UK agencies charge £40k–£250k+. Working directly with Ben Hogan costs up to 50% less — with senior-level quality and no middlemen.
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Agency market rates sourced from Make IT Simple, Nordstone, Patternica and others — Feb 2025
| App Type | Timeline | 🏢 Agency Rate | ✅ Ben Hogan |
|---|---|---|---|
| MVP / Proof of Concept | 4–8 weeks | £15k–£40k | £8k–£20k |
| Standard App (iOS or Android) | 2–4 months | £40k–£100k | £20k–£50k |
| Cross-Platform App (React Native/Flutter) | 3–5 months | £50k–£120k | £25k–£60k |
| AI-Native App (LLM Integration) | 3–6 months | £60k–£150k | £30k–£75k |
| Complex / Enterprise Build | 4–12 months | £100k–£500k | £50k–£250k |
*Agency rates from public UK agency pricing guides, Feb 2025. Ben Hogan rates reflect senior freelance pricing with no agency overhead.
Building native iOS and Android apps separately costs 2x. Cross-platform tech (like React Native) lets us build for both simultaneously, saving ~40% of the budget.
Basic API calls are cheap. But custom RAG pipelines, fine-tuning models, and vector databases add significant complexity and cost (£5k–£25k extra).
A simple database is standard. Real-time syncing, complex permission systems, video streaming, or payment processing increases backend development time.
Using standard UI components is cost-efficient. Fully custom, animated interfaces with unique branding (like this website) require dedicated design and engineering effort.
This is the biggest cost lever. Agencies charge for offices, account managers, sales teams, and junior developers. With me, you pay for code and expertise only — that's why I'm consistently 50% less.
Where does your money actually go?
£40k–£500k depending on scope
£8k–£250k depending on scope
Don't build everything at once. Build the core value proposition, launch, gather feedback, and then iterate. MVPs start from £8k with me vs £15k+ at an agency.
Technologies like React Native allow us to write 95% of the code once and deploy to both iOS and Android. It's the smart choice for most business apps.
Be clear on what must be in version 1. If budget is tight, we reduce scope, not quality. A buggy app is worth £0.
Tell me about your idea. I'll give you a straight, honest answer on cost & timeline within 24 hours. No sales pitch, no fluff.
UK agencies typically charge £15,000–£40,000 for a basic MVP and £40,000–£100,000 for a standard app. Working directly with me costs around 50% less — MVPs from £8,000, standard apps from £20,000, complex builds from £50,000. The saving comes from zero overhead: no account managers, no offices, no junior developers.
Yes — typically around 50% less for equivalent senior-level work. UK agencies charge a premium to cover account managers, offices, sales teams and overhead. When you hire me directly, every pound goes on code and expertise. You also get direct communication with the person actually building your app, which means faster decisions and fewer misunderstandings.
Three things make the biggest difference: start with an MVP (from £8k with me vs £15k+ at an agency), use cross-platform development (React Native or Flutter) to cover iOS and Android from a single codebase, and hire a senior UK freelancer rather than an agency. Combined, this approach typically saves 50–70% vs a full agency build without compromising quality.
A basic AI integration (ChatGPT API, simple chat interface) starts from around £10,000. A full AI-native app with RAG pipelines, custom knowledge bases and LLM integration typically costs £30,000–£75,000 with me — compared to £60,000–£150,000+ at a UK agency. I've spent 3+ years building my own private AI platform combining Claude, OpenAI, Grok and other LLMs, so this is a core specialism.
A focused MVP takes 4–8 weeks. A standard app with moderate features takes 2–4 months. A full cross-platform product with backend and AI integration typically takes 4–8 months. My AI-powered workflow means I typically deliver in around half the time of a traditional agency team — 1 day with me delivers what typically takes a team 2 weeks.