Android and iOS mobile app development in Algeria
A mobile app published on both Android and iOS costs from 400,000 DA at UpGrowth, with the firm price coming out of the cahier des charges. We design and build mobile applications for companies operating in Algeria: field apps for your teams, apps for your customers, and apps sitting on a web back office you administer yourself. The developer accounts, the signing keys and the source code stay in your name.
1. Three questions before a line of code is written
An app costs more than a website and updates more slowly, because every version goes through a review that is not ours to schedule. These three questions decide whether the project is worth doing, and we ask them before talking about budget.
Do you need an app, or a site that genuinely works on a phone?
If your user opens the tool once a month, a web address does the job and can be corrected the same day. An app earns its cost when it is opened daily, when it must work with no network, or when it needs the camera, the location or push notifications.
Does the tool have to work with no network?
This is the question that changes the architecture, not the colour of the buttons. An app that has to survive a basement, a road or an outage must write to the device, queue, then synchronise later, with an explicit rule for conflicts. It is not something added at the end.
Who publishes it, and under whose name?
The Google Play and Apple developer accounts must be opened in your company's name. Publishing under the provider's account is the mobile version of a domain registered in the developer's name, with exactly the same consequences the day you change.
2. The applications we build
Requests fall into four families, which share neither the same user nor the same cost.
Field app for your teams
- Rounds, deliveries, service calls and readings taken on site
- Data entry that works offline and syncs on the way back
- Photo, signature and location attached to a job
- Accounts and roles matching each person's work
App for your customers
- Catalogue, orders, tracking and history
- Customer account, notifications and messages
- Content and prices driven from a back office, with no new release to publish
- A full Arabic edition when your customers read it
App sitting on a web back office
- A web admin for your office and an app for the field
- One source of data for both, never two versions of the truth
- Exports and tracking tables on the admin side
- A change log: who changed what, and when
Installable web app
- A web address that installs on the home screen
- Immediate updates, with no store review in the way
- Offline operation for the uses that suit it
- Useful when a presence on the stores is not essential
The fourth family does not reach everything an app installed from a store can do. We tell you at scoping what it can and cannot do, rather than selling it as equivalent.
3. What an app has to survive in Algeria
These constraints are not finishing touches. They are decided at the start, because they shape how the app stores its data and sends it.
The network drops, and the app must carry on
Entries are written to the device, queued, then sent when the connection returns. The user sees what has gone and what is still waiting, instead of an error message that makes them type everything again.
Two people edit the same record
When syncing resumes, two versions can conflict. The app has to say so and let a human decide field by field, instead of silently overwriting somebody's work.
Mobile data costs money
An app that reloads everything on every launch costs the person using it. Only what changed is transferred, and images are sized for a phone, not for a print shop.
The device base is mostly Android, and not new
The app has to stay usable on a device several years old, with little memory and a modest screen. That is a design constraint, not an end of project option.
Arabic reads right to left
An Arabic edition mirrors the entire layout: navigation, lists, tables and any icon that points somewhere. Numbers and dates follow the local convention, and alphabetical sorting is not the Latin one.
The phone is sometimes shared
On a team device you need to know who entered what, and to be able to end a session without losing anything that has not yet reached the server.
4. Publishing on Google Play and the App Store
Putting an app online is not a file transfer. It is a submission to two platforms that each decide by their own rules, and whose timing and answer we do not control. Better to know that up front than on release day.
- The developer accounts are opened in your company's name, with your company documents and your payment method. The Apple account renews every year.
- Each platform requires a full listing: name, description, screenshots, category and content rating.
- A published privacy policy is required, and it has to describe the data the app actually collects.
- Every version goes through review. A rejection comes with a reason, can be fixed and resubmitted, but it moves the release date.
- The signing keys control every future update. They are handed to you, because losing them forces you to publish an entirely new app.
- Both platforms change their rules. We check what they require at the time your project starts, rather than repeating a rule learned last year.
If public publication is not needed, for instance for an app used only by your own staff, there are internal distribution routes that avoid part of this. We cover them at scoping.
5. How a project runs
The sequence is always the same. Each step ends with something you handle yourself, not with a document you sign without having seen anything run.
1. Scoping
Who uses the app, where, on what device and under what network conditions. That is where the first version's scope, the target platforms and what waits for later are settled.
2. Flows and screens
The list of screens and what the user can do on each. An app is judged on how many taps the most frequent task takes, not on how many features it displays.
