800website is a Dubai web and app development agency. Here is the real timeline, including the parts outside anyone’s control.
How long does mobile app development take?
6 to 8 weeks for a standard iOS and Android app, from the point we have your content, brand assets and a signed-off screen list. Add one to three days for Apple review and usually less for Google Play.
Roughly: one week discovery and screen design, three to four weeks build, one week integration and testing on real devices, one week fixes and submission. Complex back ends, payment approvals or custom integrations extend the build phase specifically.
Two things sit outside the estimate. Payment gateway approval in the UAE requires a trade licence and corporate bank account and can take weeks — start it before the build. App Store review is Apple’s timeline, and first submissions get rejected more often than repeat ones, usually over privacy policy wording or account deletion requirements.
What can I do to keep it on schedule?
- Sign off the screen list before build starts. Adding a screen mid-build is AED 1,200 and costs days.
- Start the gateway application immediately if the app takes payments.
- Open your own Apple and Google developer accounts at the start — in your company name, not your agency’s.
- Have content ready. Product data, images, legal text. Missing content stalls apps exactly as it stalls websites.
- Nominate one decision maker. Committee review adds a week per round.
The single biggest accelerator is deciding what the app does not do in version one. Apps that ship are apps with a narrow first release.
What happens to my app after launch?
More than most people expect, and it is why apps have an ongoing cost. iOS and Android ship major versions every year and apps break against them. Store policies change and non-compliant apps get removed. Libraries need security updates.
Budget roughly 15 to 20 percent of the build cost per year to keep an app healthy. An app left untouched for two years typically needs substantial work before it will even submit to the stores again.
Our apps include 60 days of post-launch support. After that, maintenance is arranged as a retainer based on complexity.
Can it be built faster?
Reducing scope works. Adding people mostly does not — app work is sequential and the bottleneck is usually approvals and third-party dependencies rather than developer hours.
If you genuinely need something in two weeks, the honest answer is a mobile web app rather than a native build: one codebase, every device, no store review, no download step.
See our app development, published pricing, or talk to us.
Talk to us
800website is a Dubai web design and development agency with published fixed prices. Send the details and you get a fixed scope and a fixed price back — no hourly billing. Contact us, message us on WhatsApp, or call +971 58 578 5380.
