Gulshan is full of brands that outgrew their Facebook page and paid lakhs for an app nobody downloaded. The hard part was never building the app. It was building one customers keep.
I am RH Fardin — a senior solo designer-developer who scopes, designs, builds and ships mobile apps for Gulshan brands end to end. No account manager, no junior pool, no foreign-currency invoice. One operator, around 5 years building real products for BD businesses. App projects from 50,000 BDT, full custom builds from 3,00,000 BDT.
Senior solo operator. ~5 years building for BD brands. bKash/Nagad-ready. App Store + Play Store listings in your name. 50% advance, 50% on launch.
+Trusted by 50+ founders, agencies and teams across Bangladesh and beyond.
Trusted by teams I've built websites for
Gulshan is where the customer-facing brands sit — the cafe everyone tags on Instagram, the boutique on a side street off Gulshan 2, the salon and spa with a waitlist, the diagnostic clinic, the gym, the cloud kitchen that started in someone's flat and now does a thousand orders a week. At some point each of them is told the same thing: 'you've outgrown Facebook, you need an app.' So they sign with an agency, pay two to four lakh, and six months later they have an app on the Play Store with a couple hundred downloads and a one-star review from a customer whose order never updated. The app exists. Nobody opens it. The best mobile app development company in Gulshan, for that owner, is not the one with the biggest portfolio wall — it is the one that asks the uncomfortable question first: will your customers actually keep this on their home screen, or are you about to spend a lakh on a brochure with a login screen?
I am RH Fardin, a Dhaka-based designer and developer running solo for about five years. I will be straight with you the way an agency selling you a fixed package never will: most of the 'app' briefs that land in my inbox from Gulshan brands do not need a full native app at all. A restaurant that wants online ordering, a boutique that wants a loyalty card, a clinic that wants appointment booking — for the vast majority of those, a fast Progressive Web App or a clean hybrid build will get more real usage, launch in a fraction of the time, and cost a third of the native quote. The brands that genuinely need native — heavy offline use, deep device features, real-time at scale — are a smaller group, and I tell them so on the first call and am honest about whether the engineering scale is a fit for one senior operator or a bigger team.
Here is the comparison nobody in a Gulshan glass-walled office will give you. A typical Dhaka app agency quote starts around 2 to 4 lakh and climbs, because you are paying for layers — a sales lead, an account manager, a project manager, two juniors doing the actual work, a senior who reviews now and then. With me that whole stack collapses into one experienced person. My standard tiers run 50,000 / 90,000 / 1,50,000 BDT, with 50,000 BDT the floor for the smallest engagement, and serious custom builds — which most genuinely-native apps are — start at 3,00,000 BDT. You are paying for one senior brain that designs and codes your product, not for everyone the agency has to keep busy.
Pricing is in taka and it does not move once we sign. Every project runs 50% advance and 50% on launch — bank transfer, bKash or Nagad, whichever is easiest — and I send a proper invoice, never a 'convert at today's USD rate' surprise. Nothing gets coded until you approve the screens in Figma; that is the design-approval guarantee, and if the design never lands right you can walk with your advance for design work used. On launch the app is published under your own Apple and Google developer accounts, the source code is yours, and the customer data lives in your database — not held hostage behind someone's 'maintenance' retainer. That last part matters more than founders realise, and I will explain why below.
Six things a Gulshan brand actually gets from me — picked because they are exactly where the last app went wrong. All standard, from the entry build to the full custom app.
I design for the one thing that decides whether an app survives in Dhaka: does the customer reopen it next week? Onboarding, speed and a reason to return come before feature count, every time.
I tell you in the first 20 minutes whether your idea is a real app, a PWA, or a website with a great mobile UX. Most Gulshan brands get quoted for the most expensive option and pay twice.
bKash, Nagad, Rocket, SSLCommerz, AamarPay wired into live products. I know which gateway drops on which carrier — not 'we'll figure out payments in sprint three' after your advance clears.
The app is published under your own Apple Developer and Google Play accounts, not the vendor's. You keep the listing, the reviews and the ranking even if you never work with me again.
Your customers are on mid-range Androids and 4G that drops in a CNG. I design and test for that, not for a fast MacBook in a quiet Gulshan boardroom where every app feels smooth.
One number on the quote, in taka, locked after scoping. 50% advance, 50% on launch. No padded hours, no 'out of scope' emails, no surprise invoice on the day you go live.
There is a quiet trap most Gulshan brands walk straight into, and it has nothing to do with code quality. The agency publishes your app under their own Apple Developer and Google Play accounts, keeps the backend on their server, and holds the customer database. It feels convenient at first — you didn't want to deal with Apple's account setup anyway. Then a year later you want to switch developers, or you stop paying the monthly 'maintenance,' and you discover the truth: the listing with all your reviews and ranking belongs to them, the customer phone numbers and order history sit in their database, and migrating means starting your downloads from zero and rebuilding the data you thought was yours. For a customer-facing Gulshan brand, your app's users and reviews are an asset worth more than the app itself, and far too many owners hand them away without realising. I work the opposite way: your app ships under your developer accounts, the backend and database are yours, and on launch day you get the source code, server credentials and a clean handover. Hire an in-house developer next year and walk — you lose nothing.
