App maintenance cost: what a small business really pays per year
Maintaining a small-business app costs $6,000 to $15,000 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 $495, $1,250 or $2,750 a month with a named engineer and a fixed response time.
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 | $495 | 2 | 24 h | Named engineer |
| Keepport Care Growth | $1,250 | 8 | 8 h | Named engineer, Slack |
| Keepport Care Partner | $2,750 | 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 more than three years of a Care Plan. Keepport's App Rescue exists because this happens often enough to be a service.