Typical timelines
These are typical ranges for a small, focused team. Your real timeline comes from your scope, but these help you sense-check any plan you are given.
| What you’re building | Typical time | What drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Landing page or small business website | About 1–3 weeks | How ready your content is, and the number of pages |
| Web app — a focused first version | About 4–8 weeks | User roles, integrations and admin tools |
| Web app — a larger product | About 2–3 months, sometimes more | Business rules, reports and data migration |
| Mobile app for iOS and Android | About 2–4 months | Offline needs, hardware features and store review |
| Replacing an existing system | Varies widely | How much data and logic has to move across |
Where the time goes
Here is how a typical eight-week web app project is spread across the phases:
| Phase | Roughly | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Week 1 | Understand users and goals, write the scope, choose the approach. |
| Design | Weeks 1–2 | Key screens and the visual direction, agreed before building at speed. |
| Development | Weeks 2–7 | Built in sprints, each one live on a preview link for you to check. |
| Testing | Week 7 | Every flow checked on real devices, your own testing, and fixes. |
| Launch | Week 8 | Domain and production setup, handover, and close monitoring after go-live. |
The phases overlap: design continues while early features are built, and testing happens throughout, not only at the end. You can read more about each phase in our process.
What really slows projects down
- Waiting for feedback. A week-long wait for each approval can double a timeline. Agree a response time — for example two working days — at the start.
- Content that isn’t ready. Product photos, descriptions, price lists and policy text are often the last things ready. Start collecting them on day one.
- Changing scope midway. Each new idea is reasonable on its own; together they move the finish line. Keep a “later” list.
- Third-party approvals. Payment gateways need business KYC before going live. WhatsApp message templates need approval. Apple’s developer program for organisations needs a D-U-N-S number, which can take days or weeks. Start all of these early.
- No clear decision-maker. If three people must agree on every screen, decide up front who has the final say.
- Messy existing data. Importing years of spreadsheets means cleaning duplicates and fixing formats first.
Plan for app store review
Mobile apps must pass review before they appear in the App Store or Google Play. Reviews are often quick, but a rejection — for a missing privacy policy, no test login for the reviewer, or a payment rule — sends you back a step.
On Google Play, new personal developer accounts must also run a closed test with a group of testers for at least 14 days before releasing to the public. Organisation accounts don’t have this requirement at the time of writing — another good reason to register the account in your company’s name.
How to speed things up — safely
- Write a clear brief before the first call
- Name one decision-maker on your side
- Reply to reviews within two working days
- Collect content, logos and data from day one
- Start payment, WhatsApp and store account setup early
- Keep new ideas on a “later” list until launch
- Launch a focused first version, then improve
Not sure how big your first version should be? Read how to plan an MVP. For the brief itself, use our project brief template.
Ask for milestones, not a single date
A single delivery date hides problems until it is too late. Dated milestones — each with something working you can see — show slippage early, when it is cheap to correct. With a live preview updated every sprint, you never need to ask “how is it going?”: you open it and see.
Questions people ask
- Can an app be built in two weeks?
- A very focused app with simple screens and no complex integrations, sometimes. A product with payments, several user roles and an admin panel, rarely — at least not without cutting design, testing or both.
- Does a bigger team make it faster?
- Only up to a point. Adding people to a small project adds coordination time. A small, experienced team with quick decisions on your side is usually the fastest option.
- How long does app store approval take?
- Often a day or two, but it can take longer, and a rejection adds time. Leave a buffer of about a week around your launch date.
- What happens if the project runs late?
- With dated milestones, you see it early. Agree upfront how delays are handled — especially who carries the cost when the delay isn’t caused by a change in scope.
Planning something like this?
Tell us what you want to build. You’ll get a written scope and a fixed quote before any work starts.