How Much Does a React Native App Cost in 2026?

In 2026, most mobile apps built by European agencies cost between €15,000 and €50,000 (about $17,000 to $58,000), with a median of €30,000 (about $34,500), according to La Fabrique du Net, a French agency directory (423 budgets, November 2026). Clutch, a US review site, reports that most projects it tracks cost $10,000 to $49,999. At Écrin Digital, a React Native app for iOS and Android starts at €12,000 excluding VAT (about $13,800).

Updated 10 November 2026. By Alexis Chân Gridel, founder of Écrin Digital and member of the Awwwards Young Jury 2026.

This guide is for founders and product leads outside France who want a realistic budget for a React Native app. Prices are in euros, with dollars at about 1.15 per euro. The European Central Bank's 2026 reference rates for the euro against the dollar ranged from about 1.11 to 1.17. We build with React Native and Expo: our drawing app Doodraw, made with them, has passed 210,000 installs.

How much does a React Native app cost in 2026?

It depends on scope far more than on screen count. La Fabrique du Net analysed 423 mobile project budgets from agencies. The median is €30,000. A quarter of projects cost less than €15,000, and a quarter cost more than €50,000 (about $57,500). The cheapest 10% start at €7,000 (about $8,000), and the top 10% reach €80,000 or more (about $92,000). About 9% pass €100,000 (about $115,000).

Clutch gives a different picture because it measures different things. Most projects reviewed there cost $10,000 to $49,999, and the average is $90,780, pulled up by large projects. Clutch also lists hourly rates by country: $50 to $99 in Poland and Canada, $100 to $149 in Australia. Treat these as self-reported orders of magnitude, not quotes.

Location matters inside France too. The median is €40,000 for Paris-region clients and €23,000 elsewhere, per La Fabrique du Net.

What does each type of app cost?

• MVP, first testable version: about €15,000 ($17,000). La Fabrique du Net places the MVP around this figure, often delivered in 3 to 6 weeks when the scope is tight.
• App with accounts, payments and an admin area: €30,000 to €80,000 ($34,500 to $92,000). This is where an app is solid enough for production. A project with a back-end has a median of €40,000, against €30,000 without.
• App with offline mode: from about €77,500 ($89,000). Offline sync is the clearest complexity marker in the data, with a median of €77,500 on projects that include it.
• Complex platform: €100,000 and above. Real-time features, heavy integrations and security requirements sit here.

What drives the cost of an app?

Five things explain most of the gap between two quotes: functional scope, number of platforms, back-end and admin tools, integrations such as CRM or payment providers, and custom design. Scope is the one that slips most often. Rank every feature as "must have", "useful" or "later", and price only the first list.

Hourly rates matter less than the number of days. Lonestone, a French agency, estimates a mobile MVP at 60 to 90 working days. At €550 per day, that is €33,000 to €50,000. A quote far below that range usually hides a narrower scope.

React Native, native Swift and Kotlin, or Flutter: which is cheaper?

The popular claim is "one codebase, half the price". The data is more mixed. One codebase removes duplicate work: one team, one bug-fix schedule. Clutch notes that building two native apps roughly doubles the price. But La Fabrique du Net finds a median of €35,000 for cross-platform projects against €20,000 for native ones. The reason: teams choose cross-platform to ship on both platforms with more features. The saving only exists if the scope stays the same.

Budget rows come from small samples, so read them as orders of magnitude. The update and hiring rows come from Strapi's comparison. Shopify builds all its mobile apps with React Native, according to the React Native showcase.

What do you pay after launch?

The quote covers the build. Running an app has its own costs.

• Developer accounts. Apple Developer Program: 99 USD per year. Google Play: a one-time 25 USD fee. Open both in your company's name, not the agency's.
• Store commissions. Apple takes 30% of digital goods and services, 15% under its Small Business Program, and 15% on qualifying subscriptions.
• Back-end hosting. More than half of projects have one, and the bill grows with active users.
• Maintenance. Lonestone puts it at 15% to 25% of the initial cost per year. After 18 months without updates, a technical rescue is often needed.

Freelancer, agency or studio: who should build it?

Lonestone places experienced freelancers at €450 to €650 per day and specialist agencies at €500 to €900.

• Freelancer. One contact, but design, back-end and testing are yours to coordinate, and so is the risk of unavailability.
• Large agency. A full team and process, with overhead in the price.
• Studio. A few people, design and code by the same hands, one point of contact. That is our model.

How can you cut the budget without cutting quality?

The lever is almost never the hourly rate. It is the scope.

• Start with an MVP and test it with real users.
• Launch on one platform first if your audience is concentrated. React Native lets you add the second later without a rewrite.
• Postpone offline mode if your use case tolerates a connection.
• Pay for scoping. A few days of scoping prevent months spent building the wrong app.

Do not cut testing or maintenance. You would save on the quote and pay after launch.

What does a React Native app cost at Écrin Digital?

Our prices are public, in euros excluding VAT. Dollar values are approximate. Details are on the pricing page.

Payment is 40% at signature, 30% at design approval and 30% at launch. You own all the code. See our React Native agency page and our work. To talk about your project, contact us.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to build a mobile app for a startup? Plan around €15,000 for an MVP and €30,000 to €80,000 for a complete app with a back-end. At Écrin Digital, an iOS and Android app starts at €12,000 excluding VAT.

Is React Native cheaper than native development? It depends on scope. One codebase avoids paying twice for the same feature. But cross-platform projects often include more features, and their observed median is higher than native.

Is a React Native app as smooth as a native app? For most uses, yes, because React Native renders each system's native components. Doodraw, our drawing app, is built this way.

How much does it cost to publish on the App Store and Google Play? Apple charges 99 USD per year and Google 25 USD once. Preparing store listings and screenshots is included in our quotes.

How much does app maintenance cost per year? The market rule is 15% to 25% of the initial cost per year. Our Care App plan starts at €149 per month.

Sources

• La Fabrique du Net, Tarifs d'une agence de développement mobile, calculated 10 November 2026.
• Clutch, Mobile App Pricing Guide 2026, updated 21 September 2026.
• Lonestone, Prix d'une application mobile sur mesure en 2026, 14 October 2026.
• Apple, Apple Developer Program: what's included.
• Google, Play Console developer account.
• Strapi, Flutter vs React Native, updated 13 October 2026.
• React Native, Showcase.
• European Central Bank, Euro reference rate, US dollar.