Key takeaway: In August 2026, published prices for app UI design run from $0 (Google Stitch, free while it sits in Google Labs) to $10,000–$40,000 for a single mobile app project at Funky Rabbit, one of the few agencies that publishes a rate card. GenDesigns sits at the bottom of the paid tier at $10 per month, with no free plan and credits that never expire.
Most articles about app design cost give you a range. "$5,000 to $50,000." That range is technically correct and completely useless, because it contains every possible answer.
This post does something different. Every number below is a price somebody actually publishes, on a page you can open right now. Where a vendor hides its pricing, we say so instead of guessing. Where two sources disagree, we show both instead of averaging them into a number nobody quoted.
If what you want is the reasoning behind the ranges — why the same brief gets quoted at $500 and $50,000, what scope actually drives cost — read our companion piece on what app design costs and why first. This post is the reference table you check afterwards.
Disclosure: GenDesigns is our product, and it appears in the comparison below. Every competitor price here comes from that company's own published page, linked inline so you can check it. Our own pricing gets its own honest section, including what we don't offer.
Want your own number instead of the market's? The App Design Cost Calculator is free, takes 60 seconds, and needs no signup.
How we gathered these prices
Plainly, so you know what you're reading:
- Every figure is a price as published in August 2026 on a public pricing page, a marketplace cost guide, or a salary aggregator.
- We did not solicit quotes. Nobody at GenDesigns emailed an agency pretending to be a client. Where an agency does not publish prices, it does not appear in the table.
- Where a vendor's pricing page renders client-side and we could not read the numbers directly, we say so and attribute the figure to whoever reported it. Those cases are collected in a section near the end.
- Prices change. Check the linked source before you budget against anything here.
That third rule cost us two entries. We think an honest gap beats a confident guess, particularly in a post about money.
The comparison table
Every option name links to the page the price came from.
| Option | Published price (Aug 2026) | What you get | What it does not include |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Stitch | $0, no paid tier | Prompt-to-UI generation, Figma paste, code export | Any guarantee it stays free or stays alive; it's a Labs experiment |
| GenDesigns | From $10/mo | Multi-screen mobile app generation, project-wide theme, HTML/Tailwind export | Any free tier at all — you pay before you generate anything |
| Uizard Pro | $12/mo billed annually | 500 AI generations/mo, 100 projects, React + CSS handoff | Free tier is 3 generations/month |
| Figma Professional | $16/mo full seat | The industry-standard design tool, 3,000 AI credits/mo | A designer. You still have to do the design |
| Sleek Starter | $20/mo billed yearly | 3,000 AI credits ≈ 100 screens, 5 projects, unlimited exports | Monthly billing at that price |
| App Alchemy Starter | $29.99/mo | 4 apps, 3,000 AI credits/mo, template cloning | A free trial |
| v0 Plus | $30/user/mo | $30 of credits per user, all models, team sharing | Credits that last: monthly credits expire after 65 days |
| Fiverr app design gig | $185–$717 fixed price | A human designer, a finished set of screens | Strategy, research, revisions beyond the package |
| Freelancer via Upwork | $20–$40/hr for a UI designer | Direct collaboration, flexible scope | Upwork's 5% client service fee and contract initiation fee |
| Freelancer via Toptal | $79/mo platform subscription + hourly | Pre-vetted senior talent, two-week trial period | A published hourly rate card — Toptal doesn't have one |
| Studio Contrast design sprint | $5,149 flat | Two-week sprint across brand, UI/UX or web | A full product. It's a trial engagement |
| Funky Rabbit mobile app design | $10,000–$40,000 | Native iOS + Android product UI, onboarding through settings | Development. This is design only |
| Studio Contrast app project | $15,000–$50,000 | IA, user flows, wireframes, hi-fi UI, design system, dev handoff package | Build. Delivery is 1–3 months of design |
| UX Team dedicated project | $15,000–$100,000+ | Fixed-price dedicated team, defined scope | Ongoing work — that's their $10,000–$20,000/mo retainer |
| Schedars MVP | From $25,000 fixed bid | Design system, 3–5 key screens, and a shipped single-platform app | Multi-platform, 10+ screens (that tier starts at $60,000) |
| In-house product designer | $112,341/yr average | A designer who learns your product and stays | Everything payroll adds on top of base salary |
Two things jump out of that table.
