App Maintenance Cost in India (2026)
App maintenance in India costs ₹8,000 to ₹1,50,000 per month in 2026. Basic upkeep runs ₹8,000–₹25,000, standard maintenance with feature work ₹25,000–₹70,000, and full support with SLAs ₹70,000–₹1,50,000. Annually this lands at 15–25% of original build cost.
Apps decay faster than websites. iOS and Android each ship major versions annually, third-party SDKs deprecate, and store policies change with deadlines attached. An unmaintained app does not slowly degrade — it stops working, often on a date someone else chose. Here is what keeping one healthy costs.
Pricing tiers
Basic Upkeep
₹8,000 – ₹25,000/moOngoingStable apps with modest user bases.
- OS compatibility updates
- SDK and dependency upgrades
- Crash monitoring and critical fixes
- Store compliance updates
- Up to 4 hours of changes monthly
Standard Maintenance
₹25,000 – ₹70,000/moOngoingActive apps with regular users and ongoing improvements.
- Everything in Basic
- Backend monitoring and scaling
- Performance profiling and optimisation
- Security patching
- 12–25 hours of development monthly
- Monthly analytics review
Full Support
₹70,000 – ₹1,50,000/moOngoingRevenue-critical apps where downtime is expensive.
- Everything in Standard
- Defined SLA with response times
- 24×7 monitoring and on-call escalation
- Continuous feature development
- A/B testing and release management
- Dedicated team allocation
What moves the price
OS version releases
iOS and Android each ship a major version annually. Compatibility work costs ₹30,000–₹2,00,000 per cycle and is not optional — apps that break on a new OS lose users immediately.
Third-party SDK churn
Payment, analytics and auth SDKs deprecate on their own schedule. Each forced migration costs ₹20,000–₹1,50,000 and arrives with a deadline you do not control.
Backend scale
Growing user bases need capacity work. Infrastructure monitoring and scaling adds ₹15,000–₹60,000 monthly beyond application maintenance.
Feature development
The largest variable. Retainers with 20+ monthly hours are effectively continuous development contracts rather than maintenance ones, priced accordingly.
Cost breakdown
| Item | Typical cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bug fixing | ₹1,200 – ₹3,000/hr | Reactive, post-release |
| OS compatibility | ₹30,000 – ₹2,00,000/yr | Once per major OS release |
| Backend hosting | ₹3,000 – ₹1,50,000/mo | Scales with active users |
| Crash monitoring | ₹0 – ₹15,000/mo | Firebase free tier often enough |
| Apple Developer renewal | ≈ ₹8,900/yr | App removed if it lapses |
| Store listing updates | ₹5,000 – ₹30,000 | Screenshots, copy refresh |
Indian agencies frequently include three to six months of post-launch support in the build price, then move to a retainer. Get the scope of that included period in writing — 'bug fixes' usually excludes OS compatibility work, which is the expensive part. Also confirm who holds the store accounts: if the agency owns the Play Store and Apple accounts, moving vendors later becomes genuinely difficult rather than merely inconvenient.
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Frequently asked questions
How much should I budget annually for app maintenance?
Fifteen to twenty-five percent of the original build cost. A ₹10,00,000 app needs ₹1,50,000–₹2,50,000 a year at minimum. Apps with payments, real-time features or heavy third-party integration sit at the top of that range because they have more moving parts owned by other people.
What happens if I do not maintain my app?
It breaks on a schedule set by Apple and Google. New OS versions cause crashes, deprecated SDKs stop working, and stores eventually remove apps that fall below minimum target API levels. Typically an unmaintained app becomes seriously degraded within twelve to eighteen months, and catching up costs far more than staying current.
Is maintenance included in the development cost?
Usually three to six months of bug fixing is, but that is narrower than it sounds. It generally excludes OS compatibility updates, new features, and infrastructure scaling. Ask specifically whether the next major iOS and Android releases are covered — that single question clarifies most maintenance proposals.
Can I switch maintenance vendors?
Yes, provided you own the code, the repositories and the store accounts. Handover typically takes two to four weeks and costs ₹30,000–₹1,50,000 for the new team to build familiarity. Undocumented codebases cost considerably more — which is a good reason to require documentation as a deliverable in the original build.