Almost every week, someone emails us asking for a price quote for their app. We respond the same way every time: we need a call first. Here is why we will not quote a number without one, what that call is for, and how the final number usually lands.

Why we do not quote from an email

An email describing your app is missing the information that drives 80% of a build's cost: who is on your team, how decisions get made, what is already built, what "done" means to you, and what your real timeline looks like. A two-line difference in scope ("and we also need a payment integration") can swing the price by 50%. A misunderstanding about who supplies designs can change the team composition entirely.

If we gave you a number from your email, two things would happen. Either the number would be inflated to cover the worst case (and you would go elsewhere) or it would be optimistic (and one of us would get hurt when reality arrived). Neither outcome serves you. So we insist on the call.

What happens on the call

The first call is thirty minutes. We ask five things:

  1. What are you building? Two sentences, no jargon.
  2. Why now? What changes if this exists in six months?
  3. What is already built? Designs, prototypes, existing code, user research.
  4. What does "done" look like? Specific outcomes, not vague goals.
  5. What is your real timeline and budget? Honest numbers. We will not judge.

After the call we either say "this is not a fit, here are three other studios that might help" or we send a short proposal within two business days.

How we price

Our projects fall into three bands:

  • Diagnostic sprint (1-2 weeks). A small, scoped engagement. We audit your existing code, prototype a risky feature, or write a technical specification. Fixed price.
  • Standard build (6-12 weeks). A new product or a major feature. Fixed price, three milestone payments.
  • Ongoing partnership (monthly). Continuous development, retainer. Monthly fee, capped hours.

The numbers below are illustrative; actual pricing depends on scope, complexity, and team composition. We share ranges on the call, not in marketing copy, because every project is different.

What makes a project expensive

The biggest cost drivers, in rough order:

  1. Integration with legacy systems. Old databases, SOAP APIs, on-prem infrastructure. Every integration is a small project of its own.
  2. Compliance requirements. PCI, HIPAA, SOC 2. Each adds both one-time setup and ongoing audit work.
  3. Custom design work. A bespoke design system takes weeks. A pre-built one (Tailwind UI, shadcn/ui) takes hours.
  4. Real-time features. Live chat, collaboration, real-time dashboards. All technically possible, all significantly more complex than their non-real-time equivalents.
  5. Mobile apps. Two platforms, two app stores, two sets of updates. Doubles the surface area.

If you can avoid one or more of these, the price drops noticeably.

What makes a project cheaper

The biggest cost reducers, in rough order:

  1. A clear, written scope. "User can sign up, view their dashboard, and update their profile" is cheap. "Users can do stuff" is not.
  2. Pre-built design system. Tailwind UI, shadcn/ui, Material UI. Skips weeks of design work.
  3. Standard features. Auth, payments, CRUD dashboards — all well-trodden. Custom algorithms, novel interfaces — not.
  4. A responsive client. When you can answer questions in hours instead of days, the project moves faster.
  5. Serverless architecture. No DevOps to manage, no servers to provision. Trades some flexibility for speed.

What we will not do

We have turned down projects that ask us to:

  • Match another agency's quote. Race-to-the-bottom pricing produces poor outcomes. We are not the cheapest studio.
  • Skip the design phase. "Just build it from a one-line description" produces code we cannot be proud of.
  • Sign an NDA before a call. We protect your ideas, but a blanket NDA is a red flag for misalignment.
  • Take equity instead of cash. We charge cash for build work. Equity discussions belong in a separate conversation, after a working product exists.

If any of these are deal-breakers for you, we will happily recommend another studio.

What our pricing actually looks like

For transparency, here are typical ranges for our project types, in USD:

  • Diagnostic sprint (1-2 weeks): $4,000-$8,000, fixed price. Includes a written deliverable.
  • Standard build (6-12 weeks): $25,000-$80,000, fixed price. Three milestone payments (30% start, 40% mid, 30% delivery).
  • Ongoing partnership: $8,000-$15,000 per month, capped hours. Most clients use 60-80% of the cap.

These numbers are real for 2026, but they will drift with inflation and market rates. The point is not the exact number; the point is the structure: fixed price for defined work, retainer for ongoing work, no open-ended hourly billing.

Why we do fixed price, not hourly

Hourly billing punishes efficiency. If we get faster at what we do, we earn less. That is the wrong incentive. Fixed pricing aligns our interests with yours: we get paid the same amount regardless of how long it takes, so we have every reason to be efficient.

The trade-off: fixed price requires us to estimate accurately, which requires understanding the scope. Which is why we insist on the call. A fixed price for an undefined scope is a recipe for disaster.

