What Does It Actually Cost to Run an App Each Month?

Have you ever wondered why so many apps that launch with big promises suddenly disappear after a few months? Its not usually because the idea was bad or the developers weren't skilled enough—more often than not, the founders simply didn't budget properly for what it actually costs to keep an app running. And honestly, I see this mistake way too often. People spend months (and thousands of pounds) building their app, then act genuinely shocked when they realise they need to pay hundreds or even thousands more each month just to keep the lights on.

I've built apps for healthcare startups that process sensitive patient data, fintech companies handling thousands of transactions daily, and e-commerce platforms serving hundreds of thousands of users. The monthly costs for each? Completely different. A simple productivity app might cost £50-100 monthly to run, whilst a video streaming platform could easily hit £5,000+ before you've even scaled properly. The problem is that most people think hosting means throwing their app on a server and forgetting about it... but there's so much more to it than that.

The apps that survive aren't necessarily the ones with the best features—they're the ones whose founders understood the true cost of operation before they launched.

Over the years I've watched brilliant apps die because nobody accounted for database costs when user numbers grew, or because push notification fees spiralled out of control, or because third-party API subscriptions added up faster than revenue could cover them. The truth is, monthly app costs aren't just about servers; they include everything from security certificates to analytics tools to the developer time needed for bug fixes and updates. And if you're serious about building something that lasts, you need to understand every single line item before you launch.

Server and Hosting Costs

When clients ask me about monthly running costs, server hosting is usually the first expense they think of—and honestly, its probably the one with the widest range. I've seen apps run perfectly well on £20 per month hosting, and I've seen others burning through £5,000+ monthly just to keep the lights on. The difference? Its all about what your app actually does and how many people are using it.

A simple app that mostly displays content pulled from an API might run happily on a basic server setup; we've got several in production right now using Digital Ocean droplets at around £15-30 monthly. But here's the thing—once you add real-time features, heavy media processing, or you start scaling past a few thousand active users, those costs climb fast. One fitness app we built started at £40 monthly hosting but now sits around £800 because it processes video uploads, handles live workout sessions, and serves 50,000+ users. The jump happened gradually as usage grew, which is why I always tell clients to plan for future technology changes and growth from day one.

Cloud vs Traditional Hosting

Most apps these days run on cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure rather than traditional hosting. Why? Because they scale automatically when you need them to. The trade-off is complexity—cloud billing can be confusing with its per-resource pricing. Last month one client got a surprise bill because their database auto-scaled during a traffic spike... which is exactly what its supposed to do! We moved them to reserved instances afterwards and cut costs by 40%. You pay for what you use, which is brilliant when you're starting out but requires proper monitoring as you grow.

What Actually Drives Costs Up

From my experience, three things push hosting costs higher: compute power (basically how much processing your app needs to do), data transfer (how much information moves in and out), and database operations. A chat app we maintain spends more on database reads and writes than anything else because messages are constantly being saved and retrieved. An e-commerce app we built spends the most during seasonal sales when traffic multiplies. The key is understanding your apps specific needs rather than just picking the cheapest option and hoping for the best.

Database and Storage Expenses

Database costs can sneak up on you if you're not careful, and I've seen this catch out more clients than I'd like to admit. When we first built a fitness tracking app a few years back, the client assumed storage would cost maybe £20 a month—turns out when you're storing workout data, photos, and video uploads for thousands of users, you're looking at closer to £300-500 monthly once you factor in database operations and backups. The thing is, its not just about storing data; it's about how often you read and write to that database.

Most apps these days use cloud databases like AWS RDS, Google Cloud SQL, or Firebase. Pricing varies wildly depending on your setup. A basic PostgreSQL instance might start at £15-30 per month, but that's for tiny apps with minimal traffic. Once you're processing thousands of requests daily, you'll need more robust solutions. I typically budget around £100-400 monthly for database hosting on mid-sized apps, though I've worked on fintech applications where compliance requirements and data redundancy pushed this to £800+ monthly.

What Actually Drives Storage Costs

User-generated content is usually the culprit. Photos, videos, documents, audio files—these add up fast. A social app we developed hit 50GB of storage within the first month because users were uploading uncompressed images. We hadn't implemented proper image compression on upload, which was honestly a rookie mistake that cost the client an extra £60 that month. Storage itself is cheap (maybe £0.02 per GB), but data transfer and database queries? That's where you'll feel it.

Set up automated database backups to a separate location. Yes, it adds maybe £20-40 monthly to your costs, but I've seen businesses lose everything because they skimped on proper backup strategies. Trust me, that's not a phone call you want to make to your users.

Different Database Types, Different Costs

One thing people don't realise is that you pay for database performance too. If your app needs to handle 1,000 concurrent users all hitting the database at once, you'll need more powerful instances with better IOPS (input/output operations per second). I worked on a healthcare app where appointment booking happened in real-time—we needed a database that could handle sudden spikes when the clinic opened bookings at 8am. That required a setup costing about £350 monthly versus the £80 option that would've caused timeouts and frustrated users.

