Data
Your quote says “Development: $9,000”. This page tells you what that number is made of. 41features, each with the build hours our estimation engine assigns it and what those hours cost in six regions at freelancer and agency medians — so you can check a quote line by line instead of against somebody's $10,000-to-$200,000 range.
Hours last tuned: 2026-04-09 · Rates last reviewed: 2026-07-16· All figures USD · CC BY 4.0
Quick Answer
A single website or web-app feature costs between 2 and 60 build hours, which is $270 to $8,100 at the United States freelance median of $135/hour and up to $13,920 at the US agency median of $232/hour. The cheapest line in the dataset is “Social — basic” at 2hours; the most expensive is “Multi-vendor marketplace” at 60hours, then “Third-party APIs — many” at 35 hours. Across all 41 features the dataset totals 473 hours. The same feature priced at a South/SE Asia freelance median ($31/hour) versus a US agency median swings 7.5x on identical scope — the hours do not move, the rate does.
Who is building it
Where they are based
Resolved rate: $232/hour — the median our engine uses for a agency on Custom / full-stack in United States.
Tick what is in your quote
| Line item | Hours | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| User accounts — basic | 8 | $1,856 |
| Contact form — basic | 2 | $464 |
| SEO — basic | 4 | $928 |
| Analytics — basic | 3 | $696 |
| Cookie / GDPR — basic | 3 | $696 |
| Feature development total | 20 | $4,640 |
This is the feature development line only — 20 hours × $232/hour. It deliberately excludes the base build for your project type, page and content scope, design, project management, QA, contingency and warranty. A real quote carries all of those, which is why this figure is a floor for the features you ticked and not a project price.
Add the rest and get the full estimateAlmost every published answer to “what does a web app cost” is a range between roughly $10,000 and $200,000, and almost every one of them is written by a company that would like to build it for you. A range that wide cannot tell you whether your specific quote is fair, because your quote is not a range — it is a number, usually attached to a one-line description. The only way to test it is to decompose it: a build is a stack of features, each of which takes a fairly predictable number of hours, multiplied by a rate that varies enormously by who and where. In our dataset the feature hours span 2 to 60 — a 30x range across 41 features — while the hourly rate spans $31 to $232 on the custom/full-stack row alone, a 7x range. Rate, not scope, is usually what separates two quotes for the same brief, and that is a negotiable fact about sourcing rather than a verdict on what you asked for.
Take a lean product MVP carrying 7 of the features in this table — User accounts — advanced, Multiple payment methods, Search — basic, Third-party APIs — a few, Analytics — advanced, Forms — advanced and Cookie / GDPR — basic. That is 62 hours of feature work. At the United States agency median of $232/hour those lines come to $14,384; the identical 62 hours bought from an Eastern European freelancer at $52/hour come to $3,224. Neither figure is the project price: on top of the feature lines sits the base build for the project type, the page and content scope, design, project management, QA, contingency and warranty, which is where most of the remaining budget goes and why an MVP quote lands well above the feature subtotal. What the decomposition gives you is the part of the quote you can actually argue about with specifics.
Build hours, then development cost at the freelancer median in each region, on the custom/full-stack rate row. Agency medians run about 1.7x these figures — switch tier in the estimator above to see them.
| Feature | Hours | South / SE Asia | Eastern Europe | Western Europe | United Kingdom | Australia | United States |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accounts, search & core app | |||||||
| User accounts — basicEmail and password sign-up, login, password reset, session handling. | 8 | $248 | $416 | $840 | $960 | $960 | $1,080 |
| User accounts — advancedSocial or SSO login, roles and permissions, two-factor, account management screens. | 15 | $465 | $780 | $1,575 | $1,800 | $1,800 | $2,025 |
| Search — basicKeyword search over your own content, with a results page. | 3 | $93 | $156 | $315 | $360 | $360 | $405 |
| Search — advancedFaceted filters, sorting, autocomplete, relevance tuning, usually on a dedicated search service. | 14 | $434 | $728 | $1,470 | $1,680 | $1,680 | $1,890 |
| Booking / schedulingAvailability calendar, slot logic, booking confirmation and reminder flow. | 16 | $496 | $832 | $1,680 | $1,920 | $1,920 | $2,160 |
| Multi-vendor marketplaceSeller onboarding, per-vendor dashboards, commission logic and split payouts. The single largest line in the dataset. | 60 | $1,860 | $3,120 | $6,300 | $7,200 | $7,200 | $8,100 |
| Ecommerce & payments | |||||||
| Multiple payment methodsMore than one gateway or method (cards plus wallets, BNPL, bank transfer) with their separate flows. | 12 | $372 | $624 | $1,260 | $1,440 | $1,440 | $1,620 |
| Multi-currencyCurrency switching, rate handling and per-currency price display. | 8 | $248 | $416 | $840 | $960 | $960 | $1,080 |