The second thing I will say plainly, because Gulshan buyers are usually sold the dream instead of the math: an app is not a marketing campaign, it is a product your customers have to choose to keep. The agencies that rank first for app development quote you the biggest native build with the longest feature list, because that is the largest invoice — but features are not what gets an app reopened. A boutique customer keeps an app because the loyalty points are right there and checkout takes ten seconds. A clinic patient keeps it because booking and rescheduling beats calling a busy front desk. A restaurant regular keeps it because reordering last week's meal is two taps and bKash is already linked. That is design and judgment, not raw engineering scale, and it is exactly where one senior who has shipped real BD products beats a junior team grinding through a feature spec. So when you compare the best mobile app development company Gulshan has on offer, ask each one two questions: 'Whose name is the Play Store listing published under, and can I see a live app real Bangladeshi customers actually use today?' The vague answers filter themselves out fast — and you can check my work at rhfardin.com.
Clear packages, fixed quotes, paid in BDT. Pick a starting point — I'll tailor the exact scope on a quick call.
Every project starts at ৳50,000
A sharp, credible site that makes the right first impression and brings enquiries.
Books a 15-min call · fixed BDT quote · 50/50 · hosting extra
A full, professional site that ranks and converts for a growing business.
Books a 15-min call · fixed BDT quote · 50/50 · hosting extra
An online store built to sell and scale.
Books a 15-min call · fixed BDT quote · 50/50 · hosting extra
Need something bigger? Custom & enterprise builds from ৳3,00,000. Pay by bKash, Nagad, bank transfer or card. Ask for an exact price or message on WhatsApp.
The actual questions Gulshan brand owners send me in the first message — answered straight, no sales fog.
Honest ranges: a Progressive Web App or simple hybrid wrapper for ordering, booking or a loyalty card often fits my tiered builds at 90,000 to 1,50,000 BDT, with 50,000 BDT the floor for the smallest engagement. A proper custom hybrid app with bKash or Nagad, customer accounts and an admin dashboard starts at 3,00,000 BDT. A full native production app from a real team realistically runs higher, and I tell you upfront if your idea genuinely needs that scale and a bigger team. The exact number depends on payments, accounts, and whether you need both iOS and Android. Anyone quoting you 25,000 BDT for 'a Play Store app' is selling you a broken WebView that will get one-star reviews.
Most Gulshan brands I talk to do not need full native. A restaurant ordering system, a boutique loyalty app, a salon or clinic booking tool — these usually get more real usage as a fast PWA or a clean hybrid build that launches in weeks, not months, and costs a fraction of the native quote. Native genuinely earns its price when you need heavy offline use, deep device features, or real-time at large scale. I will tell you which camp you are in on the first 20-minute call, and I will not push you toward the expensive option just because it is a bigger invoice.
You, always. The app is published under your own Apple Developer account (the $99/year one, in your business name) and your Google Play Console account. The reviews, the ranking and the listing are your asset, not mine. If you don't have those accounts yet, I set them up with you so they're in your name from day one. The whole point is that you can switch developers next year without losing your downloads, reviews or store position — I have seen too many Gulshan brands trapped because the agency kept the listing.
Often, yes — and the fix is usually not 'more features.' Send me the live app and access to whatever exists, and I'll tell you honestly whether the problem is the product (slow, confusing onboarding, no reason to return), the launch (nobody ever knew to download it), or genuinely the build. Sometimes I rework the onboarding and the core flow and usage climbs; sometimes the foundation is too tangled and a clean rebuild costs less than patching it. Either way you get a straight answer before you spend more, not another roadmap.
A PWA or simple hybrid app: roughly 3 to 5 weeks from advance to launch. A custom hybrid app with payments, customer accounts and an admin dashboard: 8 to 12 weeks. Full custom native builds: 12 weeks and up, scoped sprint by sprint. The first 7 to 10 days are always Figma designs and the data flow you sign off — I don't start the build clock until your advance clears and you approve the screens. Anyone in Gulshan promising a real custom app in two weeks is reskinning a template and skipping the testing you'll pay for later.
Yes — everything is in taka. 50% advance to start, 50% on launch, paid by bank transfer, bKash or Nagad, whichever is easiest for you, with a proper invoice. No USD quotes, no PayPal, no 'today's exchange rate' surprises. And for your customers' payments inside the app, I wire in bKash, Nagad, Rocket or a card gateway like SSLCommerz so they pay the way Dhaka actually pays — not a foreign checkout that half your users abandon.
Grab a free 15-minute call and I'll show you exactly what your new website should do — and what it'll cost in BDT. No pitch, no pressure.
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