Fixed-price software development
in the UK.
At Magora a fixed price comes after Discovery: a free working prototype, a two-week Discovery sprint from £3,000, then a fixed-price quote for the build. You can take the Discovery output to another agency.
Fixed-price software development
at a glance.
A fixed-price project has an agreed price for an agreed scope. At Magora the price is fixed after Discovery, once the scope is written down line by line, not before.
Agreed price, agreed scope
The project runs until the agreed scope is delivered. Anything outside it goes through a change request.
After Discovery
A free working prototype (5–10 working days) and a two-week Discovery sprint from £3,000 turn a brief into a feature list priced line by line. That is what makes a fixed price safe for both sides.
£10,000–£60,000
A Startup MVP is £10,000–£25,000 in 6–8 weeks; a production app with backend and admin is £25,000–£60,000 in 3–5 months. Full table.
Time and materials
For work that will keep changing, a dedicated team is billed at a day rate, from £49 an hour, monthly rolling. Compare the two.
Prototype, Discovery,
then a fixed price.
You see working software and a written scope before you agree a price for the build.
Free working prototype
5–10 working daysA senior Product Owner scopes the core flow with you and we build a coded prototype from your brief. It is yours to keep whether or not you hire us. No charge, no commitment.
Discovery sprint
2 weeks · from £3,000A senior Product Owner and Solution Architect map your process, users and data, agree the scope line by line and hand over an architecture, a fixed estimate and a delivery plan.
Fixed-price quote
End of DiscoveryThe phased delivery roadmap comes with a fixed-price quote for the build. You can take the Discovery output to another agency for a comparable quote.
Build in sprints
Weekly demosWeekly sprints with a demo every week, the same engineers from kickoff to launch, and the code committed to your repository as it is written.
What the fixed quote
is based on.
The two-week Discovery sprint is what turns a brief into a number you can hold us to.
Problem and journeys
A validated problem statement and user-journey map.
Costed architecture
A costed architecture and stack choice.
Riskiest flow, working
A working prototype of the riskiest flow.
Phased delivery roadmap
A phased delivery roadmap with realistic timelines.
Fixed-price quote
A fixed-price quote for the next phase of the build.
Yours to keep
The output stays useful even if you choose someone else; clients have taken it to another agency for a comparable quote.
Typical ranges for
a fixed-price project.
Updated: 13 October 2026. Same figures on our app cost, software cost, UK pricing, MVP and fixed-price pages.
| Project type | Typical time | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| Free working prototype, with written analysis from a senior Product Owner | 5–10 working days | £0 |
| Discovery sprint (scope, architecture, fixed-price quote) | 2 weeks | from £3,000 |
| Proof of concept | 2–4 weeks | £2,000–£5,000 |
| Startup MVP, one or two core journeys | 6–8 weeks | £10,000–£25,000 |
| Production app or web platform, with backend and admin | 3–5 months | £25,000–£60,000 |
| Regulated or integration-heavy product (fintech, health, logistics) | 5–8 months | £80,000–£120,000 |
| AI proof of concept (scoped after Discovery) | 4–6 weeks | from £15,000 |
| Maintenance retainer after launch | monthly | £2,000–£4,000 per month |
Rates: from £49 an hour per developer (about £390 a day); £65–£70 an hour for a full team with QA and product ownership. Each range is for the stage named in its row; the free prototype, Discovery and maintenance are priced separately from the build.
How we calculate these ranges
These are Magora’s published 2026 price bands, not quotes. We check them against our own data: the 12 project estimates we wrote for UK clients in 2026. In those estimates a first release of a new product cost £11,000–£34,000, with a median of about £25,000, and took 6–8 weeks; Discovery cost £1,200–£3,600. The extended version of one app cost £39,758, and a single API integration £2,500–£3,000.
Each estimate lists features in story points (about one developer-day each), adds project set-up, regression testing, user acceptance testing and deployment, then adds QA at 30% and product ownership at 20% of development time. Cost is that effort multiplied by our day rates, about £520–£570 per developer-day including QA and product ownership.
The other rows are the bands in our UK software development pricing guide. Your own figure depends on platforms, integrations, regulation and design; a fixed price comes from Discovery. For a first number, use the app cost calculator.
What changes the cost
after you sign.
A fixed price covers the agreed scope. Here is what sits inside it, what is handled as a change, and what is billed separately.
The agreed scope
For a Startup MVP that means one or two core flows fully working, production hosting with monitoring, authentication and user management, baseline analytics, one mobile platform or one web platform, and 30 days of post-launch maintenance. A full production build includes three months of post-launch maintenance.
Change requests and add-ons
A scope change on a fixed-price project goes through a change request. On a Startup MVP, additional flows, a second mobile platform, third-party integrations and AI features are quoted as add-ons. Ask every supplier what is in and out of their number.
Running costs
Hosting and third-party services (cloud, email and SMS, maps, payment processing) are billed by the provider every month. Apple charges $99 a year for the Developer Program and Google Play a one-off $25. After launch, a maintenance retainer is £2,000–£4,000 a month.
What moves a price while the scope is being written, from our pricing guide: the number of platforms (iOS, Android and web together is roughly 1.8 times a single platform), regulatory burden (25–40% extra for compliance work on FinTech, healthcare or Open Banking), third-party integrations (5–15% each) and AI features. Compressing a 16-week delivery into 10 weeks adds about 30%.