| Advanced shippingCarrier rules, live rates, zones, weight or dimension logic, label generation. | 16 | $496 | $832 | $1,680 | $1,920 | $1,920 | $2,160 |
| InvoicingInvoice generation, numbering, tax lines, delivery and archive. | 14 | $434 | $728 | $1,470 | $1,680 | $1,680 | $1,890 |
| Promotions — basicDiscount codes and simple percentage or fixed-amount rules. | 4 | $124 | $208 | $420 | $480 | $480 | $540 |
| Promotions — advancedTiered, conditional and stacked rules, bundles, per-segment eligibility. | 12 | $372 | $624 | $1,260 | $1,440 | $1,440 | $1,620 |
| Content & communication | |||||||
| Blog / articlesPost model, categories, archive and article template. | 5 | $155 | $260 | $525 | $600 | $600 | $675 |
| MultilingualSecond language across templates, routing, and translated content plumbing. | 12 | $372 | $624 | $1,260 | $1,440 | $1,440 | $1,620 |
| Contact form — basicOne form, validation, email delivery. | 2 | $62 | $104 | $210 | $240 | $240 | $270 |
| Forms — advancedMulti-step or conditional forms, file upload, routing to different recipients or a CRM. | 6 | $186 | $312 | $630 | $720 | $720 | $810 |
| Live chat widgetThird-party chat widget installed and configured. | 2 | $62 | $104 | $210 | $240 | $240 | $270 |
| AI chatbotChatbot wired to your own content or data, with prompt, fallback and escalation handling. | 15 | $465 | $780 | $1,575 | $1,800 | $1,800 | $2,025 |
| Newsletter — basicSignup form connected to an email platform. | 3 | $93 | $156 | $315 | $360 | $360 | $405 |
| Email automation — advancedSegmented lists, triggered sequences, transactional templates. | 10 | $310 | $520 | $1,050 | $1,200 | $1,200 | $1,350 |
| Integrations & back office | |||||||
| Third-party APIs — a fewA small number of external integrations, each with auth, error handling and mapping. | 15 | $465 | $780 | $1,575 | $1,800 | $1,800 | $2,025 |
| Third-party APIs — manyA larger integration surface: more systems, more edge cases, more retry and sync logic. | 35 | $1,085 | $1,820 | $3,675 | $4,200 | $4,200 | $4,725 |
| CRM — basicPush leads or contacts into an existing CRM. | 8 | $248 | $416 | $840 | $960 | $960 | $1,080 |
| CRM — advancedTwo-way sync, field mapping, deduplication, pipeline automation. | 18 | $558 | $936 | $1,890 | $2,160 | $2,160 | $2,430 |
| ERP integrationStock, orders, pricing or accounting synced with an ERP, including reconciliation. | 28 | $868 | $1,456 | $2,940 | $3,360 | $3,360 | $3,780 |
| Growth, SEO & analytics | |||||||
| SEO — basicTitles, meta, sitemap, robots, clean URLs, basic structured data. | 4 | $124 | $208 | $420 | $480 | $480 | $540 |
| SEO — advancedFull schema coverage, internationalisation tags, redirect mapping, technical audit and fixes. | 18 | $558 | $936 | $1,890 | $2,160 | $2,160 | $2,430 |
| Analytics — basicAnalytics tag installed with standard pageview tracking. | 3 | $93 | $156 | $315 | $360 | $360 | $405 |
| Analytics — advancedEvent and funnel tracking, conversion definitions, dashboards. | 8 | $248 | $416 | $840 | $960 | $960 | $1,080 |
| Social — basicShare links and social meta tags. | 2 | $62 | $104 | $210 | $240 | $240 | $270 |
| Social — advancedFeed embeds, API-driven content, per-network preview handling. | 7 | $217 | $364 | $735 | $840 | $840 | $945 |
| Ads / conversion tracking setupAd platform pixels, conversion events and consent-aware firing. | 6 | $186 | $312 | $630 | $720 | $720 | $810 |
| Compliance, accessibility & performance | |||||||
| Cookie / GDPR — basicCookie banner and a privacy policy page. | 3 | $93 | $156 | $315 | $360 | $360 | $405 |
| GDPR — fullConsent management, data export and deletion flows, processor records. | 12 | $372 | $624 | $1,260 | $1,440 | $1,440 | $1,620 |
| Accessibility — basicSensible semantics, alt text, keyboard basics, contrast pass. | 5 | $155 | $260 | $525 | $600 | $600 | $675 |
| Accessibility — WCAG AAFull AA conformance work: audit, remediation across templates, assistive-technology testing. | 20 | $620 | $1,040 | $2,100 | $2,400 | $2,400 | $2,700 |
| Performance — basicImage optimisation, caching, obvious wins. | 4 | $124 | $208 | $420 | $480 | $480 | $540 |
| Performance — advancedCore Web Vitals work: bundle splitting, render path, sustained measurement. | 12 | $372 | $624 | $1,260 | $1,440 | $1,440 | $1,620 |
| Design & branding | |||||||
| Animation — basicTransitions, hovers, simple scroll reveals. | 4 | $124 | $208 | $420 | $480 | $480 | $540 |
| Animation — advancedChoreographed sequences, canvas or WebGL, custom motion work. | 12 | $372 | $624 | $1,260 | $1,440 | $1,440 | $1,620 |
| Branding from scratchLogo, palette, type scale and usage rules created rather than supplied. | 12 | $372 | $624 | $1,260 | $1,440 | $1,440 | $1,620 |
Source: the featureHours block of our engine's hours configuration (last tuned 2026-04-09) multiplied by the freelancer median in our rate dataset (last reviewed 2026-07-16) — the same two files the calculator reads at estimate time. Feature hours are flat by design: the engine does not apply a platform or design multiplier to them, on the reasoning that wiring an analytics tag takes comparable work on any stack. Platform changes the rate, not the hours. For the full hourly-rate matrix behind these figures, see the Rate Database.
