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What a first release really costs in 2026
"How much will it cost?" is the first question every founder asks, and the honest answer is a range with reasons. Here are the reasons, and our own numbers.
What we mean by a first release
"MVP" means different things to different people. We split it in two. A trial release is the smallest version your pilot customers can use for real work. A commercial release is the version you can sell to customers who were not part of the pilot: billing, onboarding, support tools and the security your buyers will ask about. Most quotes that look surprisingly cheap are for the first and silent about the second.
What drives the cost
- Number of user types. A product used by one role is far simpler than one used by staff, managers, customers and administrators, each with their own screens and permissions.
- Integrations. Payments, accounting software, identity checks, existing industry systems. Each one adds build and testing time.
- Regulation. Health, care, financial and children's data bring rules (GDPR plus sector rules such as FCA, CQC or FERPA) that shape hosting, logging and access control from day one.
- Platforms. Web only, or web plus iOS and Android. See web app or mobile app.
- How much is truly first release. The single biggest lever, and the one you control.
Our numbers
| What | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Fundraising Tech Pack | From £2,500. Most land between £2,500 and £4,500. | Two weeks: first-release scope, architecture and compliance notes, cost range, clickable prototype, technical partner letter. |
| Discovery and proof slice | Roughly £10k to start, sized to scope. | A written scope and a working slice of the hardest part of the product. |
| First commercial release (Paid Build) | Typically £40k to £100k. | A product you can sell, built to a written scope on fixed milestones. |
Where a product falls in that range depends on the drivers above. A single-workflow tool for one type of business user sits towards the bottom. A marketplace with payments, or a product handling health or financial data, sits towards the top. You get the exact number in writing, after discovery, before you commit to the build.
Costs founders forget
- Running costs. Hosting, email, monitoring, backups and third-party services. Usually modest at first, but they start on day one.
- Compliance work. Data protection impact assessments, penetration tests, supplier questionnaires from your first large customer.
- Life after launch. The first months of real use always produce changes. Budget for them rather than treating launch as the end.
- Your own time. Three to five hours a week of decisions, pilot calls and acceptance testing. Without it, any build slows down.
How to spend less without cutting corners
- Write a not-list. Everything that is not in the first release, in writing. It is the cheapest document you will ever produce.
- Prove the hardest part first. A paid proof slice costs a fraction of the build and tells both sides whether the risky part works.
- Start on one platform. Add the second when customers ask for it.
- Pay partly from the product. On our Founder's Path, a reduced monthly fee is credited to the Build Value and the rest is recovered from revenue. See the sample term sheet.
What about "an app like Uber"?
Founders often describe their idea by pointing at a famous product. The cost of copying that product is not a useful number: those companies spent years and very large teams getting there. The useful question is what the smallest version of your idea is that a paying customer would use. That might be one side of the marketplace, in one city, with payments handled manually at first.
Fixed price or hourly?
For a first release, fixed milestones against a written scope are usually better for the founder: you know the cost before each stage and you pay for accepted work. Hourly billing suits open-ended work where the scope cannot be pinned down, which is a reason to do discovery first rather than a reason to accept open-ended billing.
How to get a quote you can rely on
A reliable quote comes after someone has understood your users, your rules and your first-release scope, and has written them down. Anyone who gives you a firm number after a single call is either padding it heavily or planning to charge for changes later. For a quick range before you talk to anyone, try our cost calculator.