In focus
What an app actually costs to build in Dhaka, honestly
The top question I get on WhatsApp is "app banaite koto taka lagbe?" There is no honest one-line answer. An "app" can be a Flutter shell around a website. That costs 50,000 BDT, takes two weeks and looks like an app on the Play Store. It can also be a multi-screen ride-sharing platform with live tracking, two user roles, payments and an admin panel. That costs 3,00,000 BDT and up, and it takes real engineering.
That is why Dhaka quotes range from 25,000 to 25 lakh for the "same" app. Nobody is talking about the same thing. The 25,000 BDT quote is a college student wrapping a WebView. The 25 lakh quote is an agency loading 18 months of office rent into your invoice. Neither is what most small businesses in Dhaka need.
Here is how I price it. The 50,000 BDT entry tier covers a single-purpose app. That could be a catalog browser, simple booking, a content app, or a clean Flutter wrapper of your website with push notifications and offline caching. The 90,000 BDT tier adds user accounts, a CMS-driven backend and a bKash or Nagad checkout.
The 1,50,000 BDT tier is your real MVP. It has multiple user roles, a full backend, payment, push, an admin dashboard, and a Play Store and App Store launch. Anything custom, like live tracking, video, chat, machine learning or marketplace logic, starts at 3,00,000 BDT. That is where serious engineering time begins. I take 50% advance and 50% on launch. You approve the design before I write a line of code, so you are never surprised at the end.