US APP TEAM

Free Tools App Maintenance Cost Calculator

App Maintenance Cost Calculator

Turn the vague "15-20% a year" rule of thumb into a real number - free, instant, no email.

Almost every article on app maintenance says the same thing: budget 15 to 20 percent of your build cost per year. That is a real rule of thumb, but it treats a static offline app the same as a real-time app with payments and a live backend, which is not how upkeep actually works.

This calculator starts from that industry baseline and adjusts it for the things that actually move the number: how many platforms you support, how much of the app depends on a server you have to keep running, and how actively you plan to keep shipping improvements. It breaks the estimate down into where the money goes, and shows how it lines up against a managed Care plan.

Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, and there is no email box anywhere on this page.

Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, and there is no email box on this page. Close the tab and it is gone.
01 What did the app cost to build?

Use the real number if you know it, or start from one of our own pricing tiers.

02 Platforms
03 Backend complexity

How much of the app depends on a server you have to keep running?

04 How actively will you maintain it?

What this deliberately does not include

  • One-off costs like a major redesign, a new platform port, or a backend migration.
  • Marketing, app store advertising, and user acquisition.
  • Legal and compliance work beyond routine privacy-policy upkeep.
  • The developer account fees you pay directly to Apple and Google — those are separate from build or maintenance work.

This is a planning estimate built from a widely-used industry rule of thumb, not a quote. Every app is different.

Watch: how to use this tool

How to use it

  1. Enter what the app cost (or will cost) to build, or pick one of our own pricing tiers as a starting point.
  2. Choose the platforms you support - both iOS and Android roughly doubles yearly compatibility work.
  3. Pick how much the app depends on a backend you have to keep running.
  4. Set how actively you plan to keep improving it, from bug-fixes-only to shipping features every month.
  5. Read the annual and monthly estimate, the category breakdown, and how it compares to a Care plan.

Questions

Where does the 15-20% a year figure come from?
It is a widely cited industry rule of thumb for the total cost of keeping a shipped app running - not a number this calculator invented. It is a reasonable starting point, but it is also an average across every kind of app, which is why it is not very useful on its own. This tool starts there and adjusts for the specifics of your app.
Why does supporting both iOS and Android cost more?
Apple and Google each ship a major OS release every year, and both routinely break something - a permission dialog changes, an API gets deprecated, a new device size ships. Supporting one store means testing and patching against one moving target. Supporting both roughly doubles that recurring work, even if the two apps share most of their code.
Why does a bigger backend cost more to maintain?
A fully offline app has almost nothing that can break outside the app itself. A backend adds a server that needs monitoring, security patches, and capacity planning, plus every third-party API it depends on can change its own terms, pricing or behavior without warning. Real-time features and payment processing raise the stakes further, because outages and bugs there cost you users and money immediately, not eventually.
What is the single biggest lever in this estimate?
How actively you plan to keep shipping. "Maintenance mode" - bug fixes and OS compatibility only - sits near the low end of the range. "Active growth" - new features on a regular cadence - is closer to ongoing product development than maintenance, and the estimate reflects that. Most of the swing between a cheap year and an expensive one comes from this choice, not from the backend or the platforms.
How does this compare to a Care plan?
The monthly estimate is shown next to US APP Team's own Care tiers so you can see roughly where DIY maintenance would land against a managed plan. It is a reference point, not a quote - a real plan depends on the actual app, not four dropdown answers.
Is anything sent to a server?
No. The whole calculation is JavaScript running in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is saved, and closing the tab erases it.

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