UK software development costs in 2026: MVPs from £10,000, production builds £30,000–£150,000, enterprise from £80,000, plus day rates and cost drivers.
In short: in 2026 a UK software project built by an agency typically costs £10,000–£25,000 for an MVP, £30,000–£150,000 for a full production web or mobile product, and from £80,000 for enterprise platforms, with larger programmes running past £500,000. Ongoing maintenance adds £3,500–£9,000 a month. The figures below are Magora's published prices and the UK market ranges we quote on our own pricing pages; where a number is a market benchmark rather than our price, we say so.
This guide covers custom software in general: web applications, SaaS platforms, internal systems, integrations and AI products. If you are costing a phone app specifically, our app development cost guide goes deeper, and the UK software development pricing page breaks down day rates by supplier tier.
What custom software costs in the UK: price bands for 2026
Most projects fall into one of five bands. The band is decided by how much of the product has to exist on launch day, not by how impressive the idea is.
| Stage | Typical UK agency cost | Timeline | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Working prototype | £0 at Magora | 5–10 working days | A clickable, coded prototype of the core idea before any paid engagement |
| Discovery sprint | From £3,000 | 2 weeks | Scope, architecture, estimate and roadmap from a senior Product Owner and Solution Architect |
| MVP | £10,000–£25,000 | 6–8 weeks | One or two core flows in production, with hosting, authentication and analytics |
| Production product | £30,000–£150,000 | 3–6 months | A full web or mobile product with several roles, an admin panel and integrations |
| Enterprise platform | £80,000–£500,000+ | 6–12 months | Multi-role, audit-logged, integration-heavy systems with phased roll-out |
Below about £10,000 you are usually buying offshore freelance work rather than a UK agency build. That can be the right call for a throwaway experiment, but it rarely includes the senior engineering, QA and post-launch support a product needs once real users depend on it.
Cost by type of software
The same budget buys very different things depending on what you are building. These are starting points from Magora's published prices; the final figure is set after discovery.
| Type of software | Starts from | Where the money goes |
|---|---|---|
| Web application MVP | £10,000 | One or two user journeys done properly, rather than ten done badly |
| SaaS platform | £10,000 (MVP), £30,000 (full platform) | Multi-tenancy, subscription billing and role management — see SaaS development |
| Internal system, CRM or back office | Scoped after discovery (production builds from £30,000) | Workflow logic, permissions, reporting and integration with the tools you already use |
| AI proof of concept | £15,000 (4–6 weeks) | Proving that a model can do the job on your data before building around it |
| AI agent or knowledge assistant | £20,000–£30,000 | Guardrails, evaluation and a human in the loop — see AI agent development |
| Production LLM application | £40,000 | Retrieval, monitoring, cost controls and security for AI features in real use |
| Enterprise or regulated platform | £80,000 | Compliance evidence, audit trails and legacy integration — for example healthcare software |
Adding AI to an existing product through an API can be modest. Building an AI-native product with custom retrieval, agents and evaluation is a separate engineering discipline, and on our pricing page we put that at an extra £20,000–£100,000+.
UK day rates: what you pay per developer
Every quote is ultimately days multiplied by a rate. The UK market spreads across five tiers, and the tier matters more than the headline rate because it decides who actually writes the code.
| Supplier tier | Typical hourly rate | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Offshore freelancers | £15–30 | Cheapest; you manage scope, quality and continuity yourself |
| Offshore agencies with a UK sales front | £25–50 | UK-based sales and account management, with delivery by an offshore team |
| London product-engineering houses | £45–90 | Senior in-house teams that own delivery end to end (Magora sits here, at £55/hour) |
| Boutique London digital agencies | £60–140 | Strong on brand and design, priced accordingly |
| Tier-1 consultancies | £120–250 | Built for large transformation programmes; juniors do much of the work |
These are market ranges from our UK pricing benchmarks, not our price list. Magora's senior engineers cost £450–£720 a day for PHP/Laravel, with comparable senior rates for Node.js, React, Python, Swift and Kotlin. If you would rather add engineers to your own team than commission a project, a dedicated development team is billed monthly on the same day rates.
What drives the cost of software development
Two briefs that look the same on paper can differ in cost by a factor of three. These are the factors that move the number most:
- Number of user roles and journeys. Each role (customer, staff, admin, partner) adds screens, permissions and test cases. Scope is the single biggest lever.
- Integrations. Payments, CRMs, accounting systems, NHS or banking APIs and legacy databases each carry their own edge cases. Mature services for authentication, payments, push notifications, analytics and search should be used rather than rebuilt — custom versions cost weeks and earn nothing.
- Compliance. GDPR, FCA expectations, NHS DSPT and DTAC evidence, and accessibility add design, documentation and testing time.
- Data and AI. Anything that learns from your data needs evaluation, monitoring and a plan for when the model is wrong.
- Timeline pressure. Compressing a 16-week plan into 10 weeks adds roughly 30% for overtime and parallel work.