Content Delivery and Bandwidth

Here's something that catches a lot of first-time app owners off guard—bandwidth costs can absolutely spiral if you're not careful about how you deliver content to your users. I've seen apps go from £50 a month in bandwidth to £800 overnight just because they went a bit viral and hadn't set up their content delivery properly. Its one of those things that seems simple until you're suddenly serving video content to 100,000 users across different continents.

Content Delivery Networks (or CDNs) are basically your best friend when it comes to keeping these costs under control. What they do is cache your static content—images, videos, PDFs, whatever—on servers around the world so users aren't all hitting your main server at once. I usually recommend Cloudflare for smaller apps (their free tier is genuinely decent) and AWS CloudFront or Fastly for anything that needs more sophisticated routing. For a fitness app we built that streams workout videos, moving to a CDN cut bandwidth costs by about 60% whilst actually making the experience faster for users. Win-win really.

The trick is understanding what content needs CDN delivery and what doesn't. Here's how I typically break it down for clients:

What Should Use CDN Delivery

• Images and photos (especially user-generated content that gets viewed multiple times)
• Video content of any kind—this is your biggest bandwidth eater by far
• Audio files, podcasts, music streaming content
• Large downloads like PDF guides, ebooks, or document libraries
• App assets that rarely change but get requested constantly

For a typical e-commerce app with maybe 10,000 active users, you're looking at around £100-300 monthly for CDN and bandwidth combined. But if you're doing heavy video streaming? That number can easily hit £1,000+ depending on usage patterns. The healthcare app we run uses video consultations and we budget about £450 monthly just for that feature alone; it all depends on how your users actually interact with the content, which is why monitoring your bandwidth usage in those first few months is absolutely critical.

Third-Party Service Subscriptions

Here's where things get a bit tricky with monthly app costs—third-party services can sneak up on you fast. I mean, you might start with a handful of APIs and suddenly you're paying for twenty different subscriptions. It's mad how quickly it adds up. For a typical app, you're looking at anywhere from £200 to £2,000 per month just on third-party services, depending on your feature set and user base.

The services you'll likely need break down into a few categories. Payment processing is usually the big one—Stripe or PayPal will take around 2.9% plus 30p per transaction, which isn't technically a fixed monthly cost but it becomes one of your biggest operational expenses as you scale. Then you've got SMS and email services like Twilio or SendGrid; those start cheap (maybe £50/month) but can balloon to hundreds once you're sending thousands of messages. Maps and location services? Google Maps API charges per request, and trust me, those requests add up faster than you'd think. I've seen clients hit £300/month just on map loads for a delivery app with moderate usage.

Every third-party service you add is a dependency that can break, change its pricing, or disappear entirely—choose carefully and always have a backup plan.

Customer support tools like Intercom or Zendesk typically run £100-400/month depending on your user volume. Authentication services, video streaming APIs, social media integrations—they all come with their own pricing tiers. The mistake I see most often? Not checking how these services charge at scale. A service that costs £20/month for 1,000 users might jump to £200/month at 10,000 users. Always—and I mean always—review the pricing tiers before integrating anything into your app because switching providers later is bloody expensive and time-consuming.

Maintenance and Bug Fixes

When people ask me how much they should budget for maintenance, I usually tell them to set aside at least 15-20% of their original development cost each year—but honestly? That number can swing wildly depending on what kind of app you're running. A fintech app handling real money transactions will need way more attention than a simple content app, and you need to factor that in from day one.

Here's the thing though; bugs aren't just about fixing crashes. Sure, we deal with those too—I've seen apps that work perfectly on iOS 15 suddenly break when Apple pushes iOS 16, and you've got maybe a week to sort it before your support inbox explodes. But maintenance also means updating third-party SDKs (because they deprecate features all the bloody time), adapting to new screen sizes when manufacturers release new devices, and keeping up with changing API requirements from services you depend on. Its exhausting, really.

What Your Monthly Maintenance Budget Actually Covers

The monthly cost varies massively based on your apps complexity and user base. For a relatively simple app with maybe 10,000 users, you're looking at around £500-1,000 per month for basic maintenance. That includes monitoring for crashes, fixing critical bugs, and keeping everything running smoothly. But if you've got a complex app with hundreds of thousands of users? I've seen companies spend £5,000-10,000 monthly just keeping things stable. Understanding how to track development progress and milestones can help you plan these ongoing costs more effectively.

Types of Maintenance Work You'll Actually Need

• Emergency bug fixes for crashes or broken features—these need addressing within 24-48 hours
• OS compatibility updates when Apple or Google release new versions (happens at least twice yearly)
• Third-party SDK updates to prevent deprecated code from breaking your app
• Performance monitoring and optimisation to keep load times acceptable as your database grows
• Security patches for newly discovered vulnerabilities in dependencies or frameworks

What catches people off guard is that maintenance isn't optional. I've worked with clients who thought they could "just launch and forget it" and within six months their app was unusable because they hadn't kept up with basic updates. The App Store will literally remove apps that haven't been updated in extended periods, so you're essentially paying this cost whether you like it or not. Budget for it properly from the start, otherwise you'll be scrambling to find money when something breaks at the worst possible moment.

