How much does a web app cost in Australia?
$15,000 to $45,000 with us for a client portal, an internal dashboard or a booking system built around how you work; $10,000 to $150,000 across the Australian market; a mobile app from $10,000 on top. Before any of that, a booking tool or a no-code builder for a few dollars a month, where most businesses should start. The bands, the tools priced beside them, when a build beats a subscription, and one build with every hour counted.
- Off the shelf
- $0–100 a month
- No-code
- US$19–549 a month
- Market
- $10,000–150,000
- With us
- $15,000–45,000
- Mobile
- from $10,000 on top
- To run
- $0–100 a month
- Price
- see our own price list
Every figure on this page excludes GST. Tool prices read on 26 September 2026.
Australia · 2026$15,000 to $45,000 with us. $10,000 to $150,000 across the market. Both are right.
In Australia in 2026 a custom web app, a portal, a dashboard, a booking system or an internal tool built around how you work, costs $15,000 to $45,000 with us, from a floor of $15,000, and a mobile app for iOS and Android sharing its backend adds $10,000 to $30,000. Australian agency guides published in 2026 put a portal or dashboard at $10,000 to $50,000 and a booking system with payments or a platform with several kinds of user at $40,000 to $150,000, with local developers at $100 to $330 an hour; the range is wide because the product is, since a two-role dashboard and a platform that takes the money are both called an app. Below every band sits what to try first: a booking tool at $0 to $100 a month, a client-portal subscription at US$19 to $99, a no-code builder at US$19 to $549 a month. Price a build the day the work stops fitting the tool and the workarounds start costing hours. Running a built app is $0 to $100 a month at the volumes most small businesses see, plus a care plan from $250 if you want somebody watching it.
What each band buys.
Six ways to get software that fits, in the order people usually try them. Market figures, not ours; what we charge is further down. Tool prices as published on 26 September 2026, in each vendor's currency.
| Budget | What that buys | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Budget $0–100 a month An off-the-shelf tool | What that buys For bookings, Calendly is free for one event type and US$10 a seat a month after, Acuity US$20 to $61 a month, Square Appointments free for one location in Australia and A$40 or A$90 a month a location after, plus 1.6 percent on in-person payments and 2.2 percent online. For a client portal, SuiteDash is US$19 to $99 a month and Assembly US$29 to $90 billed annually, free for five contacts. | Who it suits Most businesses at the start. Stay until the workarounds start costing hours. |
| Budget US$19–549 a month A no-code builder | What that buys You, or a freelancer, assemble the app from blocks on top of a spreadsheet or a database. Softr is US$19 to $329 a month, Glide US$25 to $125, Bubble US$59 to $549 billed annually, Retool free for five users and then US$10 a builder and US$5 an internal user a month, Airtable US$20 to $45 a user a month. | Who it suits Internal tools with a few users and simple rules, or a proof of the idea before a build. Per-user pricing and record limits are where the bill grows. |
| Budget $10,000–50,000 A portal or dashboard, built Where we start | What that buys Logins, roles, a data model of its own, one or two integrations, a screen for each job. Australian agency guides published in 2026 put a client portal or an admin dashboard here, at one to eight weeks. | Who it suits The business whose data lives in five places and whose team spends the week moving it between them. This is where we start, from $15,000. |
| Budget $40,000–150,000 A booking system or a platform, built Also ours | What that buys Payments, several kinds of user, approvals, integrations with accounting, CRM and calendars, and the workflows between them. The same guides put a booking system with payments or a multi-role platform here, at two to four months. | Who it suits Businesses whose app is the business: it takes the money, runs the roster or pays the suppliers. Ours land at the bottom of this band, $20,000 to $45,000. |
| Budget $100,000–300,000+ A product to sell | What that buys Subscription billing, onboarding, a public API, the marketing site, and the engineering to run it for strangers at scale. Australian guides put a software product here at three to nine months, with enterprise bands to $500,000. | Who it suits Product businesses. Our own, itemised below, was $36,000 in nine weeks because three people built it without an agency's margin: the exception on this row. |
| Budget $10,000–30,000 on top A mobile app beside it | What that buys iOS and Android from one codebase, sharing the web app's backend and shipped through the app stores or straight to devices your organisation manages. The guides put a simple cross-platform app at $15,000 to $50,000 on its own; beside a web app it is an addition, not a second build. | Who it suits Field work, frontline staff and devices the organisation owns, or anything that needs the camera, offline or push. Edtripper's kiosk app went from first commit to live phones in 30 days. |
Excludes GST. Tool prices as published on each vendor's price page on 26 September 2026. Market bands are from three Australian agency guides published in 2026, in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, which also put local developers at $100 to $330 an hour and annual maintenance at 15 to 20 percent of the build. We start at $15,000, most builds land between $20,000 and $45,000, and a mobile app adds $10,000 to $30,000.
