How much does it cost to build an app in Dubai?
Studios in Dubai publish AED 50,000 to AED 120,000 for an app on iPhone and Android and AED 45,000 to AED 180,000 for a web application, with the most common investment in a business app landing at AED 92,000 to AED 294,000. The First Build is AED 150,000 for web, iPhone and Android together, with the source code and the store submissions included.
What do studios in Dubai publish?
An app on iPhone and Android is quoted at AED 50,000 to AED 120,000. A web application in the Emirates is quoted at AED 45,000 to AED 180,000. A basic product on a single platform is quoted at AED 25,000 to AED 50,000, and a platform a whole company runs on is quoted at over AED 200,000.
The figure named most often for a business app is wider than any of those: AED 92,000 to AED 294,000. A range that wide is what the buyer agrees to when the price depends on hours, because the hours depend on a scope the first month exists to discover.
Those are separate purchases. A company that wants a web application and an app on both phones is buying two of the ranges above, from two quotations, on two timelines.
What does AED 150,000 cover?
Five things, and they are the terms the contract names: a Web App, an iPhone App, an Android App, the Source Code, and the Launch. The product runs on every surface, the code is handed over, and the apps are submitted to the App Store and Google Play.
One payment, made when the idea is submitted, for the scope agreed at that moment. Work added afterwards is quoted and agreed on its own, which keeps both the price and the definition of the work honest.
The figure is published rather than quoted on request. That makes the comparison with the ranges above one a buyer can finish alone, before anybody has been contacted.
What moves the number up or down?
Screens, mostly. The AED 50,000 to AED 120,000 band describes an app of the size most businesses ask for, and the same studios quote over AED 200,000 once a product carries the operations of a company rather than a single job.
After screens, integrations. A payment provider, a government service, an accounting system somebody already runs on: each one is an agreement between two systems that has to be written, tested and kept working.
After integrations, the scope itself. The most common cause of a build costing more than its quote is a feature added once the work has started, which is a matter of how the scope is held rather than of how the code is written.
What does an app cost after it is built?
Maintenance is quoted in this market at 15% to 20% of the build price a year. It covers the operating system releases that arrive twice a year, the libraries underneath, and the store requirements that change on their own schedule.
That figure applies to any build, at any price, from any studio. It belongs in the first budget rather than the second, because it arrives on its own schedule.
Owning the source code decides who is able to do that work. Code that has been handed over can be maintained by the studio that wrote it, by an in-house engineer, or by whoever the business hires in two years.
The First Build · AED 150,000 · Delivered within 90 days.
Sources
Updated 2026-09-12