3. Prototype on a real phone
You handle the screens on your own device before they are built. That is the moment when a bad idea costs the least.
4. Build and back office
The app and its admin move forward together, because either one is useless without the other. You receive test builds along the way, not only at the end.
5. Field testing
Your teams use the app on their own devices, in their real conditions, including where the network is poor. That is the only test that counts.
6. Publication and afterwards
Store listings, reviews, release, then handover of the accounts, the signing keys and the source code. Then we agree together on what gets watched, and by whom.
6. What to prepare before writing to us
The more precise your message, the faster the scoping gets to the point and the more the quote covers a real scope.
- Who will use the app, and how many people
- What the person must be able to do, from the most frequent action to the rarest
- Whether it is used where the network is poor or absent
- Android only, or Android and iOS
- The tools you already use and that the app will have to talk to
- The languages your users read
- Whether you already have developer accounts, and in whose name they are open
7. How the price is built
Our floor is 400,000 DA for an app published on Android and iOS, and what follows explains what moves it, because the word covers both a three screen data entry tool and a customer app with accounts, payment and a back office. What moves the quote, on the other hand, can be said up front.
| Service | Published floor | Maximum delivery | What that floor covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile app, Android and iOS | 400,000 DA | 12 weeks | Written scoping, approved mockups, development, developer accounts opened in your name, submission to both stores and handling of the review feedback. |
| Each amount is a floor and each delivery time a maximum for the scope described on the same row. The firm price and the firm delivery date come out of the cahier des charges: on a very specific development neither the price nor the time has a ceiling. | |||
- The number of screens, and above all the number of distinct user journeys
- One platform or both
- Whether offline operation is required, which is the heaviest line of all
- The back office: to be built, or already there
- Connections to your existing tools
- The number of languages and whether a full Arabic edition is needed
- What you want us to watch after publication
Developer account fees are costs in your name, not a margin hidden inside our quote.
8. What we can build, and how to check it
We publish no download count, no app rating and no result figures. What we can put in your hands is the site you are reading: open it on your phone and watch how it behaves. Everything below opens from this page.
We publish no testimonials. We publish addresses you can open and try to catch out.
Demonstrations you can drive yourself
These applications are demonstrations we built, not client projects. Cut the connection while you use them, that is exactly what they are made to survive.
Your need may be a website, not an app
If the tool is consulted now and then and mostly needs to be found on Google, a website costs less, can be corrected the same day and has no store review to sit through.
9. Frequent questions
How much does a mobile app cost in Algeria?
From 400,000 DA for an app published on both Android and iOS: written scoping, approved mockups, development, developer accounts opened in your name, submission to both stores and handling of the review feedback. That floor covers two platforms, which is the most common reason two quotes differ. What moves it is listed above, and the firm quote comes after scoping.
Do we have to build twice, for Android and for iOS?
Not necessarily. A shared code base covers both platforms in most cases, and that is what we propose by default. Some features close to the hardware need platform specific code, and we say so at scoping when that is the case rather than discovering it halfway through.
Will the app work with no connection?
Only if it was designed to. Offline is not an option added at the end: it decides how data is written, queued and synchronised, and what happens when two versions conflict. Tell us in your first message if your users work where the network is poor.
Who owns the developer account and the code?
You do. The Google Play and Apple accounts are opened in your company's name, the signing keys are handed to you and the source code is yours. That is what lets you pass the work to somebody else without publishing a brand new app.
How long does it take to build a mobile app?
Development is planned at scoping. Publication depends on platform review, over which we have no control. So we do not promise a release date, and we suggest you distrust anyone who does.
Can we take payments inside the app?
In Algeria, card payment with CIB and EDAHABIA goes through the national online payment scheme, whose access requires steps with your bank and depends on your activity. We do not claim to shorten those steps. At scoping we look together at what is possible for you, including cash on delivery when that is the simplest route.
Do we need a mobile app in Arabic in Algeria?
If your users read Arabic, yes, and it is far better decided at the start. An Arabic edition mirrors the whole layout, including directional icons and list sorting. Adding it afterwards usually means revisiting every screen.
Can we start with a simple first version of the app?
That is in fact the right way. A first version covering the most frequent action, put in the hands of real users, teaches more than a complete specification written before anything has been seen running.
Let us talk about your app
Write to us through the form, on WhatsApp or by e-mail. We start by understanding who will use it and under what conditions, then we propose a scope and a quote.
