Government app development cost
A citizen self-service app runs $140,000 to $250,000 once Section 508 accessibility and security documentation are in scope. A permitting or case-management platform with authority-to-operate requirements runs $400,000 to $900,000.
Cross-platform mobile, 30 screens, 3 user roles, with the compliance posture this vertical carries.
- Timeline
- 6.2 – 8.5 months
- Engineering hours
- 3,425 – 4,350
- Data sensitivity
- 5 of 5
- Default security posture
- Audited
Compliance and security add $139,746 here
That is 27% of this build, measured rather than asserted: we priced the identical app with no named regime and a baseline security posture, and this is the difference. None of it produces a user-visible feature, and none of it can be retrofitted cheaply.
Regimes that apply in this vertical
- SOC 2 Type IINobody by law. In practice it is the entry ticket for selling software to any US mid-market or enterprise buyer, and it is asked for during procurement rather than after.
- $20K – $48K audit
- FedRAMPCloud services sold to US federal agencies. Measured in quarters and hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it changes how you build, not just how you document.
- $150K – $600K audit
- ADA / Section 508 accessibilityPublic sector procurement contractually, and in practice any consumer or education product large enough to attract a complaint.
- $6K – $20K audit
- CCPA / CPRABusinesses over the revenue or data thresholds with California consumers. In practice, most US consumer products at any scale.
- $0 – $8K audit
Systems you will likely integrate with
- Custom / in-house APIA system you own, but did not build for this product.
- moderate
- ERP (SAP, NetSuite, Dynamics)Master data, orders and financials against a system of record.
- complex
- SendGrid / PostmarkTransactional email, templates, deliverability and DMARC setup.
- simple
- TwilioSMS, voice and WhatsApp, plus US 10DLC registration.
- simple
What makes government & public sector different
Accessibility is law, not a feature
Section 508 and WCAG 2.2 AA conformance is contractual and tested. Building to it from the first screen costs a fraction of remediating a finished product.
Authority to operate
Security documentation, control mapping and continuous monitoring are a programme in their own right. FedRAMP in particular is measured in quarters and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Everyone is a user
Public services cannot assume a modern device, fast connection or English fluency. Low-bandwidth paths, translation and offline fallbacks all widen the build.
Who uses software in this vertical
Each additional role brings its own screens plus a row in a permission matrix that grows faster than the role count — because every new role is a question about every role that already exists.
End customer
The public-facing app
Staff / operator
Day-to-day operational screens
Manager / supervisor
Approvals, oversight, reporting
Administrator
Configuration, users, permissions
Compliance officer
Access reviews, audit logs, incident response
Four standards of finish
The same app in government & public sector, built to four different levels of depth.
| Level | Cost range | Timeline | Hours | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MVP Prove it works | $350K – $480K | 5.3 – 7.4 months | 2,875 | 7 |
| Standard Production ready | $460K – $625K | 6.2 – 8.5 months | 3,800 | 7 |
| Advanced Built to grow | $575K – $775K | 6.9 – 9.5 months | 4,700 | 7 |
| Enterprise Audited and integrated | $700K – $975K | 7.6 – 10.6 months | 5,900 | 7 |
per month, cloud and vendors, at 45,000 monthly users
21% – 28% of build cost
Drives peak concurrency, and therefore the architecture.