The short answer
Maintenance and support at Namtech start from 15% of your build cost per year. For a Starter/MVP built from SGD 20,000 that is roughly SGD 3,000 a year; for a Business app from SGD 38,000, around SGD 5,700; for an Enterprise platform from SGD 90,000, from about SGD 13,500. That 15% buys monitoring, OS-version updates, security patches, minor improvements and priority support. Costs that pass straight through — hosting, third-party service fees and app-store developer accounts — are billed at cost, not marked up.
| Tier | Build cost (from) | Maintenance from 15%/year (approx.) |
|---|---|---|
| Starter/MVP | SGD 20,000 | ~SGD 3,000 |
| Business | SGD 38,000 | ~SGD 5,700 |
| Enterprise | SGD 90,000 | ~SGD 13,500 |
Figures are 15% of Namtech's published starting build cost per tier. Your maintenance number is set from the fixed build cost agreed after a scoping call. Hosting, third-party service fees and app-store developer accounts are billed at cost, separately.
Why launch is the start, not the finish
The day your app hits the App Store and Google Play is the day it starts living in the real world — on phones you don't control, on operating systems that change without asking you. An app that shipped perfectly can break months later because Apple or Google changed something underneath it, or because a security issue surfaced in a library it depends on. Maintenance is the difference between an app that stays live and one that quietly stops working while you're busy running the business.
We build cross-platform — iOS and Android from one codebase, one release cycle — so maintenance stays coordinated too. When an update goes out, it goes out to both stores in the same cycle, not as two separate scrambles.
What the 15% covers
The annual plan is built around five things that every live app needs:
- Monitoring. We watch for crashes, errors and things going wrong so problems are caught before your users have to report them.
- OS-version updates. When Apple and Google ship new iOS and Android versions, your app is kept compatible so it keeps running for everyone who updates their phone.
- Security patches. When a vulnerability appears in a dependency your app relies on, it gets patched — this is the work that keeps user data safe over time.
- Minor improvements. Small fixes and refinements that keep the app sharp between larger pieces of work.
- Priority support. A direct line when something needs attention, rather than a ticket in a general queue.
What is billed at cost
Some things aren't ours to mark up, so we don't. Hosting for the servers your app talks to, third-party service fees for the tools it depends on, and app-store developer accounts for Apple and Google are all billed at cost. You pay what they cost — the 15% is for the engineering work of keeping the app healthy, kept separate from these pass-through expenses so the bill is honest and easy to read.
| Covered by the 15%/year plan | Billed at cost (pass-through) |
|---|---|
| Monitoring for crashes and errors | Hosting for your app's servers |
| OS-version updates (iOS and Android) | Third-party service fees |
| Security patches for dependencies | App-store developer accounts (Apple, Google) |
| Minor improvements | |
| Priority support |
How it fits the way we quote
Maintenance follows the same rule as the build: no surprises. Our published starting points are SGD 20,000 for a Starter/MVP, SGD 38,000 for a Business app and SGD 90,000 for an Enterprise platform. After one scoping call you get a fixed quote, and billing is milestone-based — a deposit to begin, then payments tied to agreed deliverables, never full payment upfront. If scope changes mid-project, we re-quote the change explicitly. The 15% maintenance plan is set against the build cost the same way, so you always know what the ongoing number is before you commit.
How support fits the delivery process
Support isn't an afterthought we bolt on — it's the last of our six steps: Discover, Design, Build, Test, Launch, Support. The same project manager who owned the build owns the handover into maintenance, so the people keeping your app alive already know how it was made. QA happens on real devices before submission to the App Store and Google Play, and that same real-device discipline carries into every update afterward.
Plan the whole life of the app
The right way to budget a mobile app is to look past launch day. Add the build cost and roughly 15% of it per year, plus your pass-through hosting and store costs, and you have the real picture of what owning the app looks like. Namtech is a Singapore app studio serving clients worldwide, and where compliance like Singapore's PDPA applies, we scope it as an explicit line item rather than a hidden assumption. If you'd like a fixed quote — build plus a clear maintenance plan — start with a scoping call or see the full breakdown on our pricing page.