What Happens When You Pick the Cheapest Developer?

Around 60% of software projects end up costing more than their initial budget, and the ones that start with the cheapest quote often face the steepest overruns. I've watched this pattern repeat itself probably thirty times now in my decade building mobile apps, and it always starts the same way... a business gets three quotes for their app idea, sees prices ranging from £15,000 to £80,000, and naturally gravitates towards the lower end thinking they've found a bargain. The logic seems sound at first (why pay more for the same thing?) but what looks like smart budgeting often turns into the most expensive mistake a business can make.

The cheapest option rarely delivers what you actually need, and the cost of fixing problems later can be three to four times higher than doing it right from the start

Look, I understand the appeal completely because every business needs to watch their spending, but apps aren't like buying printer paper where the cheapest option works just as well as the branded stuff. The difference between a £20k developer and a £60k developer isn't just padding in the price... it's experience, quality control, proper project management, security practices, and the ability to actually launch something that works. What worries me most is that businesses often don't realise they've made a poor choice until they're six months in, £15,000 spent, and holding a half-finished app that crashes every time someone tries to log in.

The Real Cost of Budget Development

The maths on budget development rarely works out the way businesses expect it to. When you hire a developer charging £25 per hour instead of £75 per hour, you're not saving money if that cheaper developer takes three times longer to build the same features or creates code that needs rebuilding within six months. I've seen projects where the initial saving of £20k turned into an additional spend of £50k just to get the app into a launchable state, and by that point the business had missed their market window and burned through relationships with early users who downloaded a buggy product.

Here's what that price difference usually represents in real terms:

The businesses I work with who've come to us after a failed budget build all say the same thing... they wish someone had explained that the low price meant corners would get cut in ways they couldn't see until it was too late. One client spent £18k with an offshore team and received an app that looked fine in screenshots but crashed whenever more than fifty users were online simultaneously, making it completely unusable for their actual business needs.

Warning Signs of Unreliable Developers

You can usually spot a developer who's going to cause problems before you even sign a contract, but you need to know what to look for. The biggest red flag I see is vague answers to specific questions... when you ask about their testing process or how they handle data security and they give you general reassurances instead of detailed explanations, that's a sign they don't actually have proper processes in place. I've reviewed proposals from budget developers that promised to build a complex fintech app in six weeks, which is physically impossible if you're doing proper security implementation and financial API integration.

Ask any developer you're considering to show you their quality assurance checklist and explain their deployment process. If they can't produce documentation or their explanation takes less than five minutes, walk away.

Another warning sign is a portfolio full of apps that were clearly built from templates with minimal customisation. There's nothing wrong with using templates for certain elements, but if every app they show you has the same basic structure and navigation patterns, they're probably not capable of building something tailored to your specific business needs. I've seen developers show off twenty apps in their portfolio without mentioning that fifteen of them were never actually launched or are no longer maintained, which tells you something about their completion rate.

Contracts that are unusually short or vague represent another major concern. A proper app development contract should clearly outline deliverables, timelines, revision processes, testing requirements, and what happens if deadlines are missed. If someone sends you a two-page contract for a £30k project, they're either inexperienced or deliberately keeping things vague so they can avoid accountability later.

What Gets Cut When Prices Drop

Budget developers don't advertise what they're leaving out, but after reviewing dozens of failed projects I can tell you exactly where the cuts happen. Security testing is almost always the first casualty... proper security audits, penetration testing, and secure code reviews add time and cost that budget developers simply skip. I worked with a healthcare client who came to us after their previous developer built an app that stored patient data in plain text files on the device, which would have violated GDPR and destroyed their business if they'd actually launched it.

User testing gets eliminated or reduced to the developer's mum trying the app once on her phone. Real user testing means recruiting people from your target audience, watching them use the app without guidance, and identifying friction points before launch. This process typically costs £3,000-8,000 and takes two to three weeks, so budget developers just release the app and hope for the best. The result is apps with confusing navigation, unclear calls to action, and onboarding flows that lose half the users before they complete registration.

Performance optimisation is another area that gets minimal attention in budget builds. Making an app load quickly, respond smoothly, and use minimal battery power requires specific technical work that takes time. Budget developers often deliver apps that technically work but feel sluggish and drain your phone battery in a few hours, which leads to poor reviews and high uninstall rates. One e-commerce client showed me their budget-built app that took 8 seconds to load the product catalogue, when users expect that kind of content to appear in under 2 seconds.

The Hidden Expenses That Add Up

The real financial damage from choosing budget developers comes from costs that appear months after you've paid the initial invoice. Maintenance and bug fixes become your responsibility because budget developers rarely include proper support periods in their contracts, and when something breaks you'll be paying hourly rates to get it fixed. I've spoken to businesses paying £200-400 per month just to keep their budget-built app functioning, when a properly built app might need £50-100 of maintenance in a typical month.

One retail client calculated they spent £14,000 fixing bugs and performance issues in their first year after launch, which was more than half what they'd saved by choosing the cheapest developer

App store rejections cost money in ways that aren't obvious until you experience them. Apple and Google both have quality standards and review processes, and apps that don't meet their guidelines get rejected. Each rejection and resubmission cycle can take one to two weeks, and if you're paying developers hourly to make the required fixes, a few rejections can add thousands to your total cost. The worst case I've seen involved nine rejections before an app finally passed review, by which point the client had spent an extra £8,000 and missed their product launch date by three months.

Server costs can spiral if your app isn't built efficiently. A poorly coded backend might need expensive server infrastructure to handle even modest user numbers, while a well-architected system runs smoothly on basic hosting. One client's budget-built app required £300 per month in server costs to support 2,000 active users, when proper development would have kept that cost under £80 per month for the same user base.

