How much does an MVP cost?
A well-scoped MVP typically costs AED 30,000 to AED 80,000 and ships in 6 to 14 weeks. Below that band you are usually buying a prototype — useful for a demo, not for real users. Above it, you are probably building version two before version one has taught you anything.
The single biggest cost driver is feature count. Every additional core feature adds roughly AED 5,000 and most of a week. Founders who cut their MVP from ten features to five routinely halve both the budget and the time to first real user feedback — which is the entire point of building an MVP.
What belongs in an MVP — and what does not
The test is simple: can a user complete the core journey without this feature? If yes, it waits.
- Almost always in: authentication, the one workflow your product exists for, and a way to take money if you are charging from day one.
- Almost always out: social login on five providers, in-app chat, notification preference centres, multi-language support, dark mode, and an analytics dashboard for users.
- The honest middle: an admin panel. You need to see and fix data — but a spreadsheet export or a simple internal view often replaces AED 14,000 of custom admin tooling for the first three months.
Web first, or mobile first?
Web is cheaper, faster and has no app store review to wait on. If your users will realistically open a browser, start there. Go mobile-first when the product genuinely needs the phone: camera, location, offline use, push-driven habits, or a consumer audience that expects an icon on their home screen.
Building web and mobile together costs about 35% more than web alone because of the second front-end — the backend is shared. It is the right call when your launch depends on both, and the wrong call when you are guessing. More on our approach at MVP development in Dubai and validating an app idea.
Budget for what comes after launch
The build is the beginning. Set aside 20–30% of the MVP budget for the eight weeks after launch — the fixes, tweaks and small additions that come out of real usage. Founders who spend their entire budget on the build have no money left to act on what they learn, and that is the most expensive mistake in this whole process.
Also budget for the running costs: hosting, third-party APIs, and the app store developer accounts. Our startup budget calculator covers the full monthly picture, and the Firebase pricing calculator prices the most common MVP backend.