What "fixed price" actually means

Fixed price does not mean the scope never changes. It means the agreed-upon scope has a price. If the scope changes, the price changes too, through a written change order.

This protects both sides. You know that the work you asked for will not cost more. We know that adding new work will be paid for. Most projects have two or three change orders during their lifetime. They are normal and fine.

How milestone payments work

For a standard build, we split the work into three milestones:

  • Milestone 1 (30%): Project kickoff. We align on the spec, set up the infrastructure, build the design system, deliver the first vertical slice.
  • Milestone 2 (40%): Mid-project. The core features are built, the app is testable, you have a working product to show stakeholders.
  • Milestone 3 (30%): Final delivery. Polishing, deployment, knowledge transfer, post-launch support window.

Each milestone has a clear deliverable. You sign off, we invoice, you pay. We do not start the next milestone until the current one is signed off.

How to talk to us if you are price-sensitive

We understand that price is a real constraint. Here are three ways to make a project more affordable without sacrificing quality:

  1. Reduce scope. "User can sign up and view their dashboard" is much cheaper than "users can sign up, view their dashboard, invite friends, share, comment, and receive notifications." Ship t

    Further reading

    Pricing software work is partly craft and partly context. For the data behind our numbers we point to industry surveys; for the project-management framework behind our process we point to the Management Project Association.

    • PMI Pulse of the Profession — PMI’s annual global survey on project management, used here as one of the public benchmarks for software delivery effort.
    • Standish Group CHAOS report — the long-running CHAOS report data on software project success rates, scope creep, and overrun factors.
    • About the Mangobaz team — where we publish our own background, our prior projects, and the working context that informs the estimates behind the numbers in this article.
    he smallest useful thing first.
  2. Provide designs. If you already have Figma files from a designer, we skip the design phase and the price drops.
  3. Be flexible on timeline. A nine-month project at the same scope is cheaper per week than a three-month project, because we can spread the team across multiple clients.

All three are honest trades. We would rather you ship something useful at a price you can afford than stall on a perfect plan that never gets built.

What we are not

We are not the cheapest studio, the fastest studio, or the biggest studio. We are a small team that ships thoughtful, well-engineered products for clients who care about quality. Our pricing reflects that.

If you are comparing agencies, make sure you are comparing similar scopes and similar deliverables. A studio that quotes a third of our price is probably cutting corners you cannot see in the proposal — testing, accessibility, security, documentation, post-launch support. Those costs show up later.

FAQ

Do you work with international clients?

Yes. About 70% of our projects are with clients outside Pakistan. We work async-friendly across time zones and use video calls to keep everyone aligned.

Do you take small projects?

Yes, in the form of a diagnostic sprint. A two-week engagement that produces a concrete deliverable (an audit report, a prototype, a spec). It is the lowest-risk way to start working together.

What if my scope changes mid-project?

Change happens. We handle it through a written change order, with the price and timeline impact agreed before the new work starts. Surprise changes mid-project are the biggest cause of bad outcomes; the change order process prevents them.

Do you sign NDAs?

Yes, mutual NDAs after a serious conversation, before any confidential material is shared. We do not sign pre-proposal NDAs because they are usually broader than they need to be.

Can you send a proposal today?

Yes, after a call. We can usually turn around a short proposal within two business days.

How to evaluate a studio

You should interview us the way we interview you. The questions that matter:

  • Show me three recent projects. Live URLs, ideally with the client's permission to talk about trade-offs.
  • Who will actually work on my project? Senior partners in the pitch, juniors on the work is a classic bait-and-switch. Make sure the people you meet are the people who will deliver.
  • How do you handle disagreements? Scope, design, technical approach — all sources of friction. The answer should include a process, not "we'll figure it out".
  • What happens after launch? Bug fixes, monitoring, iteration. If the answer is "we hand it off and disappear", walk away.
  • What is your hourly rate? Even with fixed-price projects, knowing the rate tells you how they think about efficiency.

A studio that balks at any of these questions is not the right studio. A studio that answers them well, with specifics rather than generalities, probably is.

If you are evaluating studios, we are happy to be one of the options you consider. We might not be the right fit — and that is okay.

Whichever studio you end up choosing, we hope the engagement goes well. The work is hard enough without picking the wrong partner.

If you have a project in mind, send us a brief description through the contact form and we will set up a call.

Next step

If you have a project in mind, send us a brief description through the contact form and we will set up a thirty-minute call. No commitment, no NDA, no obligation. Just a conversation about what you are building and whether we are the right studio for it.