With €10,000 including VAT, you are left with €8,264 of actual work: a single-flow app, one platform, and minimal backend. What fits, what falls out, and what costs extra later.
With €10,000 including VAT, it is possible to build an app: a single flow, one platform or a shared codebase using Flutter, minimal backend, and no long-term research. VAT takes €1,735.54, so the actual work budget is €8,264.46. This excludes two native apps, an admin panel, and the first year of maintenance.
The question almost always arrives the same way: "I have €10,000 and I want an app." The honest answer begins by breaking down that figure before even discussing features. Because €10,000 is not €10,000 worth of work.
First: Is that €10,000 including VAT?
This is the first fork in the road, and almost no proposal makes it clear. If your cap is €10,000 in total spending, and the studio invoices you from Spain under the general VAT rate, the taxable base is €8,264.46. The other €1,735.54 belongs to the tax office, not the project.
If you are a company or a freelancer subject to VAT, you can deduct it and the effective cost returns to €8,264.46. If you are an association, an exempt clinic, or an individual, you don't: you pay €10,000 for €8,264.46 of work. The difference is 21%, and it dictates the project scope.
Translated into hours, with an explicit estimate: at €60/hour—a standard rate for a small Spanish studio—€8,264.46 is about 137 hours. That is little more than three and a half weeks for one person full-time. This is an estimate, not a market fact: change the rate, and everything changes.
| Item | Figure | Note |
|---|---|---|
| VAT applied | 17 | €1,735.54 · art. 90 Act 37/1992 |
| Product and interface design | 25 | — |
| Client development | 38 | — |
| Backend, integrations, and publishing | 20 | — |
— = data being measured; we will publish it once we have our own sample.
What really fits into that figure
With €8,264.46 of work, you can build an app. One. With a single main flow and not much else:
- One platform, or two with a shared codebase (Flutter, React Native). Not two separate native apps.
- One complete central flow: sign-up, the action that provides value, and little else. A catalog, a booking feature, or logging a reading.
- Authentication handled via a managed service, not built from scratch.
- Minimal backend supported by a data-server service, not a custom API with its own deployment.
- Design based on an existing component system, adapted with your grid, typographic rhythm, and color palette. Not a complete identity from scratch.
- App store publication and the handover: code, source files, and documentation.
That is a real product, publishable and usable. It is not a finished product: it is the first honest version of one.
What is not included, and it is worth knowing before signing
- Two independent native developments in Swift and Kotlin.
- A web admin panel. In practice, this is a second product.
- In-app purchases with all their complexities: refunds, subscriptions, purchase restoration.
- Push notifications with segmentation and campaigns.
- Real-time messaging, maps with custom logic, offline synchronization.
- User research, moderated usability testing, and analytics setup and review.
- First-year maintenance.
- Audited accessibility compliance, if your service falls under the scope of Law 11/2023.
The industry standard: The industry includes all of the above in the proposal to win the comparison, and then cuts it silently during the project. The client discovers what is missing on launch day.
Our criteria: We write what is excluded on the same page as the price. We prefer to lose the project during the proposal stage than to lose it in week six.
Costs that the budget does not include because they are not the studio's
This is where €10,000 stops being €10,000. Publishing and maintaining an app has a recurring cost that is not charged by the builder.
Added to this are store commissions, if you charge inside the app. Apple applies 15% instead of 30% to those who billed up to one million dollars the previous year through the App Store Small Business Program.
And here appears something that Spanish pages covering this topic fail to mention: Google’s documentation contradicts itself depending on which paragraph you read. The same help page simultaneously describes a 15% bracket for the first million dollars in annual revenue and, for the European Economic Area, a different structure effective as of June 30, 2026, with service fees separated from a 5% billing fee. As of 08-27-2026, both descriptions coexist. If your model depends on the commission, check it yourself in your console before crunching numbers, not in an article.
Platform fees and commissions verified on 08-27-2026 in the official Apple and Google documentation. Google Play fees for the EEA are in transition as of June 30, 2026, and their public wording is not unambiguous. Check them again before closing a revenue model.
And then there are the recurring costs: server, database, domain, transactional email, certificates. Plus maintenance. A published app does not stay still: Apple and Google change SDK and privacy requirements every year, and an app that is not updated ends up being removed from the store.
