What does an internal business app cost? More than building it.
The price of an internal app has three parts: building it, which you pay once, and running it and changing it, which you pay for as long as the app lives. Quotes usually show only the build. Over the years, what decides the total is what it costs to keep the app running and to change it.
This page is for owners and finance directors comparing quotes, or deciding whether to buy an app, have it built or build it themselves. Market figures come from public price lists and articles, each with its source. Our own prices aren't here; you get the price of Fabrika in an offer after a scoping call.
Updated 28 September 2026
is the range most custom software projects reviewed on Clutch fall into. The average project costs $132,480.
for an internal tool or MVP from a Czech developer, 2–3 months. The figure explicitly leaves out long-term operation and further development.
of the original price, every year: what a Czech studio says maintaining a mobile app costs.
What is the price of an app made of?
Everyone compares the build quotes. The other five parts show up on invoices after launch, or when someone leaves. Ask about each of them before you sign, whoever the supplier is.
Building it
Design, development, testing and deploying the first version. The only part every quote includes. What drives it up most, according to one Czech studio: integrations with systems that have no usable API, unclear rules, many user roles and high availability requirements.
Infrastructure
Servers, database, domain, email sending. For internal apps these tend to be small amounts. What matters more is whose account and whose card it all runs on, because whoever holds the account holds the app.
Sign-in and permissions
People sign in with their company account, see only what they should, and lose access when they leave. The build includes it only if someone asks for it. Keeping access in order lasts as long as the app does.
Operations and monitoring
Someone has to notice the app is down, update the libraries it's built on and apply security patches. Build price lists usually leave this out, and it's the part that decides whether the app still works in two years.
Changes
“An app nobody touches for a year goes out of date,” as one Czech studio puts it. Every change costs money and time, and someone should review it before it goes live. Ask what a small change costs and how long you'll wait for it.
The author leaving
When the person or company that built the app leaves, you pay for someone new to find their way around it. It costs less when the code sits in the company's repository and every change is described. It costs most when the code isn't yours.
Quotes in 01 and 05: LE ARTIST, 2026 ↗
What does each route cost?
Four common ways to get an internal app, with prices their suppliers or independent sources publish. Figures in CZK come from Czech suppliers; we're based in Prague and know that market best. The ranges are wide because the apps behind them differ, so read them as a scale, not a quote.
| Route | Building it | Every month | What makes it grow | Usually not in the price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Custom build by an agency or freelancer | Building it Most projects on Clutch: $10,000–49,999, average $132,480. Clutch, 2026 ↗ | Every month Hosting, domain and monitoring for a smaller app: “low hundreds to thousands of crowns a month.” LE ARTIST, 2026 ↗ | What makes it grow Every change, usually billed by the hour. Maintenance of a mobile app: 10–20 % of the original price a year. Webfusion, 2026 ↗ | Usually not in the price Operations and further development. One Czech price list says outright that its figures leave them out. Jakub Dostál, 2025 ↗ |
| Low-code or no-code platform | Building it Your own people's time, or a platform partner you pay to click it together. | Every month Power Apps Premium: $20 per user, paid yearly. Microsoft ↗ | What makes it grow With most platforms, the number of users. With some, the amount of data or apps. | Usually not in the price Code you can take with you. The app usually runs only on that platform, so if the price goes up or the product ends, the app goes with it. Logic the tool doesn't support. |
| Off-the-shelf software (SaaS) | Building it None. Setup, data import and training. | Every month A licence per user. For example, a Czech CRM costs CZK 449–1,199 per user a month, excluding VAT. RAYNET, price list from 15 Jan 2026 ↗ | What makes it grow The number of users, and moving to a higher plan when you need a feature. | Usually not in the price Changes beyond the settings. The process adapts to the tool, not the other way round. |
| Building it yourselves with AI | Building it Your person's time plus a tool subscription, for example Cursor at $20 a month for one person. Cursor ↗ | Every month A Lovable app in production: $91–131 a month including hosting, a Supabase database and extra credits. The estimate leaves out the builder's time. Fuzen, 2026 ↗ | What makes it grow Credits, and how much of your person's time the app starts to take. | Usually not in the price Company sign-in, change review, backups and someone who answers for the app. A code audit is sold separately: $1,500–3,000 for an audit and $4,500–8,000 for fixing the findings ProductionReady ↗, in Czechia CZK 5,999–29,999 once or CZK 24,999 a month VibeAudit ↗. |
Prices as published by the sources, checked on 28 September 2026. Where a source doesn't say whether VAT is included, we don't either. The Clutch figures cover custom software in general, not only internal apps.