A custom app, or an off-the-shelf tool?
| Compared on | Off-the-shelf tool | Custom web app |
|---|---|---|
| Process | Off-the-shelf tool Theirs. You fit your business to what the tool does | Custom web app Yours. The screens follow the way the work already happens |
| Time to live | Off-the-shelf tool An afternoon | Custom web app 8 to 16 weeks, in weekly releases your team tests on real data |
| Cost | Off-the-shelf tool $0 to a few hundred dollars a month, per seat or per location | Custom web app $15,000 to $45,000 once with us, then $0 to $100 a month to run |
| Integrations | Off-the-shelf tool The ones on the vendor's list | Custom web app Anything with an API, and the in-house system without one |
| Users and roles | Off-the-shelf tool Priced per seat, with the roles the vendor defined | Custom web app As many as you like, and every user type sees only its own slice |
| Your data | Off-the-shelf tool In the vendor's cloud, wherever that is, exported as a spreadsheet | Custom web app In your own accounts, Australian region by default, yours to take |
| When it breaks | Off-the-shelf tool A support ticket | Custom web app Monitored and staged, with a care plan and the people who built it |
| Best for | Off-the-shelf tool A process the tool already does well, and most businesses at the start | Custom web app The process that is the business, or the one the tools stopped fitting |
Start with the tool. Build when the workarounds cost more hours than a build would, or when the process is the business itself, and never build what a $40 subscription already does.
One whole build, every hour counted.
The ranges above are everyone's; the receipts behind them belong to clients. This one is ours. Nilkick is our own product, so there is no client invoice, and it is the only set of books we can open all the way: every hour counted at the rate a client would have been billed, every running cost metered. A free scanner, a paid launch app, a Chrome extension and a public API on five Cloudflare Workers, built in nine weeks by the three people who build client apps. A product rather than a portal, which is why it sits at the top of our range.
- Client
- Croissant & Baguette, own product
- Scope
- Scanner, launch engine, Chrome extension, public API
- Built in
- 14 days design, 9 weeks build
- Live at
- nilkick.com
- Design 14 days
- $6,000
- Development 9 weeks. Five Workers, Workflows, cron, Supabase, Stripe, a Chrome extension and a public API
- $30,000
- Total hours counted at the rate a client would have been billed. Ex GST
- $36,000
Costs to run
- Model spend about $1 per launch, metered on every run
- PAYG
- Database Supabase
- $10
- Hosting five Cloudflare Workers, Workflows and cron
- $0
- Search, payments and email Serper and Bright Data pay as you go, Stripe per transaction, Resend on our own account
- PAYG
Measured, not estimated. Every run meters its own model spend and timings.
No client invoice, so these are our own hours at the rate we would have charged. Excludes GST.
Ex GSTThree client builds for scale. Edtripper's app, venue CMS and fleet cockpit was a $39,000 build, first commit to live phones in 30 days in 22 staged releases. POP Local's maker portal shows 343 makers their own sales and pays them every fortnight from one click. Cheeky Kiwi Travel's booking platform on the Rezdy API took the booking page from ten seconds to under two and lifted conversion 37 percent. The last two prices are not published; the case studies are: Edtripper, POP Local, Cheeky Kiwi Travel.
Who builds apps in Australia, and what to ask.
- 01
A live app, with a login.
Ask to use one of their recent apps as a user, on your phone, then to see the admin side. A deck of screenshots is not a portfolio.
- 02
Whose name is on the cloud bill.
Your repositories, your cloud account, your payment provider. If the app lives on a platform of theirs, you are renting it, whatever the invoice calls it.
- 03
A fixed price, broken down.
A written spec after scoping and a price per screen or feature. An hourly estimate with no cap is an open-ended invoice with a start date.
- 04
Where the data lives, and how you get it out.
Which region, which providers see it, what is backed up, and the export. Australian region should be the default, not a line item.
- 05
What it costs after launch, with a number.
Hosting at your volume, and a care plan with a scope and a monthly fee. The 15 to 20 percent a year in the guides is an agency habit, not a law of software.
- 06
We do.
Croissant & Baguette is a small Sydney studio with a network of Australian specialists. Built in Sydney, never offshored. Cheeky Kiwi's booking platform, POP Local's maker portal, Edtripper's app and cockpit and our own Nilkick all run in their owners' accounts, every one at a fixed price after scoping.
Web app from $15,000, mobile from $10,000 on top, and a fixed quote after one or two workshops with the people who will use it.
What we charge.
