Strategy & Growth
Dev Quote Checker
Check whether a website or app development quote is fair: the typical price and timeline for your scope, the contract terms that put you at risk, and what to ask before you sign.
Check whether a website or app development quote is fair: the typical price and timeline for your scope, the contract terms that put you at risk, and what to ask before you sign.
What you can do
- Typical price and timeline for your project type, features and kind of team (US, Europe, offshore, freelancer).
- Paste the proposal and it picks out the terms it mentions: IP, hosting, milestones, warranty, QA.
- Red flags ranked by risk, and the exact questions to send the agency before you sign.
- Runs in your browser. Your quote is never uploaded.
Part of IONIAN's Strategy & Growth tools — Tools for founders and operators planning products, content, and conversion priorities.
Frequently asked questions
How much should an app cost to build in 2026?
It depends mostly on scope and who builds it. A focused web or mobile MVP is roughly 300–650 hours of work. At US agency rates ($110–180/h) that is about $40,000–$150,000; Eastern European or Latin American agencies ($40–75/h) land around $15,000–$55,000; offshore agencies lower still. Each major feature (payments, chat, admin dashboard, AI) adds tens of hours.
What are the red flags in a software development quote?
The big ones: no clause transferring the source code and IP to you, the code or hosting living in the agency’s accounts, no written feature list, most of the money paid up front, hourly billing with no cap, and no bug-fix warranty after launch. Any of these can cost more than the price difference between two quotes.
Why is one quote three times another for the same app?
Usually a different scope, not a different price for the same work. Cheap quotes often assume a template, skip testing, or leave out admin tools and launch. Expensive ones may include discovery, design and months of support. Ask both for a feature-by-feature breakdown with hours, then compare line by line.
Is a fixed price or hourly better for an app project?
Fixed price per milestone protects you when the scope is clear, which is the usual case for an MVP. Hourly suits open-ended work, but only with a not-to-exceed cap and weekly reports, otherwise you carry all the risk of the estimate being wrong.
Do you see or store my quote?
No. Everything runs in your browser. The text you paste is scanned on your device and never sent anywhere, unless you choose to send us a message for a second quote.
Free to use, no sign-up. Need a custom version or a full build? IONIAN Digital ships production software, websites, and MVPs — start a project.