App maintenance cost: what a small business really pays per year
Maintaining a small-business app costs $3,600 to $9,000 a year on a flat plan, or 15 to 25 percent of the build cost per year if you pay hourly. The work is not optional: Apple ships a new iOS every September, Android follows, and both stores change their rules several times a year. Keepport Care Plans run $299, $749 or $1,499 a month with a named engineer and a fixed response time, and every app we build is on one.
What maintenance actually is
- OS updates: a new iOS and Android every year, each breaking something small.
- Store compliance: new privacy labels, SDK minimums and review rules, with removal as the penalty.
- Dependencies: the libraries inside the app get security patches that must be applied.
- Monitoring: crashes, uptime and payment failures caught before customers report them.
- Small changes: a menu item, a price, a new class type, a holiday schedule.
The 15 to 25 percent rule
US agencies commonly budget 15 to 25 percent of the original build cost per year for maintenance. On a $30,000 app that is $4,500 to $7,500 a year, billed hourly as work comes up. The problem with hourly maintenance is that nobody watches the app between invoices, so the September iOS release is discovered by a customer.
Flat plans compared
| Plan | Monthly | Hours | Critical response | Who |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Offshore retainer | $300–$1,000 | 4–40 | 24–72 h | Rotating team |
| Keepport Care Essential | $299 | 2 | 24 h | Named engineer |
| Keepport Care Growth | $749 | 8 | 8 h | Named engineer, Slack |
| Keepport Care Partner | $1,499 | 20 | 4 h | Named engineer, monthly strategy |
| US agency retainer | $2,500–$5,000+ | varies | varies | Account manager |
What an unmaintained app costs
The common path: the developer moves on, the next iOS ships, a login or payment flow breaks, reviews drop, the store sends a compliance notice, and six months later the listing is gone. Rebuilding from that state costs far more than keeping the app maintained. Keepport's App Rescue exists because this happens often enough to be a service.