Care plans after launch
| Plan | Best for | What it covers | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essential care | Websites and simple web apps | Platform and plugin updates, daily backups, uptime monitoring, security patches, and up to 2 hours of small changes. | $100 to $300 a month |
| Growth care | Web apps and mobile apps in daily use | Everything in Essential, plus iOS and Android release updates, error tracking, a monthly report, 10 to 20 hours of improvements, and we aim to respond within one business day. | $350 to $900 a month |
| Product care | Business-critical systems and SaaS products | Everything in Growth, plus priority response for urgent issues, on-call cover, performance tuning, and 40 or more hours of development. | $1,200 to $3,000 a month |
The Hidden Costs of Owning an App: Hosting, Updates and Support
Most owners budget carefully for the build and forget what comes next. Here is where the money actually goes after launch.
Why apps need ongoing money
Software is not like a printed brochure. Everything around it keeps changing:
An app left alone for a year will usually start to break. After two years, it often needs a rebuild.
Key points
- Apple and Google release new operating systems every year
- Browsers and libraries update, and old versions become insecure
- Third-party services change their rules and prices
- Security threats evolve
- Users find problems and ask for improvements
- Your business changes
The main cost areas
1. Hosting and infrastructure. Your app needs servers, databases and storage somewhere.
Costs rise with users, data and traffic. Good setups scale up and down, so you don't pay for capacity you don't need.
2. Updates and compatibility. Every year, new iOS and Android versions arrive. Libraries and frameworks release updates. Someone has to test and update the app so it keeps working.
Expect several days to a few weeks of developer time each year, depending on how large the app is.
3. Bug fixes. Even well-tested apps have bugs. Real users find edge cases no tester imagined. A fix is cheap when done early and costly when ignored.
4. Security. Security is continuous, not a one-time check. It includes updating packages with known vulnerabilities, reviewing access, monitoring for unusual behavior and renewing certificates. For apps with payments or personal data, add periodic security reviews.
5. Third-party services. Many apps depend on paid services that bill by use:
These are small at first and can grow quickly with success. Ask your developer for a list of every external service and its pricing model.
6. App store fees and rules.
- Apple Developer Program: $99 a year
- Google Play: a one-time $25 registration fee
- Store commissions on in-app purchases, depending on program and rules
Stores also change their policies. Your app may need updates to stay listed.
7. Monitoring and support. Someone needs to watch for downtime and errors, and answer users. This can be a monitoring tool plus a developer on call, or a support plan with defined response times.
8. Improvements and new features. This is optional but it is where most of the value is. Apps that stop improving stop growing. Reserve a budget for new features, usually 10 to 30 percent of the build cost per year.
Key points
- Small apps: $20 to $150 a month
- Growing apps: $150 to $1,000 a month
- Large or high-traffic apps: $1,000 a month and up
- Email and SMS sending
- Push notifications
- Maps and location
- Payment processing fees
- Analytics and crash reporting
- AI and language model usage
- File storage and video
A sample yearly budget
For an app that cost $60,000 to build, a realistic annual budget might look like this. These are illustrative numbers, with maintenance priced as a year of our Growth care plan.
The range is wide because usage and ambition differ. The point is that the first year after launch often costs a third to half of the build.
| Item | Yearly cost |
|---|---|
| Hosting and infrastructure | $1,800 to $6,000 |
| Maintenance, updates and bug fixes | $4,200 to $10,800 |
| Security reviews and monitoring | $1,000 to $3,000 |
| Third-party services | $600 to $6,000 |
| App store fees | About $100 |
| New features and improvements | $6,000 to $18,000 |
| Total | $13,700 to $43,900 |
What happens if you skip maintenance
Short term: nothing visible. That is why it is tempting to skip.
After 6 to 12 months: bugs pile up. New phones show layout problems. Some features stop working because a service changed.
After 12 to 24 months: security holes appear. The app may be removed from a store for not meeting new requirements. Updating becomes hard because many changes pile up at once.
After 2 or more years: a major rebuild is often cheaper than repairing it.
Regular small payments cost far less than one big emergency.
How to control the cost
Get a maintenance plan in writing before launch. Know what is included, response times and the monthly or yearly price.. Document everything. Good documentation lets any competent team take over, which protects you from being locked in.. Own your accounts. Hosting, domains, app store accounts and code repositories should be in your name.. Monitor usage costs. Set billing alerts on cloud and third-party services.. Reduce dependency sprawl. Fewer third-party services mean fewer things to break and pay for.. Review yearly. Check what you pay for and what you no longer use.. Choose boring technology. Widely used tools have more developers, more support and lower long-term cost.
Questions to ask your developer
What will it cost to host this in year one, and how will it grow with users?. What third-party services does it use, and how are they billed?. What does your maintenance plan include, and what does it exclude?. How quickly do you respond to a critical bug?. How do you handle yearly operating system updates?. If we stop working together, what do I receive to hand over to another team?
How we price app maintenance at DECHY
We offer maintenance as monthly care plans, so the cost is predictable. Essential care costs $100 to $300 a month and covers updates, security patches, backups and monitoring for websites and simple web apps. Growth care costs $350 to $900 a month for apps in daily use. It adds iOS and Android release updates, error tracking and 10 to 20 hours of improvements a month, and we aim to respond within one business day. Product care costs $1,200 to $3,000 a month, with priority response for urgent issues.
A year of Growth care comes to $4,200 to $10,800. That is the figure used for maintenance in the example budget above.
Hosting, app store fees and third-party services are billed by the providers, not by us. We help you choose sensible plans and review them as your usage grows.
If we did not build your app, we start with a short review of the code, the hosting and the risks. Then we recommend a plan. Use the cost estimator to see what a new build costs, or ask us about care for an existing app.
Next step
Planning an app, or already running one that needs care? We'll help you budget for the full life of it, not just the build. Talk to DECHY.