The first is that the gap between the cheapest paid AI subscription ($10/month) and the cheapest published agency app project ($10,000) is a factor of a thousand per month — and roughly 83x over a full year. That is not a small preference difference. It is a different category of decision.
The second is that the agency numbers are remarkably consistent once you find agencies willing to publish them. Funky Rabbit's $10k–$40k for mobile app design and Studio Contrast's $15k–$50k for an app UI/UX project overlap almost perfectly. When people say "app design costs $5,000 to $150,000," the $5,000 end is a Fiverr package and the $150,000 end is an enterprise program. The actual mid-market, from studios that will tell you their price without a sales call, is $10,000 to $50,000.
The agencies that publish their prices
This is the part of the market that's hardest to research, because almost nobody posts a number. Funky Rabbit is blunt about why that's annoying:
"You should not need a 30-minute screen-share to learn that a brand identity engagement starts in the mid-five-figure range." — funky-rabbit.com/pricing
Here is what the four studios we found with public rate cards actually charge.
Funky Rabbit
Published, dated, fixed-fee, USD (source):
| Engagement | Price |
|---|---|
| Visual identity | $6,000–$18,000 |
| UI/UX design | $8,000–$30,000 |
| Web design | $5,000–$25,000 |
| Mobile app design | $10,000–$40,000 |
| Motion design | $3,000–$12,000 |
| Enterprise / multi-surface | $50,000+ |
The mobile app range is described as "lower bound for a clean MVP brief; upper bound for a multi-tab consumer app with a custom design system."
Studio Contrast
Milestone-billed, 30–50% upfront (source):
| Engagement | Price |
|---|---|
| 2-week design sprint | $5,149 |
| Apps (UI & UX) | $15,000–$50,000 |
| Brand identity | $10,000–$25,000 |
| Websites | $10,000–$35,000 |
| Pitch decks | $3,000–$5,000 |
| Fractional design support | $10,317/month |
Their app tier explicitly lists what's inside: requirements mapping, information architecture, user flows, wireframes for all core screens, hi-fi UI, a design system with Figma tokens, interaction design, and a developer handoff package. Delivery is one to three months. That's the scope an agency quote is buying — worth holding next to any cheaper number you're comparing it against.
UX Team
Four pricing models rather than one (source):
| Model | Price |
|---|---|
| Project-based dedicated team | $15,000–$100,000+ |
| Recurring dedicated team | $10,000–$20,000/month |
| On-demand UX | $4,500–$7,500/month |
| Mix and match UX | $15,000–$20,000 |
Schedars
Worth including as a contrast, because Schedars prices design and build together (source): an MVP starts at $25,000 fixed bid and includes a design system, three to five key screens, a single platform, analytics, and 30 days of post-launch support, delivered in six to ten weeks. A full SaaS or custom web product starts at $60,000. A retainer starts at $8,000/month.
If you're comparing a $15,000 design-only quote to a $25,000 design-and-ship quote, they are not the same purchase. The first one leaves you needing developers.
Freelance marketplaces: the sticker price is not the price
What Upwork itself says
Upwork publishes an hourly rate table by design role. For UI designers it lists a $20–$40/hour rate on Upwork against a $132,000 median annual salary for the same title. Interaction designers run $40–$90/hour against a $160,000 median (source).
Its general rate guide is broader: entry-level and administrative roles at $10–$25/hour, intermediate professionals at $25–$75/hour, and highly specialized development, AI and consulting work at $75–$150+/hour (source).
Then the fees. On Upwork's free Basic plan, clients pay a 5% service fee on top of what the freelancer bills, rising to 10% on Business Plus, plus a one-time contract initiation fee of $0.99 to $14.99 per new contract (source, fee detail). A $6,000 project on Basic is really $6,300 plus change.
What Fiverr itself says
Fiverr publishes two cost pages, and they do not agree with each other.
Its UI/UX designer cost guide, citing Fiverr's own marketplace data, puts app design fixed project pricing at $185–$717, website UI/UX at $103–$327 fixed or $17–$72/hour, and landing pages at $103–$121. Further down the same page, a project-type breakdown lists Mobile App UI Design at $400–$1,200.
Its app design cost page says something else entirely: hourly rates of $25–$180 and full projects from $35 to $9,000.
We are not picking a winner. The point is that the single largest freelance marketplace on earth publishes two different answers to the same question on two of its own pages, which is a reasonable summary of why "how much does app design cost" is such a frustrating search.
