Ask five agencies what a web application costs and you will get five versions of “it depends on the project”. The truth is the market has fairly clear price bands — nobody just wants to say them out loud.
Three bands that hold in 2026
An internal tool (records, approvals, a simple workflow) runs €15,000–35,000. A production MVP with sign-in, roles and one external integration costs €42,000–68,000. A platform serving thousands of users with an SLA and audit trail starts at €90,000. Senior hourly rates in Slovakia: €65–110.
These numbers assume a senior team and a fixed scope. If someone offers you an MVP for €12,000, you are getting either a template or a junior — and you will pay the difference later, with interest.
Three items missing from most quotes
First: deployment and DevOps — pipelines, monitoring and backups make up 8–12 % of the budget. Second: maintenance — plan for 15–20 % of the build price per year. Third: content and data migration, which the client “will handle themselves” and which then eats three weeks of the project.
What really drives the price — and what doesn't
The biggest lever on cost is not design, but the number and complexity of integrations and permission roles. Wiring up payments adds a few days; wiring up a 15-year-old ERP with no documentation adds weeks. A “prettier” design, by contrast, moves the price little — a templated UI and a bespoke one differ by days, not tens of thousands. When you want to cut the price, cut the scope of processes, not the quality of execution.
The cheap quote that ends up costliest
A quote 30 % below the rest of the market almost always has one of three explanations: a junior team learning on your project; a scope that gets “clarified” later through change requests; or a subcontractor you don't know about. The difference does not show in the quote — it shows in month three, when the deadline slips and the invoices climb. A fixed price on a clear scope is dearer on paper and cheaper in reality.
The best defence? Ask for a fixed price with defined KPIs and a public price list. Whoever hides their numbers usually has a reason.