- Team seniority. Senior engineers cost more per day and less per feature, because they make fewer decisions you pay to undo.
How a £100,000 budget is typically spent
Buyers are often surprised that writing code is only part of the bill. On a typical production build the money is spread across discovery and design, development, quality assurance, project management and launch support. The practical lesson: a quote that is mostly "development days" with little for QA, design or a named product owner is not cheaper, it is incomplete.
That is also why the lowest quote is often the most expensive over 18 months. A London agency that matches a £30,000 offshore quote on a £100,000 brief is cutting senior product ownership, the QA cycle or post-launch maintenance — the product ships and then struggles when real users arrive.
Costs buyers forget to budget for
The build quote is rarely the whole bill. Before you sign, check who pays for each of these and whether they appear in the estimate:
- Third-party services. Cloud hosting, email and SMS delivery, maps, payment processing and AI model usage are billed by their providers, usually monthly and in proportion to use.
- Content and data migration. Moving records out of spreadsheets or an old system takes analysis and testing, not just a script.
- Security and compliance work. Penetration testing, data protection impact assessments and regulated-sector evidence packs are separate pieces of work.
- Your own team's time. Someone on your side has to answer questions, review demos and accept releases every sprint. Projects without that person slow down, and slow projects cost more.
Fixed price, time and materials or a dedicated team
How you buy changes the risk as much as the total.
- Fixed price works once the scope is defined. Fixing the price of a vague brief forces the supplier either to pad the estimate or to run out of money halfway through.
- Time and materials suits products that will keep changing after launch. You pay for the days used and keep control of priorities.
- A dedicated team suits companies that already have product leadership and need senior engineers for months rather than a single project.
Magora's standard model combines the first two: a free working prototype, a discovery sprint from £3,000, then a fixed-price quote for the build, paid in sprints every two to three weeks. You can take the discovery output to another agency for comparison.
Running costs after launch
Software is not finished at launch. Budget for hosting, monitoring, security updates, operating-system and browser changes, and the improvements users ask for once they start using the product. Magora's maintenance retainers run from £3,500 to £9,000 a month, depending on the service level and how much new development is included. A useful rule when comparing suppliers: ask who will still be on the project in month nine.
How to get an accurate quote for your project
- Start with the problem, not the feature list. Who uses it, what they do today, and what must be true on day one.
- Test the idea cheaply. A coded prototype in 5–10 working days shows whether the core flow works before you commit a budget.
- Buy a scope, not a guess. A two-week discovery sprint produces a scope, architecture and estimate you can compare between suppliers.
- Compare like with like. Check each quote for QA, product ownership, hosting, handover and post-launch support.
- Launch small. An MVP with one or two flows tells you more than a full build designed around assumptions.
For a quick first figure, try our app cost calculator, or book a discovery phase for a number you can hold a supplier to. Magora has built software in London since 2010, has shipped more than 150 products and holds a 4.9 rating on Clutch.
Frequently asked questions
How much does software development cost in the UK in 2026?
For a UK agency, a first production version of custom software usually costs between £10,000 and £150,000. A focused MVP starts from about £10,000, most full production web or mobile builds land between £30,000 and £150,000, and enterprise platforms start from about £80,000 and can exceed £500,000. The spread comes from scope, integrations, compliance and the seniority of the team, not from the programming language.
What is a typical software developer day rate in the UK?
UK rates fall into five tiers: offshore freelancers at about £15–30 an hour, offshore agencies with a UK sales front at £25–50, London product-engineering houses at £45–90, boutique London digital agencies at £60–140 and tier-1 consultancies at £120–250. Magora's senior engineers are £450–£720 a day for PHP/Laravel, with comparable rates for other stacks.
How much does a web application cost to build?
A web application MVP with one or two core flows typically starts from £10,000 and takes 6–8 weeks. A production web platform with several user roles, an admin panel and integrations usually costs £30,000–£150,000 and takes 3–6 months.
Why do quotes for the same brief vary so much?
Because they are not quotes for the same thing. A low quote usually leaves out a senior engineer on the project full time, QA as a discipline, clear deliverables or post-launch support. A two-week discovery sprint turns a vague brief into a scope that suppliers can price like for like.
Can I get a fixed price for custom software?
Yes, once the scope is defined. Fixed-pricing a vague brief forces the supplier to pad the estimate or run out of budget halfway. At Magora the sequence is a free working prototype, a discovery sprint from £3,000, then a fixed-price quote for the build, paid in sprints every two to three weeks.
What does software cost after launch?
Plan for ongoing maintenance, hosting and iterative development. Magora's maintenance retainers run from £3,500 to £9,000 a month depending on the service level and the amount of new development included.
Pavel Shevtsov
Pavel Shevtsov is a seasoned professional in the field of software development, currently serving as the Managing Director at Magora, a leading software development company known for its innovative solutions. With a passion for leveraging technology to solve complex business challenges, Pavel has played a pivotal role in Magora's growth and success.
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