What Toptal says (and doesn't)
Toptal's own FAQ confirms one number: a flat $79/month subscription fee, charged once you proceed with talent matching, cancellable at any time, alongside a trial period of up to two weeks that you aren't billed for if you're not satisfied (source).
What Toptal does not publish is an hourly rate card. A 2026 review of the platform states it directly: "No published rate card. Rates run $60 to $200+ per hour with a markup of up to 50% embedded invisibly. Clients only see the blended number" (Tecla). A separate 2026 breakdown puts the typical range at $60–$150+/hour with a $500 refundable deposit (South).
Both of those are secondary sources reporting on a company that declines to publish, so treat them as reported figures rather than quoted ones. The $79/month is the only Toptal number we can point at on Toptal's own site.
For a broader benchmark, goLance publishes a 2026 freelance UI/UX rate guide with tiers at $30–$55/hour junior, $55–$100 mid-level, $100–$175 senior, and $175–$285 expert, plus its own 7.95% platform fee (source).
Hiring in-house: the job title moves the number by $45,000
If you're modelling a full-time designer, the number you pick matters enormously, and the public sources are far apart.
| Source | Role | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Glassdoor | Product Designer | $119K median total pay; $92K–$156K range; $73K–$120K base |
| Salary.com | Product Designer | $112,341 average (as of 1 June 2026); $103,538–$124,969 mid-range |
| Salary.com | Mobile Application Designer | $66,694 average, $32/hour (as of 1 June 2026) |
The two Product Designer figures are close, at $112K and $119K. But change the job title to "Mobile Application Designer" and the same aggregator, on the same date, returns $66,694. That is $45,647 less — 41% lower — for what most founders would describe as the same job.
The practical lesson: when someone quotes you an in-house salary benchmark, ask which title they benchmarked. And remember these are base and total pay figures, not the cost of employment. Payroll taxes, benefits, equipment, and software seats all sit on top.
AI design tool subscriptions
Published monthly prices, August 2026:
| Tool | Free tier | Cheapest paid | Next tier | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Stitch | Yes, entirely free | No paid tier exists | — | Google Labs |
| GenDesigns | No | $10/mo | — | Our own pricing |
| Uizard | 3 generations/mo | $12/mo (annual) | $39/mo Business | uizard.io |
| Figma | Starter, limited | $16/mo full seat | $55/mo Organization | figma.com |
| Sleek | Trial credits, 1 project | $20/mo (yearly) | $30/mo Pro (yearly) | sleek.design |
| App Alchemy | No | $29.99/mo | $49.99/mo Pro | appalchemy.ai |
| v0 by Vercel | $5 credits, 7 msgs/day | $30/user/mo Plus | $100/user/mo Business | v0.app |
A few notes on the entries that need them.
Google Stitch is free and that is not a typo. It's a Google Labs experiment, redesigned in March 2026 into an "AI-native software design canvas" with an infinite canvas, a design agent, and DESIGN.md import/export (Google's announcement). There is no paid tier. Usage is capped by monthly generation limits instead, and those limits have moved: one March 2026 write-up reported 350 standard plus 200 pro generations per month (NxCode), while a later hands-on reported 350 standard plus roughly 50 experimental (XDA). We could not verify a current figure from Google, so treat the caps as unconfirmed and the $0 as the only solid number.
Sleek's headline price depends on the billing toggle. Its pricing page shows Pro at $30/mo billed yearly; its agent-integration page states the same plan as "$49.99/month, or $30/month billed yearly" (sleek.design/agents). Both are the same plan. Annual commitment is doing the work.
v0's monthly credits expire. Vercel's own docs state that unused monthly credits roll over to the next billing cycle and then expire after 65 days, while purchased credits expire one year after purchase and require an active paid plan to use (v0 docs). If you buy a plan and have a slow quarter, you lose the balance.
If you want the quality side of this comparison rather than the price side, we tested 15 of these tools against one identical prompt in Best AI App Design Tools 2026, and the tools with genuinely usable free tiers are collected in Free AI Prototype Generators.
The hidden costs people miss
Every claim in this section has a source. Where the source is a vendor with a commercial interest, we say so.