Why Some Projects Never Launch

Roughly 25% of the projects that come to us after failed budget builds never actually make it to market, and the reasons are usually technical debt so severe that rebuilding from scratch costs less than fixing what exists. Technical debt means code that works in the short term but creates problems long term... shortcuts, poor structure, missing documentation, and systems held together with temporary fixes that became permanent. When technical debt gets bad enough, adding new features becomes nearly impossible because every change breaks something else.

I've reviewed codebases from budget developers where critical functions were commented out, features were half-implemented, and error messages were still in the developer's native language. One app we assessed had over 200 hard-coded values that should have been configuration settings, meaning any change to business logic required recompiling the entire app and going through app store review again. Fixing these fundamental problems would have cost more than building the app properly from the start.

Some projects fail because the business runs out of money before reaching launch. When you've budgeted £25k for development and suddenly discover you need another £30k to make the app actually work, many businesses simply can't find that additional funding. They're left with a partially completed app they can't use and not enough budget to finish it properly or start over with a competent team. This is heartbreaking to watch because these are often great business ideas killed by a single bad hiring decision.

Market timing matters more than people realise, and delays from fixing budget development mistakes can mean missing your window entirely. If you're building an app for a seasonal business or trying to be first in a new market category, launching six months late might mean launching into a completely different competitive landscape where your advantage has disappeared. This is particularly important for businesses that should be building their email list and preparing their launch marketing while development is happening, but can't because the app isn't functional enough to generate interest.

How to Spot Fair Pricing

Fair pricing for app development sits in a range that reflects the actual time and expertise required, and while it varies by project complexity, there are reasonable benchmarks you can use. A simple app with basic features (think content display, simple forms, basic user accounts) typically costs £25k-45k when built properly. Medium complexity apps with custom features, API integrations, and real-time functionality usually run £50k-90k. Complex apps with sophisticated backends, multiple user types, payment processing, or heavy data processing start around £100k and go up from there.

Get detailed breakdowns of what your money is actually buying. A trustworthy developer will show you hour estimates for design, frontend development, backend development, testing, and project management. If someone can't or won't break down their pricing, that's a concern.

Here's what realistic timeframes look like for different project types:

1. Simple content or utility app: 8-12 weeks with a team of 2-3 people
2. Standard business app with custom features: 12-20 weeks with a team of 3-4 people
3. Complex marketplace or social platform: 24-40 weeks with a team of 4-6 people

If someone quotes you half the market rate and promises delivery in half the time, they're either inexperienced and don't understand what the project actually requires, or they're telling you what you want to hear to win the contract with no intention of delivering on those promises. I've never seen a complex app built properly in less than three months, regardless of team size, because some processes like user testing and app store review simply take time.

Look at the team composition being proposed for your project. A proper build needs dedicated design time, separate frontend and backend developers, quality assurance testing, and project management. If you're being quoted £30k and the proposal shows one person doing everything, the maths doesn't work... that would mean building your entire app in under 200 hours, which isn't realistic for anything beyond the most basic functionality.

When Budget Options Make Sense

To be completely honest, there are situations where choosing a budget developer or building something yourself makes perfect sense. If you're testing a concept and need a basic prototype to show investors or validate demand, spending £60k on a production-ready app would be premature. A £10k-15k proof of concept can answer important questions about whether your idea has legs before you commit serious money to proper development.

Internal tools with limited users and low stakes represent another scenario where budget development might work. If you're building something for your team of twenty people to track inventory and the worst-case scenario is they have to use spreadsheets instead, you don't need enterprise-grade development. The risk is proportional to what's at stake, and sometimes what's at stake doesn't justify premium pricing.

Here's when budget options are reasonable:

• Proof of concept or MVP to test market demand (not for actual launch)
• Internal tools with fewer than fifty users and no sensitive data
• Simple companion apps to existing services with limited functionality
• Personal projects or learning exercises where failure doesn't hurt your business
• Very simple content apps that are essentially mobile versions of existing websites

The key distinction is understanding what you're buying. If you approach a budget developer knowing you're getting a rough prototype that will need proper rebuilding later, you can make that work as part of a phased strategy. The problems arise when businesses expect a £20k project to deliver the same quality, performance, and longevity as a £70k project... that's just not how development economics work.

Moving Forward With Confidence

Choosing the right developer for your app project comes down to matching your actual needs with realistic budgets and being honest about what you're trying to achieve. If your app is going to be customer-facing and represents your brand, if you're handling user data or payments, if your business model depends on the app working reliably... these scenarios demand experienced developers with proven processes, regardless of the higher cost. The money you spend upfront on quality development is insurance against the much larger costs of failed launches, security breaches, or complete rebuilds.

I've built apps for businesses at every budget level and the pattern is always the same... projects that start with proper scoping, realistic timelines, and qualified teams deliver results that justify their cost. Projects that chase the lowest price almost always end up costing more when you factor in delays, fixes, and lost opportunities. The businesses I respect most are the ones who come in with a fixed budget and ask what we can build within that amount, rather than starting with a feature wishlist and expecting it to fit whatever their budget happens to be.

Your app doesn't need to cost £100k, but it does need to be built by people who know what they're doing, who have processes that ensure quality, and who will still be available when you need changes or fixes after launch. When hiring mobile app developers, the peace of mind that comes from working with experienced professionals who deliver what they promise is worth far more than the money saved by hiring the cheapest option, and your users will definitely notice the difference in quality between a properly built app and a budget compromise that barely functions.

If you're working through the decision of who should build your app and want an honest assessment of what your project would realistically require, get in touch with us and we'll talk through your options without pressure.

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