At least once a month someone contacts me and says: ‘I want to build an app.’ Sometimes they’ve got a clear problem they’re trying to solve. More often, they’ve seen a competitor do something similar or they’ve had an idea that sounds straightforward but becomes significantly more complex once we start talking through it.

I’m not going to tell you apps are a bad idea. We build them. But I am going to give you the honest version of what you’re getting into, because too many South African businesses have spent money on apps that didn’t need to exist.

The First Question Worth Asking

Can your website do this instead? A well-built WordPress site with the right plugins and integrations can handle bookings, payments, membership portals, lead capture, customer dashboards, and a lot of what people think they need a separate app for at a fraction of the cost and without requiring your clients to download anything.

People are increasingly reluctant to download apps for businesses they don’t use daily. If your service isn’t something a client interacts with multiple times a week, an app is a significant barrier between you and them. A great mobile-responsive website removes that barrier completely.

When an App Actually Makes Sense

• Your clients need to use it daily or near-daily a delivery tracking system, a loyalty programme, a scheduling tool they rely on routinely
• You need device-specific features GPS, camera, push notifications, offline functionality — that a website genuinely cannot replicate
• You have a large enough existing user base to justify the download and adoption hurdle
• You have budget for ongoing maintenance apps need to be updated for every major iOS and Android release, which is a recurring cost people frequently underestimate

What It Actually Costs

A basic app built properly not a template or a no-code tool, but something functional, secure, and submitted to the app stores starts at around R80,000 to R120,000 for a simple single-purpose app. Anything with real complexity, a backend, user accounts, or payment processing is going to be significantly more.

The ongoing costs include hosting the backend, app store fees, developer time for updates, and support. These aren’t optional an unmaintained app becomes a security risk and eventually stops working as operating systems update.

💡 Before you budget for an app, budget for three years of running it. If you can’t sustain it for three years, you’re building a project, not a product.

My Honest Recommendation

Come and talk to us before you make any decisions. In most cases, we can solve the underlying problem you’re trying to address better than you expected with a well-built website. In the cases where an app genuinely is the right answer, we’ll tell you that too, along with an honest estimate of what it will take.

We’d rather give you the right solution than the most expensive one.