Security and Compliance

Right, lets address the elephant in the room—security costs that nobody really wants to pay for until something goes wrong. I've seen companies spend £50,000 building an app and then balk at £200 per month for proper security measures. Its a bit mad really, because one data breach can cost you tens of thousands in fines alone, not to mention the damage to your reputation.

Your basic security costs start with SSL certificates (around £50-150 annually) and penetration testing, which should happen at least twice a year at roughly £2,000-5,000 per test depending on your app's complexity. For apps handling payment data or medical records, you're looking at compliance certifications that actually add significant monthly costs; PCI DSS compliance for fintech apps typically runs £300-800 monthly when you factor in the monitoring tools and quarterly scans, whilst HIPAA compliance for healthcare apps can push that to £500-1,200 monthly once you include encrypted backup systems and audit logging. Speaking of legal protection, writing proper terms of service is another crucial aspect of protecting your app and business.

Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) are basically non-negotiable these days—expect £100-400 monthly depending on your traffic volume. I always recommend Cloudflare or AWS WAF for most projects, they do the job without breaking the bank. Then there's regular security updates and vulnerability patches, which tie into your maintenance budget but often get overlooked. If you're handling sensitive data, you'll need encrypted databases and secure key management systems; AWS KMS costs around £1 per key per month plus usage fees, which sounds cheap until you realise you need multiple keys for different data types.

Monthly Security Costs Breakdown

One thing people always underestimate? The cost of staying compliant with evolving regulations. GDPR required every app we'd built for European users to implement new consent mechanisms and data export features—that wasn't a one-time cost, its ongoing monitoring and updates. Same with the changes Apple made to privacy requirements... you need budget set aside for regulatory adaptation because the rules keep changing.

Don't wait for an audit to discover security gaps. I always tell clients to budget 8-12% of their total operational costs for security and compliance from day one—it seems like a lot until you compare it to the average data breach cost of £3.86 million according to IBM's research. Prevention is genuinely cheaper than cure in this case.

Push Notifications and Analytics

Push notifications and analytics are two services that always catch people off guard when they're working out monthly costs. I mean, they seem like such basic features—surely they can't cost that much? Well, here's the thing: they start off cheap but scale up quickly once your user base grows, and I've seen plenty of apps hit unexpected costs because nobody planned for success.

Most apps use services like Firebase Cloud Messaging (which is free for basic push notifications, thank goodness) or OneSignal, which also has a generous free tier. But the moment you want to do anything sophisticated—segmented campaigns, A/B testing different messages, behaviour-triggered notifications based on user actions—you're looking at paid plans. OneSignal's paid tier starts around £75/month once you pass their free limit, but for apps with hundreds of thousands of users sending personalised notifications, costs can easily reach £300-500 monthly. I worked on a retail app where we were sending location-based offers and abandoned cart reminders; the notification service alone was costing about £420/month because we were hitting their API limits constantly.

Analytics is where things get really interesting though. Basic tools like Firebase Analytics are free and honestly quite good for most startups. But once you need detailed funnel analysis, cohort tracking, or proper revenue attribution? You'll probably end up with Mixpanel or Amplitude, which start around £150/month for small user bases but scale dramatically. A fintech app I worked on was spending nearly £800/month on Mixpanel because we needed to track complex user journeys across different financial products—but that data was worth every penny because it showed us exactly where users were dropping off in our onboarding flow. Without those insights we would've been flying blind, making changes based on guesswork rather than actual user behaviour. Budget £100-300/month minimum if you want proper analytics that actually help you make decisions.

To improve your app's visibility and increase user acquisition, it's also worth considering strategies to improve your app's search ranking and proper keyword selection for app store optimisation. These efforts can help reduce your customer acquisition costs in the long run.

Conclusion

So here's what I tell every client who asks about monthly app costs—there isn't a magic number that works for everyone, and anyone who gives you one is probably oversimplifying things. I've seen apps run for £200 a month and I've seen them cost £15,000 monthly, and both situations made perfect sense for what those apps were trying to achieve. The healthcare app we built for a regional clinic? It runs at around £400 monthly because its simple and doesn't need much. The fintech platform handling thousands of transactions daily? That's sitting closer to £8,000 because the infrastructure needs are completely different.

What really matters is understanding your apps specific needs and planning for growth. I mean, you could launch with basic hosting and free-tier services, but you need to know when those won't be enough anymore. The biggest mistake I see is people budgeting for launch costs without thinking about what happens when they get 10,000 users instead of 100. And that's not even considering the stuff that catches everyone off guard—compliance audits, security patches, API price increases from third-party services.

Start by adding up your fixed costs like hosting and third-party subscriptions; these are predictable and won't surprise you. Then factor in about 15-20% extra for variable costs that scale with usage—bandwidth, storage, API calls. Finally (and this is where people often mess up) set aside at least £500-1,000 monthly for maintenance and unexpected fixes because trust me, something will always need attention. Your database will need optimising. A third-party service will deprecate an API. Its just how apps work. Budget realistically from day one and you'll save yourself a lot of stress down the line.