1. Design is only a fifth of the money
Three independent agency cost breakdowns published in 2026 put design at a similar share of total app spend:
| Source | Discovery | Design | Development | QA/testing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chop Dawg | — | 15–25% | 40–55% | 10–20% |
| DBB Software | 10–15% | 15–25% | 40–55% | 10–15% |
| OpenForge | 10–15% | 20–25% | 40–55% | 15–20% |
All three are app development agencies quoting their own experience, so read them as informed vendor estimates rather than independent research. But they converge: whatever you pay for design, expect to pay roughly two to three times that again to build it. A $20,000 design engagement implies a build budget somewhere north of $50,000.
Chop Dawg also puts ongoing maintenance at 15–20% of original development cost annually, and states that 70% of projects exceed their initial budget through scope creep.
2. Marketplace fees, subscriptions and deposits
The rate is not the invoice.
- Upwork Basic: +5% on every payment, plus $0.99–$14.99 per new contract (Upwork). Business Plus is +10%.
- Toptal: $79/month platform subscription that continues until you cancel it (Toptal).
- goLance: 7.95%, which the platform describes as shareable between client and freelancer (goLance).
3. Handoff means seats for people who don't design
If your designer works in Figma, your engineers need Figma access to read the specs. Figma prices that separately: a Dev seat is $12/month on Professional and $25/month on Organization, on top of the $16 or $55 full seat your designer occupies (Figma pricing). A designer plus five engineers on Professional is $76/month before anyone has designed anything. On Organization it's $180/month.
4. Revision rounds are a finite, scoped line item
Even at agencies that publish transparent pricing, revisions are counted. Studio Contrast's website tier explicitly includes "2 rounds of revisions" in the deliverable list (source). That's normal and healthy — unlimited revisions usually means undefined scope — but if you're mentally budgeting for five rounds of feedback, the third one onward may be billable.
5. Credit-based AI tools bill twice
Subscription plus consumption is now the standard model for AI design tools, and the plan fee is the floor rather than the price. v0's credits expire after 65 days. Uizard meters by AI generation, with the free tier capped at 3 per month (Uizard). Lovable's own docs describe free, Pro and Business plans as each including 5 daily build credits that reset at 00:00 UTC and do not roll over, with Free capped at 30 per calendar month (Lovable docs).
Before you commit to any credit-metered tool, find the answer to three questions: do unused credits roll over, do they expire, and what happens to them if you cancel.
Two prices we could not verify
We said we'd flag these rather than guess.
Lovable. Lovable's pricing page renders its numbers client-side, so we could not read them from the source. Lovable's own documentation confirms the structure — a Free plan with 5 daily build credits capped at 30 a month, plus Pro and Business plans starting from 100 monthly subscription credits (Lovable docs) — but not the dollar amounts. Two independent 2026 write-ups both report Pro at $25/month and Business at $50/month (Layer3 Labs, HostAdvice). We've left those figures out of the main table because we could not confirm them against Lovable.
ScreensDesign. We found two incompatible third-party figures — $29/month for 50 screens on a competitor's comparison page, and $15/month on a software directory — and no readable primary source. We're not publishing either.
Where GenDesigns actually sits
Disclosure: GenDesigns is our product. Everything above is sourced from other companies' published pages; this section is us describing our own pricing, and you should weigh it accordingly.
GenDesigns is paid-only. There is no free tier and no trial. New accounts get zero free credits. If you want to see what it produces before paying, you'll have to rely on our examples and the tool comparison, because we don't offer a way to test it for nothing. That's a genuine disadvantage against Google Stitch (free), Uizard (3 generations a month), v0 ($5 of credits), and Figma's Starter plan.
What we do offer, against the numbers in this post:
- $10/month is the cheapest paid entry point in the table. Uizard Pro is $12 and requires annual billing. Figma Professional is $16. Sleek Starter is $20 with a yearly commitment. App Alchemy Starter is $29.99. v0 Plus is $30.
- Credits never expire. They roll over, and you keep them if you cancel. That is a deliberate contrast with v0's 65-day expiry and Lovable's non-rolling daily credits.
- Yearly billing gives four months free, which is the same structure App Alchemy uses (five months free) and Uizard uses (40% off).
Against an agency, the comparison is not close on price and not close on scope either. Studio Contrast's $15,000–$50,000 buys information architecture, user research, a design system with tokens, and a human being accountable for the outcome. GenDesigns buys screens. If the thing you need is a strategist who will challenge your product assumptions, $10/month is not a substitute for $25,000, and pretending otherwise would be the kind of overclaim this post exists to avoid.
