Service and slot picker
Services with durations and prices, and a calendar that shows only slots that are really free, designed for a phone first.
App costs · 2–4 weeks
How much does a booking app cost in 2026?
A booking app is a calendar, a form and a payment. For one business with one calendar it is the clearest $5K MVP Sprint there is: live in two to four weeks, deployed on your accounts. Several providers or locations make it a Product Build.
Where the number comes from
The core flow is short: a customer picks a service, sees available slots, books one and pays or confirms. Behind it is availability logic, which is where booking apps get hard. Working hours, breaks, buffer time between appointments, time zones, and the race when two people pick the same slot at once. Getting that right is most of the engineering; the screens are the easy part.
The MVP Sprint scope covers one business, one calendar, one kind of booking. Stripe for deposits or full payment, email confirmations and reminders, and an admin where you see the day and move appointments. Ordinanca Jeta, a family practice near Prishtina, runs on a Codeks build with a bilingual site, a price list and booking.
The price moves when the calendar multiplies: several staff with their own hours, several locations, resources like rooms or equipment that have to be free at the same time, or customers choosing between many providers. Each of those is a second dimension on availability and each pushes the project into the $10K–$25K Product Build.
What the price includes
The scope, as it would be written.
Availability engine
Working hours, breaks, buffers, lead time and a cut-off, with a database constraint so two people can never take the same slot.
Payment or deposit
Stripe Checkout for full payment or a deposit at booking, with refunds on cancellation inside the window you choose.
Confirmations and reminders
Email at booking, a reminder before the appointment, a calendar file attached. SMS if you want it, as the one extra integration.
Owner admin
The day and week view, drag to move an appointment, block time off, see who has paid. Same URL, behind a login.
What moves the price
Four things that change the number.
Several staff or locations
Each provider with their own hours and services doubles the availability logic and adds a provider picker. This is the usual reason a booking app leaves the entry tier.
Native apps
Most booking customers arrive from a link or a search, so the web app is enough. A branded iOS and Android app matters for repeat bookings and is a Product Build.
Two-way calendar sync
Syncing with Google or Outlook in both directions means webhooks, conflict resolution and token refresh for every provider. One-way export is cheap; two-way sync is a week.
Memberships and packages
Class packs, subscriptions and credits turn a booking into an account balance. Useful for gyms and studios, and a flow of its own.
Built here
Ordinanca Jeta
Family medicine practice · Bilingual site, price list, booking · Next.js
A family medicine practice near Prishtina with a bilingual site, a price list and online booking.
Questions
What people ask about booking app costs.
- Is $5K enough for a booking app?
- For one business with one calendar, yes, and that is most booking apps. It includes the slot picker, the availability rules, Stripe, confirmations and the admin, deployed on your accounts. It does not include several providers, two-way calendar sync, or a native app.
- Why not just use Calendly or a booking plugin?
- If one of those does what you need, use it; the scoping call will say so. People come here when the booking rules are specific to the business, when they want the data and the customers in their own system, or when booking is the start of a larger product.
- How do you stop double bookings?
- A unique constraint on provider and time slot in PostgreSQL, checked inside the same transaction that writes the booking. The second person to click gets a clear message and the next free slot, never a silent failure.
- What happens after launch?
- Thirty days of fixes are included. After that most booking clients need nothing, or a few hours a month. If the product keeps growing, the retainer is from $3K/mo for sixty to eighty senior hours.
Already built it?
If the booking app exists already, built in Lovable, Bolt, Cursor or Replit, the number on this page is not yours: the $1.5K fixed Production Audit reads that booking app against the published checklist and quotes its fixes in five days.
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