Hybrid App Development

Our hybrid app development services cover one app, written once, that runs on both iPhone and Android phones. We write the app, the API it talks to and any back-end changes it needs, then submit the builds to the Apple App Store and Google Play under developer accounts you own. If you already run a website or an online store, the app is usually a way to put it on your customers' home screens, with a login that remembers them.

What we build

The projects we take on fall into four groups, and plenty of them overlap:

• An MVP for iOS and Android, built to put an idea in front of real users before you commit to a bigger version
• An app for an existing website or online store, working from the products, accounts and orders you already have
• The API an app needs when your current site was never designed to talk to anything except a browser
• Back-end work behind the app, such as sign-in, order history, notifications and the admin screens your team uses

One codebase means one set of fixes. A bug found on an Android phone is fixed once, and the same fix ships to iPhone users in the next release. For an MVP, that keeps the first version small enough to answer one question quickly: do people install it and come back?

Apps that work with your store or site

Say a customer puts two items in their cart on your website on Monday night and opens your app on Tuesday morning. Those two items should still be there. Their saved address should be there too, and so should last month's order. None of that happens unless the app and the site read from the same back end.

We build online stores in Next.js, React and TypeScript, with Node.js and PostgreSQL behind them. An app we add to one of those stores uses the same product catalogue, the same customer accounts and the same order records. When you change a price in the admin panel, the website and the app both show the new price, because there's only one price to change. Payments run through the setup you already have, Stripe or Razorpay, so every order lands in one set of payment records and you reconcile one dashboard at the end of the month.

If someone else built your site, we look at what it can share before we estimate anything. Some sites already have a usable API. Others need a small service written between the site and the app. You'll know which case you're in, and what it adds to the work, before you pay.

Why hybrid suits most business apps

A product list, a login, a cart, an order-tracking screen and a support form don't ask anything of a phone that a hybrid app can't do. Writing that same app twice, once for each platform, gives you two codebases to pay for, test and keep up to date, and two places for the same bug to hide.

Hybrid apps can still use the phone. Push notifications, the camera, location and fingerprint or face sign-in are all available, so an app can scan a barcode in a warehouse or tell a customer their parcel has left.

Native apps still win in some cases. Heavy 3D, augmented reality and features that reach deep into the operating system (long-running background tasks, close work with Bluetooth hardware) are usually better built natively. If your app's main feature sits in that group, we'll say so on the discovery call. A hybrid build that fights the phone isn't worth paying for. Our guide to native vs hybrid apps goes through the trade-offs in more detail, including speed, cost and upkeep.

How we work

You can watch the work happen. The code lives in your own Git repository on GitHub or GitLab, and every change arrives there as a pull request you can read, comment on or ignore.

A senior developer reviews mid-level work before it's merged. Automated tests and CI run on every change, so a pull request that breaks the build stays out of the main branch until it's fixed. Each week you get a demo or a written progress report, whichever suits you. For an app, that demo can be a test build you install on your own phone and tap through yourself.

Handover is part of the job. You get documentation on how to build the app, how to release a new version and where each service is configured. Keys and passwords stay in your accounts, never in the codebase, so a new developer can pick the project up without asking us for anything.

Publishing to the App Store and Google Play

Apple charges US$99 a year for its Apple Developer Program. Google Play has a one-time US$25 registration fee. You open both accounts in your business's name and add us as team members, and we prepare the builds, fill in the store listings from the text and screenshots you approve, and submit them for review.

Both stores also want to know what data the app collects. Apple asks for a privacy policy link and its privacy details, and Google has a data safety form. We fill these in with you, because you're the one who knows what the business does with customer data.

Apple and Google both review apps before release, and either can come back with questions or ask for a change. When that happens we make the change and resubmit. We can't promise a go-live date for the stores, because neither one publishes a review time anyone could promise against.

If you ever move the app to another developer, its listing, ratings and download history stay where they are, in accounts that were always yours.

Pricing

A catalogue app on top of a store we already built and a booking app that needs a new back end are very different jobs. That's why hybrid apps are quoted per project. We start with a free 30-minute discovery call, then send a written estimate covering scope and timeline before any payment.

Some teams prefer to run the project themselves and add developers to it. Our hire developers page covers that route: a mid-level developer is $20 an hour and a senior or lead developer is $30 an hour, with the same code review, tests and weekly reporting as any other project.

A few costs sit outside the build price either way. The store fees above are paid by you, directly to Apple and Google. Hosting for the back end, and any paid API the app calls, are billed to your own accounts too.

To start, send us a message through the contact form. Tell us what the app should do and who will use it, and include a link to your current site or store if you have one.