The honest framing is the one we've used before: use AI to get to a credible visual fast, then spend real money on the parts where it runs out. That argument is laid out properly in what to do when you can't afford a designer, and it's the pattern most of the founders we talk to end up on.
How to use these numbers
- Decide which purchase you're making. Screens, a design system, or a shipped app. The table above prices three different things and most quote confusion comes from comparing across categories.
- Add the fees before comparing. A $6,000 Upwork project is $6,300+. A three-month Toptal engagement carries $237 in subscription fees before a single hour is billed.
- Multiply for the build. If three agency breakdowns all put design at 15–25% of app spend, your design quote is roughly a quarter of the real number.
- Get a project-specific figure. Our App Design Cost Calculator is free, has no signup, and takes your screen count and complexity into account rather than handing you a market-wide range.
- Read the ranges piece for the reasoning. How much app design costs in 2026 explains why these numbers spread the way they do. The two posts are meant to be read together: that one is the explanation, this one is the reference.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to design an app in 2026?
Based on published prices in August 2026, an app design project costs $0 if you use Google Stitch, $10 to $30 per month if you use an AI design subscription like GenDesigns, Uizard or Sleek, $185 to $1,200 for a Fiverr package, and $10,000 to $50,000 for a project with a design agency that publishes its rates, such as Funky Rabbit ($10,000–$40,000 for mobile app design) or Studio Contrast ($15,000–$50,000 for an app UI/UX project). The spread reflects genuinely different purchases, not different prices for the same thing.
Which design agencies publish their prices publicly?
Very few. In our August 2026 research, we found four with public rate cards: Funky Rabbit ($10,000–$40,000 for mobile app design), Studio Contrast ($15,000–$50,000 for an app project, plus a $5,149 two-week sprint), UX Team ($15,000–$100,000+ for a project-based dedicated team), and Schedars (from $25,000 for a design-and-build MVP). Most agencies require a discovery call before quoting, which is why almost every article about app design cost gives you a range instead of a price.
What does Upwork actually charge clients for design work?
Upwork lists UI designers at $20 to $40 per hour and interaction designers at $40 to $90 per hour on its own highest-paying design jobs page. On top of the freelancer's rate, clients on the free Basic plan pay a 5% service fee on every payment plus a one-time contract initiation fee of $0.99 to $14.99 per contract. Business Plus clients pay 10%. Eligible US clients paying by bank account can qualify for a reduced rate.
Is Google Stitch really free for app design?
Yes, as of August 2026. Stitch is a Google Labs experiment with no paid tier — you sign in with a Google account and start designing. Usage is limited by monthly generation caps rather than by price, and those caps have changed more than once since launch, with different write-ups in 2026 reporting different numbers. Because it is a Labs experiment, there is no commitment that it stays free or stays available.
Does GenDesigns have a free trial?
No. GenDesigns is paid-only, with plans starting at $10 per month and zero free credits on signup. There is no free tier and no trial. In exchange, credits roll over, never expire, and stay in your account if you cancel your subscription. If you specifically need to test an AI design tool without paying, Google Stitch is free, Uizard's free plan includes 3 AI generations a month, and v0's free plan includes $5 of credits.
Is it cheaper to hire a freelancer or use an AI design tool?
On sticker price, AI tools win by a wide margin: $10 to $30 a month against $185 to $717 for a single Fiverr app design package or $20 to $40 an hour for an Upwork UI designer. The comparison stops being simple when you need strategy, original brand work, or someone accountable for the result, because those are the parts AI tools don't cover. The most common approach we see is generating base screens with AI, then paying a freelancer to refine the few screens that carry the most weight.
How much of an app budget goes to design versus development?
Three 2026 agency cost breakdowns converge on similar figures: design takes 15–25% of total app spend, development takes 40–55%, QA takes 10–20%, and discovery takes 10–15%. All three sources are app development agencies estimating from their own project history rather than independent research, so treat the numbers as informed vendor estimates. The practical implication holds regardless: your design quote is roughly a quarter of what the finished app will cost.
Tools & resources:
- App Design Cost Calculator — free, no signup, 60 seconds
- UI Prompt Generator — free prompt builder for AI design tools
Related reading:
- How Much App Design Costs in 2026 — the reasoning behind the ranges, and the companion to this reference table
- 15 Best AI App Design Tools in 2026 — same tools, judged on output rather than price
- Free AI Prototype Generators — the options that cost nothing
- When You Can't Afford a Designer — how to stretch a small design budget