Mobile App Development
A mobile app is not a website in a smaller window. It has to work on a patchy signal, respect a prepaid data bundle, survive a two-year-old midrange Android handset, and pass two app store reviews. We build apps with those constraints designed in from the first sprint rather than patched in after the first round of one-star reviews.
Built for South African conditions
Data costs money and coverage is uneven outside the metros. We build offline-first where it matters — queueing actions locally and syncing when a connection returns — compress payloads aggressively, and cache intelligently so a user on the N1 between Bloemfontein and Johannesburg does not lose their work in a dead zone.
One codebase, both platforms
For the overwhelming majority of business apps, React Native or Flutter delivers genuinely native performance from a single codebase, roughly halving both build cost and ongoing maintenance. Where an app genuinely needs deep platform integration — advanced camera pipelines, heavy background processing, complex Bluetooth — we build fully native and say so upfront.
Store submission handled
App Store and Google Play submission is its own discipline, with privacy manifests, data safety declarations, screenshot specifications and review guidelines that reject apps for reasons that are rarely obvious. We handle the entire submission process, including rejections and resubmissions, so your launch date is not decided by a reviewer in another timezone.
What you get
- iOS and Android applications from a single codebase
- Offline-first architecture with background sync
- Push notifications and in-app messaging
- Secure authentication, including biometric login
- Payment integration (PayFast, Yoco, Peach, Stripe)
- App Store and Google Play submission and review handling
- Crash reporting, analytics and performance monitoring
- Over-the-air updates for rapid fixes
App Development — common questions
A focused single-purpose app with a handful of screens and a straightforward backend generally starts in the low hundreds of thousands of rand. Marketplace, fintech or logistics apps with payments, multiple user types and real-time features cost meaningfully more. Cross-platform development is the main lever for keeping that number down, because you are funding one codebase rather than two.
Android dominates South African market share by a wide margin, so for consumer-facing products aimed at a broad local audience, Android is usually the priority. If your users are corporate, higher-income or your revenue model depends on in-app purchases, iOS often converts better. Building cross-platform means the question is largely moot — you launch on both.
Yes. We manage the full submission process for both stores, respond to review feedback, and can operate an ongoing maintenance retainer covering OS version compatibility, security patches and feature releases. Apple and Google both force periodic SDK updates; without maintenance, apps eventually get delisted.
For most business apps, yes, and we generally recommend it. Data is cached on the device, user actions are queued locally, and everything syncs with conflict resolution the moment connectivity returns. Users experience a working app rather than an error screen.
App Development across South Africa
We deliver mobile app development remotely to businesses nationwide. Each area page covers the sectors we work with there.
Ready to talk about app development?
Send us the problem in plain language. We will come back with the questions that matter, a realistic sense of scope, and an honest view on whether this is the right thing to build.