Each row is one key in the featureHours block of src/config/hoursEstimation.json, calibrated against 40 real-world scenarios and market benchmarks (Clutch, WebFX, GoodFirms, Toptal) and last tuned 2026-04-09. Cost is that hour count multiplied by the median hourly rate for the chosen platform, region and tier in src/config/marketRates.json, the same lookup our pricing engine performs. Nothing on this page is a separate editorial estimate, and no figure here is hand-typed — if the config changes, this table changes with it, and a build-time assertion fails the deploy if the published list and the config ever diverge.
What this is not: it is not a project price, and it is not a survey of invoices. We store no completed transactions, so nothing here is derived from what anybody actually paid. It is also a blended mid-level skill benchmark — the underlying rate file models one blended tier per platform and region split only by freelancer versus agency, with no junior/mid/senior breakdown, because we do not have that data and inventing it would be a fabrication. Finally, feature hours are an average for a reasonable implementation of that feature; a genuinely unusual requirement inside a named feature can legitimately cost multiples of the row. Use the table to find the lines worth questioning, not to tell a supplier they are wrong.
Full engine methodology: /methodology.
Individual features run from 2 to 60 build hours each in our dataset, which is $270 to $8,100 at a United States freelance median of $135/hour, or up to $13,920 at the US agency median of $232/hour. The cheapest line is "Social — basic" at 2 hours; the most expensive is "Multi-vendor marketplace" at 60 hours, followed by "Third-party APIs — many" at 35 hours. All 41 features total 473 hours if a project somehow included every one of them.
Because the hours barely move and the rate does. "Multi-vendor marketplace" is 60 hours whoever builds it, but that same feature is $1,860 at a South/SE Asia freelance median and $13,920 at a United States agency median — a 7.5x spread on identical scope. Within one market, agencies bill about 1.7x the freelance median for the same hour, which buys project management, QA and redundancy rather than faster code. If two quotes differ by more than that, the difference is scope or margin, not skill.
No, and it should not be used as one. These are the feature-development lines only. A real quote also carries the base build for your project type, page and content scope, design, project management, QA, contingency and post-launch warranty. Our full calculator adds all of those; this page deliberately isolates the feature lines so you can check them one at a time against what you have been quoted.
The hours do not change — our engine treats feature hours as flat, on the reasoning that installing an analytics tag or wiring a payment gateway takes roughly the same work whatever the site is built on. What changes is the hourly rate: a Magento 2 or Shopify Plus specialist bills more per hour than a WordPress generalist in the same city, so the same feature costs more. The estimator above lets you switch platform to see that effect on the rate.
The hours are read from our engine's hours configuration, calibrated against 40 real-world scenarios and market benchmarks (Clutch, WebFX, GoodFirms, Toptal) and last tuned 2026-04-09. The hourly rates are the medians in our rate dataset, calibrated to 2026 agency and freelancer benchmarks from Clutch, Talmatic, Arc.dev, Upwork and TechReviewer, last reviewed 2026-07-16. These are the same two files the calculator itself reads at estimate time — the table on this page is not a separate editorial guess.
Ask the supplier to break their development line into features and compare each one against the row here at their region and tier. Lines far above the band are worth a scope conversation; lines far below usually mean the feature has been read as the basic version rather than the advanced one — check which of the two you are actually buying, because "search" and "authentication" each have a basic and an advanced row that differ by several times.
The feature lines are one part of a quote. Run the calculator to add the base build, scope, design, PM, QA and contingency at your own region's rates.
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