more than 150 projects delivered, requests almost always fall into one of these three categories.
| Project type | Duration | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| MVP / proof of market | 2 to 3 months | One main journey, authentication, a simple back end, publication on both stores |
| Full app | 4 to 7 months | Several user roles, payment, notifications, back office, analytics, automated tests |
| Business or consumer platform | 8 to 18 months | Distributed architecture, IT system integrations, high volumes, security and compliance requirements |
These tiers correspond to custom development carried out in France, with a dedicated team. They include scoping, design, development, testing and go-live — not maintenance or user acquisition.
The useful benchmark: always ask for the estimated number of development days: that's what explains a quote. If a quote shows an abnormally low day rate, the question to ask isn't the price but where the work is actually done.
Where the money really goes
This is the point most project owners discover along the way: mobile development accounts for only half the budget. Here is the typical breakdown for a full app project.
| Item | Share of budget | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Scoping and product design | 8 – 12% | Workshops, user journeys, scope trade-offs, specifications |
| UI/UX design | 12 – 18% | Mock-ups, design system, clickable prototype, variants |
| Mobile development | 35 – 45% | iOS, Android or a cross-platform base |
| Back end and API | 15 – 25% | Database, API, authentication, infrastructure |
| Testing and acceptance | 8 – 12% | Automated tests, functional acceptance, bug fixing |
| Publication and go-live | 3 – 5% | Developer accounts, store listings, compliance, deployment |
Two practical lessons.
First, saving on scoping is the worst possible calculation. The two weeks of workshops that seem expensive represent 5% of the budget and avoid the 20% of rework caused by a misunderstood feature. On our projects, every euro saved on scoping costs about three in development.
Second, the back end is almost always underestimated. A "simple" app that syncs data between several users, manages permissions and sends notifications needs a real server. Quotes that forget it aren't cheaper: they're incomplete.
The five factors that make the price vary
1. The number of platforms
Take an iOS-only app as a base of 100. The same app on iOS and Android natively comes to about 180; in cross-platform, 120 to 140. It's the most structuring trade-off in the project, and we've detailed it in our comparison React Native, Flutter or native.
2. The number of user roles
Each additional role — customer, service provider, administrator, supervisor — adds screens, permission rules, test cases and often a back office. Going from one role to three doesn't multiply the budget by three, but typically increases it by 40 to 60%.
3. Integrations with existing systems
Connecting to a modern CRM with a documented API takes two to five days. Connecting to an internal ERP with no documentation, with a contact available one hour a week, can take twenty. It isn't technical complexity that costs, it's uncertainty.
4. The level of requirements
An internal app used by 40 employees and a consumer app aiming for 100,000 users don't require the same work — same screens, very different effort. Performance, offline handling, accessibility, resilience under load, testing on a real device fleet: these requirements can represent 25% of the budget.
5. Regulatory constraints
Health, finance, minors' data: certified hosting, encryption, logging, audit. On a project subject to reinforced GDPR or HDS (France's certification for health data hosting), allow 15 to 30% extra budget — a subject we cover in our article on GDPR compliance for mobile apps.
≈ 3×What each euro saved on scoping costs in development
15–20%Of the initial budget to plan for each year in maintenance
30–40%Savings from cross-platform on a two-platform project
The cost nobody budgets for: the following year
An app isn't a deliverable, it's a living service. Every year:
- Apple and Google release a major OS version, with changing publication rules;
- your technical dependencies release major versions, and staying two years behind costs more than keeping up;
- certificates, developer accounts and third-party service subscriptions renew;
- your users report bugs and expect improvements.
Realistic budget: 15 to 20% of the initial cost per year. It isn't optional: an app that isn't maintained becomes unpublishable within 18 to 24 months, and taking it back on then costs more than having maintained it.
How to read a quote without getting trapped
Three questions are enough to reveal the quality of a proposal.
- "What isn't included?" A good quote answers immediately and in writing. A bad quote answers "everything is included", which is false 100% of the time.
- "How many days for scoping, and what does it produce?" If the answer is "we'll see", the scope isn't under control and the displayed price is theoretical.
- "Who writes the code, where, and who will be my point of contact?" The price difference between two agencies is often entirely explained here.
A quote isn't a promise of price. It's a promise of scope. As long as the scope isn't written down, the price means nothing.
In short
For a custom mobile app in 2026: an MVP to validate a market, the most economical tier, a full product next, and beyond that a platform — each tier priced via a free quote within 24 hours, at low prices. Add 15 to 20% per year for maintenance, and never skimp on the two weeks of scoping that protect everything else.
If you'd like an order of magnitude for your specific project, describe it to us: we send back a free, reasoned quote within 24 hours, with no commitment. It's more useful than a price list, because your project isn't on the list.
Sources
- Become a member — Apple
- Premiers pas avec la Play Console — Google Play Console
- Exigences liées au niveau d'API cible pour les applications Play — Google Play Console
- Upcoming Requirements — Apple
