Mobile App Development
iOS, Android and cross-platform apps, built by a UK team you can talk to directly. We'll be straight with you about one thing up front: most businesses that ask for an app need a better mobile website instead, and we'd rather tell you that in the first call than in month four.
Discovery from £2,500 · Builds from £20,000 · iOS, Android and cross-platform
When you actually need an app
An app is a substantial investment with a permanent maintenance cost — two operating systems that update annually, two store review processes, and users who have to be persuaded to install and then persuaded to keep it. That cost is worth paying when the app can do something a website can't.
It needs the device
Camera, GPS, Bluetooth, offline storage, background processing, hardware integration. Things a browser either can't reach or can't reach reliably.
It needs push notifications people want
Not marketing — operational alerts that matter to the person receiving them, delivered whether or not the app is open.
It's used repeatedly by the same people
Field teams, drivers, technicians, staff, or genuinely committed customers. Frequency is what justifies the install.
It has to work without signal
Warehouses, sites, rural routes, basements. Offline-first is where native genuinely wins.
What we build
Three routes, and discovery decides which one with reasons rather than preferences.
Cross-platform — from £20,000
One codebase, both platforms. Right for the large majority of business apps: internal tools, field applications, customer accounts, booking and ordering. Faster to build, cheaper to maintain, near-indistinguishable from native for most use cases.
Native iOS or Android — from £25,000
When the app is performance-critical, graphics-heavy, or leans hard on platform-specific capability. More expensive to build and maintain, and worth it when the requirement genuinely demands it.
Internal & field applications — from £20,000
Apps for your own team rather than the public. Job management, inspections, stock counts, deliveries, data capture. Usually the highest-return apps we build, because usage is guaranteed and the saving is measurable in hours.
What discovery produces
User journeys and screen flows for every core task. Functional requirements, prioritised for a phase one that ships. Technical architecture, platform choice and integration points. Wireframes for the primary screens. Store submission requirements and the ongoing maintenance commitment, stated plainly. A phased build plan with costs — and an honest view on whether a mobile website would serve you better.
Interface design isn’t a separate invoice
User journeys, wireframes, prototypes and the finished UI are done in-house by the same team building the app. App store rejections are more often a design problem than a code one, and the fastest way to get an app wrong is to have one company draw it and another company build it.
What an app costs after launch
This gets left out of most proposals, so here it is. iOS and Android both ship major releases annually, and both periodically change requirements that force an update whether you wanted one or not. An unmaintained app breaks within about eighteen months and may be removed from the stores. Budget from £1,500 a month for maintenance, monitoring, OS compatibility and a block of development. Plus Apple's annual developer programme fee and Google's one-off registration. We'd rather you knew that before you commissioned an app than after.
Or maybe you need a website
We'll be straight with you about one thing up front: most businesses that ask for an app need a better mobile website instead, and we'd rather tell you that in the first call than in month four. A fast mobile-first site reaches more people for less money and doesn't need a store review to ship a fix.
- ✓ It needs the device — camera, GPS, Bluetooth, offline storage, background processing, hardware integration
- ✓ It needs push notifications people actually want — operational alerts, not marketing
- ✓ It's used repeatedly by the same people: field teams, drivers, technicians, staff, committed customers
- ✓ It has to work without signal — warehouses, sites, rural routes, basements
An app makes sense if
- ? None of the above applies, and reach matters more than frequency
- ? You need to be able to ship a fix today rather than after a store review
A website is probably better if
Tell us what it needs to do
Start with the problem rather than the app. If a website solves it, we'll say so.