How much does a LaunchPad build cost?

A LaunchPad build costs £25k, £60k or £100k, excluding VAT. £25k gets you a launch-ready app or website in two months. £60k gets you both in three months, and £100k buys a deeper product in four.

The wider market runs from a weekend with an AI tool to well into six figures. If that’s the question you came with, our guide to what an app costs in the UK maps the whole range. This page is about what you’d pay us.

The three LaunchPad tiers

Every tier runs the same four steps: Discover, Design, Build, Launch. Each one includes everything in the tier below it. The pricing page lists every feature line.

You pick the tier, so the number is known before you start. Discovery then decides exactly what fits inside it. Our answer on whether the cost is really fixed covers the one thing that can move it.

There’s a way out, too. If the plan Discovery produces doesn’t convince you, our refund policy means you leave with your money.

What decides which tier you need

Price follows decisions, not screens. Two products with the same number of screens can differ in cost several times over. These questions settle most of it:

• How many products? One app or one website is Starter. An app and a website together is Growth.
• How many kinds of user? Customers only is simpler than customers, staff and admins, each with their own view.
• What does it connect to? Single sign-on, CRMs and other companies’ systems push you towards Growth or Scale.
• What does the data do? Simple forms are cheap. Live matching, reporting and AI features cost more.
• What will buyers ask for? If customers want security evidence before they sign, Scale includes a certification gap analysis.

If you’re torn, which LaunchPad package is right for me walks through it. The app cost estimator puts your own idea through the numbers.

Why not less?

You can spend less, and sometimes you should. AI app builders now produce working screens, a login and a database in an afternoon. For a demo, an internal tool or testing whether anyone cares, that’s a fine place to start.

Those tools run out when real people depend on the product. Security, payments, integrations, app store review and safe change over time all need engineers who own the code. That’s what the price buys: judgement and accountability, not lines of code. AI makes us faster too, but a senior engineer reads and answers for every change that goes live.

If you haven’t spoken to potential customers yet, don’t spend £25k on anything. Twenty conversations and a landing page cost less than a team lunch.

What the price covers, and VAT

The fixed price takes you all the way to launch. The developer accounts, hosting, licences and outside services the build relies on are in it, so nobody asks for your card halfway through. The full inventory is in what’s included in the price and what isn’t.

You don’t hand it over in one go, either. Each phase is invoiced before it starts, as paying upfront or in stages explains.

Our prices exclude VAT, as most business quotes do. At the standard 20% rate, Starter is £30k including VAT, Growth is £72k and Scale is £120k. If your company is VAT registered, you can usually reclaim it, so check with your accountant.

What it costs once you’re live

The build is a one-off. Running a product isn’t. Expect hosting, app store accounts, per-use services like email or maps, and support as phones update.

You can run all of that on your own accounts. If you’d rather not think about it, TotalCare takes the lot off your hands for a fixed monthly price. Our answer on ongoing maintenance and updates compares the two. Either way, the accounts, hosting and code are yours at launch.