Why do operating cost estimates differ so much?
One Czech studio writes that maintaining a mid-sized app can cost “single thousands of crowns a year” Pixelmate ↗. Another offers managed operations from CZK 25,000 a month Etyka Digital ↗. Both can be true. The first figure is hosting and the odd fix. The second is a team that answers for the app with contractual response times, monitoring and updates. When you compare quotes, don't compare the numbers. Compare what is in them.
What should you ask before you sign?
Ten questions that show what a quote leaves out. Ask them of any supplier, us included. If the answer is “we'll sort that out later”, count it as a cost.
- 01
What exactly is in the build price, and what isn't?
Integrations, data migration, testing and deployment are often separate items.
- 02
What will running it cost each month, and what does that include?
Hosting alone is something other than monitoring, updates and a response when the app goes down.
- 03
Whose account will the servers and database run on, and whose card pays?
Whoever holds the account holds the app. It should be the company, not the supplier or one employee.
- 04
Do we pay per user?
Work out what the price does when you add another 50 people, or the whole company.
- 05
What does a small change after launch cost, and how long do we wait for it?
The first year after launch usually brings more change requests than anyone expected.
- 06
Who owns the source code and the data, and do we get them without negotiating?
It should be in the contract, not in a promise. Ask where the code is stored today.
- 07
How will people sign in, and who removes access when someone leaves?
A company account means one place to switch access off. Another password means one more list to keep.
- 08
Who reviews a change before it goes live?
If the answer is “the person who wrote it”, nobody is reviewing it.
- 09
What happens if the person or company that built it leaves?
Ask what the next developer will get: the repository, documentation, access to the accounts.
- 10
How can the price change over time?
Licences get more expensive, hourly rates grow, a plan changes. Ask what is fixed and for how long.
How do we put our price together?
No numbers here either, because it depends on what you have and what you want to run. But you can see how the price is built and where each of the six parts ends up.
Scoping call
Half an hour on what you have. If Fabrika isn't a fit, or another route comes out cheaper, we say so.
Setting up Fabrika
The platform in your cloud account, the rules for working with AI, a short training. With a takeover, also the changes to your app; with the optional kickstart, building the first app. It's usually not a big item.
Operations and review
By the number of apps you run and how often you deploy. Never per user and never by hours worked. The plan starts only once the app runs in production.
Infrastructure
You pay the cloud provider directly by actual usage: Cloudflare or Zerops, or AWS on request. The account is registered to your company.
AI
Your people use AI under your own plan with the provider. We don't train anything on your data.
When you know the price
It's in the offer you get after the scoping call, before anything starts. Then it doesn't move.
Where the six parts end up
- Building it
- Your person, developer or agency builds. With a takeover or a kickstart, the first app is part of the setup.
- Infrastructure
- Your own invoice from the cloud provider.
- Sign-in and permissions
- The platform handles them: company accounts through Google, Microsoft or Okta, roles per app.
- Operations and monitoring
- The monthly plan.
- Changes
- Your people make them and we review every one; that's in the plan. If we're to make them ourselves for a while, we agree on it separately.
- The author leaving
- The code is in your company's repository. A colleague, another developer or we can carry on.
When does another route come out cheaper?
Each of the routes above makes sense somewhere. Here's where we'd pick something else ourselves.
- Off-the-shelf software, when your process doesn't differ from the usual one in anything that matters. A per-user licence is then usually cheaper than anything of your own.
- Low-code, for simple forms and tables in one department that fit what the tool can do, if you don't mind the app staying on that platform.
- A custom build, for one large system with long development, when the supplier also offers operations that suit you.
- A spreadsheet, when a few people use it and nothing is on fire.
- A one-off audit, when you run the app yourselves and only need one version checked.
When isn't Fabrika for you?
We'd rather say it here than at the end of a call.
- You want to compare prices without talking to anyone. We don't publish numbers, and we can't give you a price without half an hour on what you have.
- Nobody on your side will build apps or commission them. Fabrika pays off when new apps and changes keep coming.