How to stretch a €10,000 budget
Not by cutting quality. By cutting scope. It is the only honest lever.
| # | Phase | What we do | Deliverables |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Listen | We start by asking, not proposing. With this budget, the interview replaces extensive research. | Interviews · Audit · Agreed brief |
| 02 | Define | We agree on what winning means before moving a pixel. One measurable success criterion, not five. | Single objective · Closed scope · What is left out, in writing |
| 03 | Map | An entire flow drawn before designing any screens. | Flow map · Error states · Screen priority |
| 04 | Design | Adapted component system, not identity from scratch. | Grid · Typographic rhythm · Components |
| 05 | Build | Shared codebase and managed services where there is no advantage in building custom. | Your repository from day one · CI/CD · Publication |
| 06 | Launch and support | Launch is a checklist, not a leap of faith. | Store assets · Handover · 30 days of support |
Our digital products are organized in 8-week phases with a fixed price agreed upon before starting. No surprise hours. With €10,000 you don’t buy a complete team phase: you buy a narrower scope within that framework, and we say so before signing.
- The price explicitly states "plus VAT" or "VAT included"
- There is a written list of what is excluded from the scope
- The contract names the code, source files, and design in the transfer
- Apple and Google accounts are in your name, not the provider's
- The repository is yours and you have access from the first commit
- It is written what happens with maintenance from day 31 onwards
- It is stated who pays for the infrastructure during development
This list does not protect the studio, it protects you: it serves just as well for reading our budget as it does for reading the one from a competing provider.
Ten thousand euros is not a small amount of money: it is a scope. Whoever tells you that twenty screens, a panel, and payments fit in, either hasn’t done the math or plans to cut corners where you don’t see them. We prefer to show you the subtraction before we begin. Does this way of working suit you?
Frequently asked questions
Can I have the app on iOS and Android with €10,000?
Yes, with a shared codebase like Flutter and accepting that certain native details are resolved approximately. With two separate native developments, no: the budget is entirely spent on one of the two.
How long does a €10,000 app take?
Between six and ten calendar weeks if the scope is closed and there is one person making decisions on your end. If the decision goes through a committee, add weeks: time is consumed by validation, not code.
Is a PWA better for me than a store app?
If your product doesn’t need reliable notifications on iOS, advanced camera features, or a store presence as a channel, a PWA saves you platform fees and publication reviews. If you need any of those three things, it won’t work for you.
Does the €10,000 include maintenance?
In our case, it includes 30 days of support after launch. From then on, maintenance is quoted separately, and if you don’t want to hire us for it, we leave you the code, source files, and documentation so your team can continue without us.
What if I want to add a feature halfway through the project?
It is valued as a new phase, with its fixed price, and you decide if it goes in now or later. We don’t absorb scope in silence: that is what turns a €10,000 budget into a €16,000 invoice.
Keep reading
- How much does it cost and how long does it take to develop an app in Spain: native, hybrid, or PWA
- Native, hybrid, or PWA app: decision table with cost difference in euros
- How much do you really save with Flutter versus native? Our measurement
- Do website prices include VAT? How to read a quote as a freelancer or SME
- Who owns my website code? Intellectual property and work for hire in Spain
Transparency note. Some of our own data in this guide is still being measured on real projects, with a single method. We will publish it with its sample size and date range once the sample is large enough; until then, every figure you see carries its source and date of consultation.
Sources
- https://developer.apple.com/es/support/enrollment/ — Apple Developer Program annual fee: 99 USD (299 USD for Enterprise), charged in local currency and variable by region. Verified 08-27-2026.
- https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/6112435?hl=es — Google Play developer account registration fee: 25 USD, one-time payment. Verified 08-27-2026.
- https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/ — App Store Small Business Program: 15% commission vs 30% standard for those who billed up to 1 million USD in the previous calendar year. Verified 08-27-2026.
- https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/112622?hl=es — Google Play service fees. The page simultaneously describes the 15% bracket for the first million USD annually and a different structure for the EEA effective 06-30-2026 (service fee plus 5% billing fee). Contradiction documented in the article. Verified 08-27-2026.
- https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1992-28740 — Law 37/1992 on VAT (consolidated text). General rate of 21% applicable to design and development services, art. 90. Note: the consolidated excerpt provided by BOE did not return the text of art. 90 in this session; the figure is published with the normative reference visible for the reader to cross-reference.
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