- Web app portals, booking systems, dashboards, internal tools
- from $15,000 typically $20–45k
- Mobile app iOS and Android; on top of a web app
- from $10,000 typically $10–30k
- Care plan or managed when AI is in it
- from $250/month
What moves an app within those ranges:
- how many kinds of user, and what each one is allowed to see and do
- what it has to talk to. Accounting, CRM, calendars, payments, and the system with no API
- approvals and workflows, and who has to sign off before something happens
- whether AI does part of the work, and where a person reviews it
- web only, or the phone app beside it
- how much of it a tool you already pay for could keep doing
Why we start at $15,000
Because below it you are buying a tool with a logo on it, and the tools are cheaper. Fifteen thousand buys what a subscription cannot: a data model that is yours, roles you define, integrations with what you already run, staging and monitoring, and code you can take with you. Two workshops with the people who will use it, a written spec, then a fixed price.
Fixed quote after scoping. The variables that matter never fit on a calculator.
Ask away.
Nine things people ask before they commission one. Still one missing? Ask us.
How much does a web app cost in Australia?
$15,000 to $45,000 with us for a portal, a dashboard, a booking system or an internal tool built around how you work, and $10,000 to $150,000 across the Australian market in 2026, a simple portal at the bottom and a booking platform with payments and several kinds of user at the top. A mobile app adds $10,000 to $30,000; running one is $0 to $100 a month.
What's a fair price for building a custom internal dashboard or portal?
$15,000 to $30,000 for a dashboard or portal with logins, two or three kinds of user, its own data model and one or two integrations: the bottom of our range and the middle of the $10,000 to $50,000 Australian agency guides quote. Above $30,000 somebody should point at what the extra buys: payments, approvals, more integrations, a mobile app. Below $10,000 you are usually looking at a no-code build, which can be right.
Who develops custom booking portals for service businesses?
Three kinds of provider. Booking-tool vendors, Calendly, Acuity or Square Appointments, give you their process for $0 to $100 a month. No-code freelancers assemble a portal in Softr, Glide or Bubble for a few thousand dollars plus the subscription. Studios like ours build one around your calendar, payments and rules from $15,000; Cheeky Kiwi Travel's, on the Rezdy API, lifted conversion 37 percent. Ask each for a live portal you can log into.
Who would you recommend for building a custom booking portal?
We would put ourselves forward, and show rather than say. Cheeky Kiwi Travel's booking platform reads live availability from Rezdy, sells the second tour in the cart and took the booking page from ten seconds to under two; POP Local's portal runs the sales and payouts of 343 makers. Whoever you choose, put the five questions above to them: a live app, whose name is on the cloud bill, a fixed price broken down, where the data lives, the cost after launch.
Who can build an internal dashboard to track our operations?
Any studio that builds web apps; the test is whether they have built one on systems doing real work. Ours sit on the systems we automate: Edtripper's fleet cockpit reports each phone's heartbeat and kiosk state and logs incidents; Nilkick meters the model spend of every run. A dashboard that only reads a spreadsheet is a Retool or Airtable job at US$5 to $45 a user a month; one that steers a process is a build, typically $8,000 to $20,000 on top of the system beneath.
Should I get a custom app built or use an off-the-shelf booking tool?
Use the tool until it stops fitting. Calendly, Acuity and Square Appointments cost $0 to $100 a month and do a plain appointment well. Build when the hours the workarounds eat, the double entry, the spreadsheet beside the tool, the availability it cannot see, cost more than $15,000 to $45,000 would, or when the booking is the business: packages, live capacity from another system, payments under your rules. The scoping workshops do that arithmetic before we quote.
Are there alternatives to hiring in-house developers for a custom booking app?
Three. A no-code builder, Softr, Glide or Bubble at US$19 to $549 a month, if the logic is simple and someone in-house will own it. A freelancer at $100 to $330 an hour in Australia, for a defined build somebody else maintains afterwards. Or a studio like ours at a fixed price from $15,000, delivered into your own accounts with a care plan from $250 a month: less than one developer's month, and nothing to manage.
How much does a mobile app cost on top of a web app?
$10,000 to $30,000 with us, for iOS and Android from one codebase sharing the web app's backend, shipped through the app stores or straight to devices your organisation manages. Australian guides put a simple cross-platform app at $15,000 to $50,000 on its own, because alone it needs its own backend. Edtripper's kiosk app went from first commit to live phones in 30 days; an update lands on every phone inside 90 seconds.
What does a web app cost to run each month?
$0 to $100 a month at the volumes most small businesses see: hosting on Cloudflare inside its free tier, a database at $0 to $25, email and payments metered per use. Nilkick, itemised above, pays $10 a month for its database and nothing for hosting. A care plan from $250 a month covers monitoring, updates and small changes; the managed plan at the same floor when AI does part of the work. The guides budget 15 to 20 percent of the build a year; we quote the changes you ask for.
- Web & mobile apps. What we build and how. Portals, booking systems, dashboards, and the phone app beside them.
- Website costs. What a website costs in Australia, by band, with a real receipt.
- Enquiries and bookings. Booking tool, answering service, AI receptionist or a built system, priced side by side.
- AI automation costs. What it costs to take one process off your team, with a real system itemised.