- The app is a public service for thousands of customers, with payments and sign-up open to anyone. Fabrika is built for company apps used by your people and a few outsiders.
- Your IT requires Azure, your own servers or SAML-only sign-in. Fabrika runs on Cloudflare or Zerops, or AWS on request, and connects company accounts through OIDC.
- The app is clicked together in Bubble or a similar builder that can't export code. We can't take it over, only build it again.
What people ask about the price of an app
How much does custom app development cost?
Most custom software projects reviewed on Clutch fall between $10,000 and $49,999, with an average of $132,480 (updated September 2026). In Czechia, published prices start at CZK 80,000 for an MVP and CZK 180,000 for a production app, and an internal tool from another developer comes to CZK 300,000–600,000. The spread comes from scope, and from what's included. Sources are in the table above.
What does it cost to run an app after launch?
Anywhere from hundreds of crowns a month for hosting to tens of thousands for a team with contractual response times. Ask what the monthly price covers: monitoring, updates, security patches, a response to outages, small changes. On Fabrika you pay a monthly plan by the number of apps, and the infrastructure straight to the cloud provider.
Isn't off-the-shelf software cheaper?
If you find one that fits, usually yes. Watch how the price grows with people: per-user licences cost more with every colleague. Some platforms, like Tabidoo, charge a flat monthly fee instead. Fabrika is for processes that off-the-shelf software doesn't cover and for apps your people are building anyway.
Is an MVP worth it, or should we go straight for the full version?
Start with the smallest version people will really use, and add to it by what they ask for. A small app doesn't have to take months: when we build it with you in a kickstart, a small one is done in a day or two and a bigger one takes the week (examples). The first version tells you more about the real price than any estimate.
“We're 90 percent done.” What will the rest cost?
Often more than people expect. In the discussion under a Lupa.cz article about clients who arrive saying “we're 90 percent done”, one developer writes that the client “pays practically almost 100 % of the price, as if they'd had it done from scratch” (Lupa.cz, 25 Aug 2026). The missing 10 % is usually sign-in, permissions, deployment and operations. On Fabrika the platform already has them, so a takeover means small changes to your app, not rebuilding it. How a takeover works.
Why don't you publish your prices?
Because the setup depends on what you bring: a process in spreadsheets, an app someone has built, or your own developers. You get the price in an offer after the scoping call, before anything starts, and then it doesn't move.
Do we pay you per user?
No. You pay by the number of apps in production and how often you deploy. Add the whole company and the price stays the same.
What do the servers and the AI cost?
You pay both directly, not through us. The cloud provider (Cloudflare or Zerops, or AWS on request) bills your company by actual usage; for internal apps it's typically a few dollars a month for the whole fabrika, tens at most. AI runs through your own plan with the provider, and we're happy to help you pick one.
Start with half an hour on what you have.
Bring the quotes on your desk, or the app someone has already built. We'll go through what the price is made of, and after the call you get an offer. If another route comes out cheaper for you, we'll tell you.
Sources
- Clutch: Software development pricing, updated 21 Sep 2026 ↗
- LE ARTIST: Kolik stojí vývoj aplikace na míru? Ceník 2026, 17 Jul 2026 ↗
- Jakub Dostál: Kolik stojí vývoj webové aplikace v roce 2026, 3 Dec 2025 ↗
- Webfusion: Kolik stojí vývoj mobilní aplikace v roce 2026, 14 Aug 2026 ↗
- Etyka Digital: Správa aplikací a SLA podpora ↗
- Pixelmate: Kolik stojí vývoj a tvorba aplikace? ↗
- Microsoft: Power Apps pricing ↗
- Retool: Pricing ↗
- Tabidoo: Ceník ↗
- RAYNET CRM: Ceník, valid from 15 Jan 2026 ↗
- Cursor: Pricing ↗
- Fuzen: Lovable pricing explained, 27 Jul 2026 ↗
- ProductionReady: audit and hardening prices ↗
- VibeAudit: Security Scan, Full Audit, Continuous Audit ↗
- Lupa.cz: discussion under “Máme hotových 90 procent”, 25 Aug 2026 ↗
All prices checked on 28 September 2026 and quoted as the sources publish them. Pages without a date are marked only by the check date. Suppliers change their prices; if you find a figure that's out of date, let us know and we'll fix it.