A useful question for any quote: what happens in month four if a core assumption turns out to be wrong? The answer tells you what kind of contract you are signing.
Which model fits
your project?
Both models are available. This is how they differ at Magora.
| Fixed price | Time and materials (dedicated team) | |
|---|---|---|
| How it is priced | Agreed price for an agreed scope | Day rate per engineer, billed monthly: from £49 an hour (about £390 a day); £65–£70 an hour for a full team with QA and product ownership |
| Best for | A well-defined scope with a fixed end, such as a startup MVP or a defined project | A product or roadmap that runs for months, or a brief that will evolve |
| Changing scope | Change request | Re-prioritise the backlog in any sprint |
| Commitment | Until the scope is delivered | Minimum four weeks, then monthly rolling |
| Who manages the work | Magora | Magora (tech lead or Product Owner) for a dedicated team; your engineering lead for staff augmentation |
| Where it starts | Free prototype, then Discovery from £3,000, then the fixed quote | Free prototype first; a Discovery sprint from £3,000 sets the team size |
Sources: our dedicated development team and UK pricing pages. Discovery can end in a fixed-price estimate or in T&M brackets.
A fixed price fits when
- the scope is well defined and has an end;
- you want one number for the build before you commit;
- you plan to compare quotes: the Discovery output can go to another agency.
Time and materials fits when
- the product or roadmap will run for months;
- the brief will evolve during the build;
- you already have a product owner and want senior developers in your own process.
Products we scoped
and shipped.
Three products Magora designed and built after scoping the work, from a discovery phase to a module-by-module scope for the first release.
Abacus Pay
- Problem
- Sole traders needed a simple, secure way to take card payments, handle reimbursements and reconcile corporate cards.
- Built
- An iOS app and an Android app for taking card payments with Abacus Pay's mPOS devices, plus an administration system for managing devices and transactions, shaped by a Magora discovery phase.
- Outcome
- Sole traders and small businesses take payments from one app on either platform, while Abacus Pay manages devices and transactions in one admin system.
Retrofit Navigator
- Problem
- Installers checked ECO4 and Warm Homes: Local Grant eligibility by hand, council by council, and mistakes surfaced weeks later as rejected applications.
- Built
- A web platform where an installer captures a household, sees which schemes it qualifies for and why, and moves straight into the application, with three user roles, global rules and council-level overrides.
- Outcome
- Eligibility becomes a repeatable, explainable check, and the MVP and full scopes are laid out feature by feature for planning the build.
Superyacht Members' Club
- Problem
- Superyacht owners had no private place to see who is cruising nearby, be introduced properly or exchange boat time.
- Built
- A members-only app on desktop and mobile: live yacht map, vetted member directory, private messaging, events, a curated yacht marketplace and an approval-based boat exchange, with privacy controls by default.
- Outcome
- The client has a working product to put in front of owners and a module-by-module basis for scoping the first release.
Also: Dayinsure. All projects →
More on
UK software pricing.
- App development cost in the UK (2026) — ranges, what moves them, and the FAQ
- Software development cost in the UK (2026) — the 12 real project estimates
- UK software development pricing — day rates by tier and our published prices
- MVP development company UK — startup MVPs from £10,000
- App cost calculator — pick features and see hours and cost
Updated: 13 October 2026.
Fixed-price development
questions.
Fixed-price software development means an agreed price for an agreed scope. The project runs until that scope is delivered, and anything outside it goes through a change request. It suits a well-defined scope with a fixed end, such as a startup MVP or a defined project.
Yes, after Discovery. Magora starts with a free working prototype, then a two-week Discovery sprint from £3,000 with a senior Product Owner and Solution Architect. It ends in a fixed-price quote for the build. An agency that fixes a price on a vague brief has either padded it to cover the unknowns or risks running out of budget part-way through.
Typical ranges: a Startup MVP is £10,000–£25,000 and takes 6–8 weeks; a production app or web platform with backend and admin is £25,000–£60,000 and takes 3–5 months; a regulated or integration-heavy product is £80,000–£120,000 and takes 5–8 months. AI and bespoke enterprise work is scoped after Discovery. In our 12 real estimates from 2026 a first release cost £11,000–£34,000, with a median of about £25,000. Your own fixed price comes from Discovery.
On a fixed-price project a scope change goes through a change request. If you expect the scope to move often, a dedicated team billed monthly lets you re-prioritise the backlog in any sprint instead.
Neither is better in general. Choose a fixed price when the scope is defined and has an end; choose time and materials when the brief will change or the work runs for months. Time and materials and dedicated teams are billed at a day rate per engineer, from £49 an hour (about £390 a day), monthly rolling with a four-week minimum.
Discovery is two weeks and starts from £3,000. You get a validated problem statement and user-journey map, a costed architecture and stack choice, a working prototype of the riskiest flow, a phased delivery roadmap with realistic timelines, and a fixed-price quote for the next phase. You can take the output to another agency for a comparable quote.
The first step is free: a working prototype built from your brief in 5–10 working days, with no commitment. The first paid step is the Discovery sprint, from £3,000, which ends in the fixed-price quote.
Want a fixed price
for your project?
Start with a free working prototype in 5–10 working days, or get a first number in the app cost calculator. A senior engineer replies within one working day.