--- title: What Small to Mid Business Clients Want From Designers,... description: A design agency consultant shares what small and mid-size business clients actually weigh when hiring designers and developers, arguing that portfolio craft... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/what-small-to-mid-business-clients-want-from-designers-from-someone-who-sits-in-the-middle-9e9qrejtz twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: What Small to Mid Business Clients Want From Designers, From Someone Who Sits in the Middle | daily.dev og:description: A design agency consultant shares what small and mid-size business clients actually weigh when hiring designers and developers, arguing that portfolio craft... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/what-small-to-mid-business-clients-want-from-designers-from-someone-who-sits-in-the-middle-9e9qrejtz og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/9E9QReJTZ.png og:image:alt: What Small to Mid Business Clients Want From Designers, From Someone Who Sits in the Middle og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What Small to Mid Business Clients Want From Designers, From Someone Who Sits in the Middle **[Dribbble](https://daily.dev/sources/dribbble)** · 10 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A design agency consultant shares what small and mid-size business clients actually weigh when hiring designers and developers, arguing that portfolio craft rarely wins pitches. Instead, clients evaluate risk reduction, proposal clarity around scope and timelines, understanding the underlying business problem behind a feature request, and transparent pricing. The piece includes market-rate ranges for mobile app builds (roughly $20,000 floor for basic apps, $50,000-$150,000 for complex financial apps), notes on testing consuming 15-25% of dev hours and annual maintenance around 15% of build cost, and reasons deals stall such as unaligned budget expectations or the wrong decision-maker being pitched. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How much does a basic single-platform mobile app typically cost to build? A genuinely basic single-platform mobile app build realistically starts around $20,000. That covers one job done well: a handful of screens, standard login rather than custom authentication, and a managed backend rather than custom infrastructure. It typically excludes multiple user roles, payments, an admin dashboard, or compliance work, and such projects usually wrap in four to eight weeks. _Comparing quotes for a new app build? daily.dev surfaces real pricing benchmarks so you can sanity-check proposals._ ### What percentage of a software development budget should go to testing and QA? Testing and QA typically consume 15% to 25% of total development hours on a meaningful software build. This is a substantial share of the budget spent on work that never appears as a visible feature, and it is considered the worst place to cut corners, since skipping it tends to cause costly problems after launch. _Budgeting a build and unsure where QA fits? daily.dev helps developers ground scoping decisions in real numbers._ ### Does building a mobile app for both iOS and Android cost twice as much as building for one platform? No, covering both platforms costs more than one but far less than double. Discovery, UX architecture, most visual design, the backend, and project management are shared across platforms; only client-side implementation genuinely duplicates. Separately, choosing native over cross-platform costs more still, since native suits performance-critical or hardware-dependent products but most apps do not need it. _Weighing native versus cross-platform for your next app? daily.dev keeps developers current on the real cost trade-offs._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [How Much Does It Cost to Build an App in 2026?](https://daily.dev/posts/how-much-does-it-cost-to-build-an-app-in-2026--ha5ifaeu0) · Alex CloudStar · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [18 Top Mobile Application Development Companies in 2025](https://daily.dev/posts/18-top-mobile-application-development-companies-in-2025-jqng88pke) · Netguru · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Mobile App Development Hiring Guidelines for 2026: In-House, Freelance, or Agency?](https://daily.dev/posts/mobile-app-development-hiring-guidelines-for-2026-in-house-freelance-or-agency--gqhky7nxk) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [What Do You Charge For?](https://daily.dev/posts/what-do-you-charge-for--uocqephu7) · Ibrahim Diallo · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to outsource mobile app development: a practical guide](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-outsource-mobile-app-development-a-practical-guide-vhix6iyqe) · Netguru · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#mobile](https://daily.dev/tags/mobile) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/what-small-to-mid-business-clients-want-from-designers-from-someone-who-sits-in-the-middle-9e9qrejtz) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"What Small to Mid Business Clients Want From Designers, From Someone Who Sits in the Middle","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-small-to-mid-business-clients-want-from-designers-from-someone-who-sits-in-the-middle-9e9qrejtz","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-small-to-mid-business-clients-want-from-designers-from-someone-who-sits-in-the-middle-9e9qrejtz"},"datePublished":"2026-08-17T11:12:31.465Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T21:46:55.258Z","description":"A design agency consultant shares what small and mid-size business clients actually weigh when hiring designers and developers, arguing that portfolio craft...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/2311aa9c80fe060a81a20f26a859826d?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/2311aa9c80fe060a81a20f26a859826d?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Dribbble","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Dribbble","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/ec6967abeb3445d8ad722fb0f01d8abc","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/dribbble"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-small-to-mid-business-clients-want-from-designers-from-someone-who-sits-in-the-middle-9e9qrejtz","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"mobile","timeRequired":"PT10M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Dribbble","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/dribbble"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"What Small to Mid Business Clients Want From Designers, From Someone Who Sits in the Middle"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-small-to-mid-business-clients-want-from-designers-from-someone-who-sits-in-the-middle-9e9qrejtz#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How much does a basic single-platform mobile app typically cost to build?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"A genuinely basic single-platform mobile app build realistically starts around $20,000. 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