App maintenance cost per year in the UK (2026)

App maintenance cost in the UK in 2026: Magora support starts from £1,000 a month (£12,000 a year) and scales with scope. What drives it, with store rules.

Short answer. In the UK in 2026, Magora's app support starts from £1,000 a month, or from £12,000 a year, and scales with the scope of the project. A small app with few integrations sits at the entry level; an established product with continuing development, SLAs and several integrations costs more. We do not publish an upper limit because the bill follows the scope, so treat the starting figure as the floor, not a quote. All figures exclude VAT.

Maintenance is not a fee for keeping a server switched on. It pays for the work that stops an app breaking while the platforms around it keep changing: new iOS and Android releases, store rules, third-party APIs and SDKs, and security patches. This page explains what drives the cost, with the store rules checked against Apple and Google's own documentation.

Last checked: 13 October 2026.

How much does app maintenance cost per year?

The starting figure is Magora's support price: from £1,000 a month, with no upper limit published because it scales with scope. The annual figure is the monthly figure multiplied by 12. See also our software cost and MVP pages. Checked 13 October 2026.

To see what a month buys, divide by the rates. Our developers start from £49 an hour (about £390 a day), and a full team with QA and product ownership is £65–£70 an hour. As plain arithmetic, £1,000 a month is roughly 20 developer hours at £49, or 14–15 hours at the team rate. That is enough to keep a small app current and fix what breaks, but not to build much that is new. A larger scope buys more hours, and the monthly figure rises with it.

Why we do not use a percentage of build cost

You will see rules such as "budget a fixed percentage of the build cost every year". We looked for a primary study behind them and found only vendor blogs repeating each other, so we do not use one. It also fits our own work badly: a small app with few integrations costs a little to keep current whatever its build price, while a product with five integrations and a busy roadmap costs far more. Ask what the app depends on, not what it cost.

OS updates: the annual cost you cannot skip

Apple and Google both move the minimum requirements for new submissions forward, and your app has to move with them. Two current examples, from the platforms' own documentation:

Sources: Apple, "Upcoming requirements", developer.apple.com/news/upcoming-requirements/; Google, "Target API level requirements for Google Play apps", developer.android.com/google/play/requirements/target-sdk and support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/11926878. Checked 13 October 2026. Google's dates change each cycle, so confirm in Play Console before relying on them.

Raising a target level is not a one-line change. Each new Android and iOS version changes behaviour: permissions, background work, notifications, privacy prompts. Someone has to rebuild, test every main flow on the new version and fix what moved. An app built on a mainstream framework with few dependencies absorbs a release in days. An app with many native modules and old libraries can take much longer. That difference is the biggest reason two apps of the same size have different maintenance bills.

Apple also retires technical details without much fanfare. For example, since 24 January 2025 the SHA-1 certificate for App Store receipt signing has expired, so apps that validate receipts on the device must support SHA-256 or use Apple's transaction APIs. An app that nobody has looked at for two years will find several of these at once.

API and SDK deprecations

Most apps lean on third parties for sign-in, payments, maps, push notifications, analytics and crash reporting. Each provider updates its own SDK and eventually retires old versions. Every update is a small piece of work; the cost comes from the number of integrations and how long since they were last updated. In our 2026 estimates a single third-party API integration into an existing product cost £2,500–£3,000 to build. That is a build price, not a maintenance price, but it shows that no integration is free to change.

AI features add their own exposure. Model versions are retired and prices change, so an app that calls a language model needs somebody watching the provider's announcements. See keeping model costs under control.

Hosting, monitoring and security patches

• Hosting. Billed monthly and driven by traffic, data and the services you use. Early products often start on free tiers; paid plans grow with users. We do not quote a flat figure because it varies too much by product.
• Monitoring. Crash reporting and alerts are what turn a silent failure into a same-day fix. Magora switches them on before the first user arrives.
• Security patches. Libraries, frameworks and servers all receive security fixes. Skipping them is how a cheap app becomes an expensive incident. Patching on a regular schedule is cheaper than catching up after two years.
• Backups and recovery. Part of hosting, and worth testing at least once.

Store fees

These are small, but they are the only fixed prices in running an app. Apple's Developer Program is $99 a year (or the local-currency equivalent) and Google Play charges a one-time $25 registration. If the Apple membership lapses, your app stops being available for download and you cannot submit updates. Apps already installed keep working. Details are in our Apple Developer fee guide. Sources: Apple Developer Program, developer.apple.com/programs/whats-included/; Google Play Console Help, support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/6112435 (checked 13 October 2026).

Store commission on in-app sales is a separate cost, and it scales with revenue rather than with the work of maintenance.

Feature work: the part you control

The costs above are not optional. This one is. After launch you will want changes: a new screen, a better onboarding flow, a new report. A £1,000 month of upkeep leaves little room for it, which is why established products scale the support scope up, or move to a dedicated development team. That is billed monthly with a four-week minimum, from £49 an hour per developer.

Decide up front what share of the budget is "keep it working" and what share is "make it better". Mixed together, upkeep tends to squeeze out improvement.

How to keep maintenance cost down

• Choose mainstream technology. Widely used frameworks get updates promptly and have people who know them.
• Fewer dependencies. Every SDK is a future update. Add them only when the product needs them.
• Update little and often. A scheduled monthly update costs less than an emergency migration when a store deadline arrives.
• Own the accounts and the code. Store accounts in your company's name, code in your repository. That keeps your options open if you change supplier.
• Keep automated tests on the main flows. They are what make an OS upgrade a day of work instead of a week of manual checking.

How to get a figure for your app

Maintenance depends on what the app depends on, so we price it after looking at the app. If we built it, we already know. If someone else did, a short review of the code, integrations and hosting is the starting point. The app cost calculator gives a first figure for a new build, and the software cost data shows what we have charged for first releases. If you are still deciding what to build, see MVP development.

App maintenance cost: frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to maintain an app per year in the UK?

Magora's support starts from £1,000 a month, which is from £12,000 a year, and scales with the scope of the project. A small app with few integrations sits at the entry level; an established product with continuing development costs more, and no upper limit is published because the figure follows the scope.

Do I have to update my app for every new iOS and Android version?

You do not have to ship an update the day a new OS arrives, but you do need to test against it, and both stores raise their minimum requirements over time. Since 28 April 2026 Apple requires new uploads to be built with Xcode 26 or later, and Google Play requires new apps and updates to target Android 16 (API level 36) from 31 August 2026.

What happens if I do not meet Google Play's target API level?

According to Google, apps that do not meet it remain available only on devices running Android versions at or below the app's target level. They stop being offered to new users on newer devices, while existing installs are unaffected. Developers could request an extension to 1 November 2026.

Do store fees count as maintenance?

They are part of running costs. Apple's Developer Program is $99 a year and Google Play's registration is a one-off $25. Commission on in-app sales is separate.

Does maintenance include new features?

Not at the entry level. A £1,000 month covers upkeep and small fixes. Continuing feature work is added to the support scope, which raises the monthly figure, or covered by a dedicated team billed monthly.

Can Magora maintain an app it did not build?

Yes, normally after a short review of the code, integrations and hosting, which sets the monthly figure.

Want a maintenance figure for your app? Send us the details and a senior engineer will reply within one working day, or see how a dedicated team works and try the app cost calculator.