MVP development in Australia typically costs between $10,000 and $150,000+. Here's what actually drives the price and how to get the most out of your budget.
Jason Corbett
Founder, FELTLAB
If you're a founder in Australia trying to figure out how much MVP development costs, you've probably seen numbers all over the map. Some agencies quote $15,000. Others quote $200,000 for what sounds like the same thing.
The honest answer is that it depends. But that's not a helpful answer on its own. So here's a real breakdown based on 12+ years of building products for startups and large tech companies.
MVP development in Australia generally falls into three buckets.
Simple MVP ($10,000 to $30,000 AUD). A focused product with one core workflow. Think a landing page with user accounts, a booking system, or a basic marketplace listing flow. This is where you validate an idea fast without overbuilding.
Medium complexity MVP ($30,000 to $80,000 AUD). Multiple user types, payment processing, dashboards, third-party integrations. A two-sided marketplace with payments or a SaaS tool with team management would fall here.
Complex MVP ($80,000 to $150,000+ AUD). Real-time features, complex data processing, mobile apps on both platforms, regulatory compliance, or heavy API integrations. Fintech and healthtech MVPs often land in this range.
These ranges assume you're working with an Australian developer or agency. Offshore teams will quote lower, but there are tradeoffs I'll get into later.
Most founders focus on features when thinking about cost. Features matter, but they're not the full picture.
A product with one user type (say, a consumer app) is simpler than one with three (buyer, seller, admin). Each user type means separate views, permissions, onboarding flows, and edge cases. This multiplies effort fast.
Connecting to Stripe for payments is straightforward. Connecting to a legacy ERP system or a bank's API is not. Every third-party integration adds time for setup, testing, error handling, and documentation. Some integrations alone can eat a week or two.
There's a big difference between "functional and clean" and "custom-designed with animations and micro-interactions." A polished UI/UX design phase can add $5,000 to $20,000 on top of development. For an MVP, functional and clean is usually the right call.
Building a web app is cheaper than building native iOS and Android apps. A responsive web app covers most use cases for an MVP. You can always add native apps once you've validated the product. Building for three platforms from day one is one of the most common ways founders burn through their budget before they've proven anything.
This is the biggest variable. Your options in Australia roughly break down like this.
Freelance developer ($80 to $180/hr AUD). Good for straightforward builds. You get direct communication and lower overhead. The risk is that one person can get sick, go on holiday, or just disappear. You're also relying on one person's skill set across frontend, backend, design, and infrastructure.
Boutique studio ($150 to $250/hr AUD). Small teams of 2-5 people. You get a broader skill set and usually someone who's done this before. Less overhead than an agency, more accountability than a freelancer. This is where I operate at FELTLAB.
Full agency ($200 to $400/hr AUD). Larger teams with project managers, QA testers, designers, and developers. You get process and structure. You also get higher costs, longer timelines, and sometimes too many layers between you and the people writing code.
Offshore teams ($30 to $80/hr AUD equivalent). Lower rates, but communication gaps, timezone differences, and quality inconsistency are real. Some offshore teams are excellent. Many are not. The risk is higher, and debugging bad code later can cost more than doing it right the first time.
I've seen the same mistakes over and over after 12 years in this industry.
The "minimum" in MVP exists for a reason. You don't need user profiles, social sharing, an admin dashboard, analytics, email notifications, AND a recommendation engine on day one. Pick the one thing your product does that matters most. Build that. Test it with real users. Then decide what to add.
I've had founders come to me with 40-feature spec docs for their MVP. We cut it down to 6 features. The product still validated their idea perfectly.
Jumping straight into code without understanding the problem is expensive. Spending a week on product discovery, user flows, and technical planning saves you from building the wrong thing. A $2,000 discovery sprint can save you $30,000 in wasted development.
Some teams pick complex technology because it sounds impressive or because "it'll scale." You don't need Kubernetes and a microservices architecture for an MVP that might have 50 users. Use boring, proven technology. Next.js, Rails, Django. Something one person can maintain. You can always re-architect later if you actually need to.
An MVP is supposed to be rough around the edges. It's a learning tool, not a launch-ready product. If you're spending months polishing pixel-perfect animations before anyone has used the product, you're not building an MVP. You're building a product without any market validation.
At FELTLAB, I run 3-week prototype sprints at a fixed price of $15,000 AUD. The scope is deliberately tight. We focus on one core workflow, get it functional, and put it in front of real users.
Why fixed price? Because scope creep kills budgets. A fixed timeline forces us to prioritise ruthlessly. You end up with a working product that proves (or disproves) your core assumptions. Not a spec doc. Not a wireframe. Working software.
This works well for pre-seed and seed-stage startups who need to show investors something real. A functional prototype is worth more than a 50-slide pitch deck.
A few things I'd tell any founder before they spend a dollar on development.
Talk to users first. Before you build anything, talk to 10-20 potential customers. Find out if they actually have the problem you think they have. This costs nothing and saves everything.
Define success before you start. What does your MVP need to prove? "People will pay for this" is a good answer. "It looks professional" is not.
Start with one platform. Web first. Mobile later. Unless your product literally can't work without a phone camera or GPS, a responsive web app is faster and cheaper to build and iterate on.
Keep the team small. One or two people building an MVP is ideal. Larger teams need coordination, meetings, and project management overhead. For a focused 3-week sprint, a small team moves faster.
Budget for iteration. Your MVP will need changes after real users touch it. Save 20-30% of your budget for post-launch iteration. The first version is never the final version.
Most MVPs take between 3 and 12 weeks depending on complexity. A focused prototype with one core workflow can be done in 3 weeks. A medium-complexity MVP with payments, multiple user types, and integrations usually takes 6 to 10 weeks.
If your budget allows it, working with someone in your timezone makes communication much easier. The cost difference has also narrowed in recent years, especially with solo developers and small studios. If you go offshore, invest extra time in detailed specifications and regular check-ins.
For some products, yes. Tools like Bubble, Webflow, and Airtable can get you surprisingly far. The tradeoff is that you'll hit limitations as your product grows, and migrating off no-code platforms later can be painful. If your product is simple and you want to test demand quickly, no-code is a legitimate option.
For a focused, single-workflow prototype, absolutely. You won't get a fully-featured product for $15,000, but you can get a working piece of software that validates your core idea. That's exactly what an MVP should be.
If you're planning an MVP and want an honest conversation about scope, timeline, and cost, book a free 30-minute discovery call. No sales pitch. Just a practical conversation about what it'd take to build your idea.
If you're thinking about rapid prototyping, AI integration, or need to ship working software fast, let's talk about how a FELTLAB Sprint can help.
