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AI app builders make building software look cheap. Over three years, the biggest cost isn't the subscription. It's you.
Because the subscription is the only cost anyone writes down. Everything else sits below the waterline.
Replit, Lovable and the rest are genuinely good at what they do, and £20 to £100 a month is a fair price for getting an idea working. The trouble is what comes with it once the business starts to depend on it: your time, your team's time, the bugs, the security, the downtime, the rebuild, and the usage bill that grows as you do.
In our indicative scenario, building it yourself costs about £48,300 over three years if it survives, and about £72,055 if it needs rebuilding. A traditional agency build with support comes to about £58,860, and an AI-accelerated build like ours about £46,170.
The scenario is a small business internal operations app: job management, quoting and scheduling. Every figure here is indicative, not a quote, and the assumptions are underneath so you can check them.
Chart 1: cumulative cost over three years, four scenarios, indicative. The same figures are in the table below.
| Scenario (indicative) | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | 3-year total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DIY, survives | £22,500 | £12,750 | £13,050 | £48,300 |
| DIY, rebuilt at month 18 | £22,500 | £37,435 | £12,120 | £72,055 |
| Traditional agency build + support | £34,620 | £12,120 | £12,120 | £58,860 |
| Dev Partners, AI-accelerated build + support | £25,890 | £10,140 | £10,140 | £46,170 |
Over three years in the "survives" case, the platform is a sliver. Your own time is £41,400. The platform and usage is £6,900.
Chart 2: DIY, survives, three years: own time £41,400, platform and usage £6,900.
Want a real figure rather than an indicative one? Tell us what you're building.
The honest bit: against a traditional agency, DIY can be cheaper on paper if your app never outgrows the platform: the break-even point is roughly a 45% chance of needing a rebuild, and for anything your business runs on the odds are usually higher than that. Against an AI-accelerated build like ours, DIY costs more even if nothing goes wrong: about £48,300 against £46,170.
Because a director's day isn't worth their hourly rate. It's worth the sales, clients and decisions that didn't happen while they were fixing the app.
Opportunity cost. At £60 an hour, year one costs £20,700 of your time. Count it at two or three times that, which is closer to what a director's time is really worth to the business, and year one's "free" app costs about £41,000 to £62,000 of lost value.
"The best person to do it." It's nearly always a senior person, because they understand the business. That's exactly why their time is expensive.
The person playing developer. If it's delegated, you're paying a good salary for someone to be a mediocre developer instead of great at the job you hired them for. Two jobs done badly. They often enjoy it, so nobody questions the hours.
A week in the life, year one: one day in five goes on the app. After year one it's still half a day, every week.
Probably. Every bug, change request and "it's stopped working" now lands on the busiest person in the business.
Nobody else understands how it works. There's no spec, no documentation, no second pair of eyes. And if the person who built it leaves, the app effectively leaves with them.
With a DIY app, you fix it, from a sun lounger, on hotel WiFi. With a supported system, someone else does.
With a supported system, that call goes to a team whose job is to fix it. You stay on the terrace.
Sometimes, but rarely by design. The AI builds what you ask for, and most people don't know to ask for security.
These are the issues we find most often in AI-generated apps built without an experienced review:
If you've built something and want to know where you stand, our System Review for AI-built apps checks exactly this, in plain English, with a fixed price for each fix.
Your running costs aren't fixed. AI platforms charge by usage, so the bill scales with how much you build and use.
It's widely reported that running AI models is expensive and that many AI companies aren't yet profitable at today's prices. Pricing has already changed several times; expect it to change again. And if a platform raises prices, changes its plans or shuts down, how easily could you move? Code tied to one platform's hosting and database is hard to take elsewhere.
A system built on a standard, well-understood stack, on servers you control, keeps working whatever happens to any AI company. AI speeds up how it's built. It doesn't own the result.
Chart 3: three-year DIY platform cost if usage pricing rises: today £6,900, +50% £10,350, +100% £13,800 (indicative).
Answer these honestly. They tell you more than any spreadsheet.
If you answered "not sure" to more than two of these, it's worth a conversation.
When it's an experiment, not the business. AI builders are brilliant for that, and we'd say so even though we build software for a living.
Change the numbers to match your situation. The defaults are the scenario above, so it starts on the same figures. Everything stays in your browser.
| Indicative | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Building it yourself | ||||
| Traditional agency | ||||
| Dev Partners, AI-accelerated |
Indicative only, not a quote. The agency and Dev Partners lines use the assumptions above, with your product-owner time at your rate.
Want a real figure? Tell us what you've built so farTwo routes, depending on where you are.
We review it, fix it up, secure it and get it ready for production, then look after it. Start with a System Review (£250 + VAT), get it live properly, and let us support it so it stops being your job.
We build it properly from a clear spec: your requirements captured as feature specs, AI-accelerated, built by an experienced team on infrastructure we know and control. See custom software development and how we use AI.
Comparing costs more widely? See what AI-built software costs, from doing it yourself to an agency.
Straight answers, including the ones that don't send you our way.
On the subscription, yes. Over three years, usually not. In our indicative model the platform costs about £6,900 over three years, but the owner's time building and maintaining it costs about £41,400. If the app ever needs a professional rebuild, the do-it-yourself route ends up the most expensive of all.
Mostly your own time: building, fixing, changing and supporting the app, usually by the most senior person in the business. Then usage charges that rise as you use it more, security and backups nobody set up, downtime, and the cost of a rebuild if it outgrows the platform.
For a prototype, a demo or a tool one person uses, often yes. Once customers, staff or customer data depend on it, it needs what a vibe-coded app usually lacks: proper access control, tested backups, monitoring, and someone other than you who understands how it works.
They can be, but only if someone asks for security and checks it. The AI builds what you ask for, and most people don't know to ask about access rules, exposed keys or open database rules. Our System Review for AI-built apps checks exactly that.
Your running costs go up, because most platforms charge by usage. The harder question is whether you could move: an app tied to one platform's hosting and database is difficult to take elsewhere. A system on a standard stack, on servers you control, isn't affected by any one AI company's pricing.
Yes. We start with a System Review to see what you have, then either get it ready for production with Launch Ready, fix what needs fixing, or rebuild the parts that won't hold up. After that we can look after it so it stops being your job.
It depends on the size, but a typical small business app takes a matter of weeks rather than months, because the DIY version is a useful working specification. We capture what it does as feature specs first, then build it with AI-accelerated development on infrastructure we know and control.
When the business starts running on it: customers or staff depend on it, it holds customer data, it needs to connect to other systems, or you can't go on holiday without your laptop. If more than a couple of those are true, it's time.
Where it lives, roughly what it does, and who looks after it now. We'll give you a straight answer on whether it's worth doing properly, and a real figure if it is. Or start with a System Review.
What we will cover:
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