How much does a white label app cost?

What does white label actually mean?

A white label app is software built once and sold or supplied under other businesses’ brands, and buyers use the term for three quite different arrangements. Before pricing anything, decide which one you mean:

Meaning	What you get	Who carries the build cost	Typical cost shape
Licensing a white label app	A vendor’s existing app with your logo, colours and content	The vendor	Setup fee, then a monthly fee per account or brand
Building your own multi brand platform	One codebase you own, configured per client brand	You	Large build, then per brand onboarding and running costs
One app with many brands inside	A single published app where users pick a brand, venue or organisation	You or the vendor	Build once; few per brand costs

Agencies reselling apps to their clients usually start with the first. Software companies serving franchise networks, gyms, clubs or schools often need the second. The third is the one most people overlook, and Apple’s own rules point to it.

What do Apple and Google allow?

Apple guideline 4.2.6 rejects apps made from a commercialised template unless the provider of the app’s content submits them, so per brand apps usually have to be published from each brand’s own developer account. The guideline says template and app generation services should not submit apps on behalf of their clients. It offers an alternative: a single binary that hosts all client content in an aggregated or picker model, such as a restaurant finder with separate pages for each restaurant, or an event app with separate entries for each event.

Guideline 4.3 on spam adds that developers should not create multiple Bundle IDs of the same app, and suggests a single app with variations for things like locations, sports teams or universities.

Google Play’s spam policy takes a similar line: it does not allow apps that merely provide the same experience as other apps already on Google Play, and expects apps to provide value through unique content or services.

What this means for cost:

1. Per brand publishing needs each brand to enrol. Apple requires organisations to enrol as a legal entity, not a trading name, with a D-U-N-S Number and a person with authority to bind the organisation. The program is listed at 99 USD per membership year, with local pricing at enrolment.
2. Each brand app goes through its own review. Budget time for rejections and resubmissions for every brand, every release.
3. Brand apps need real differences. Content, features or services specific to the brand, not just a new logo.

Our guide to publishing on the App Store and Google Play covers review and rejection more broadly.

What does licensing a white label app cost?

Licensed white label apps are cheap to start and expensive to leave: you pay a setup fee and a monthly fee, and the vendor owns the product. As a published example at the time of writing, HighLevel lists plans at US$97, US$297 and US$497 a month, with a white label mobile app at US$497 a month as an extra, and white labelling of its desktop web app. Many vendors in gyms, hospitality, churches and clubs offer branded apps on similar terms, usually quoted per brand.

As a planning assumption, not a quote, budget a setup fee of a few thousand dollars per brand and a monthly fee of $200 to $2,000 per brand or account, depending on the vendor and features. Before signing, check who submits the app to the stores, what happens to the store listing and customer data if you leave, and whether price rises are capped.

What does building your own multi brand platform cost?

Worked at an assumed agency rate of $1,100 to $1,500 a day, a multi brand platform typically costs $80k to $200k to build, and a reseller platform with automated onboarding and store builds $200k to $450k. The rate assumption reflects Re:Sourced’s July 2026 guide, which lists Sydney senior software contractors at $800 to $1,100 a day ex GST, before agency overheads. Expeed’s 2026 guide puts complex apps at $150k to $500k or more, consistent with the upper bands.

Build	Typical scope	Cost range (AUD, ex GST)
Multi brand platform	Shared app and backend, brand configuration (names, colours, icons, content, features), admin per brand, one build pipeline	$80k to $200k
Reseller platform	Above, plus self service onboarding, billing per brand, automated store builds and metadata, usage reporting	$200k to $450k
Single picker app	One published app; brands as organisations inside it, each with its own content and admin	Often below the multi brand platform, as there is one app to publish

The technical heart is tenancy: how each brand’s data, users and settings are kept apart. Our guide to multi tenant SaaS architecture covers the options and their trade offs.

Worked example: branded apps for 20 fitness studios

A hypothetical software company wants each of 20 studio clients to have its own app with classes, bookings, memberships and push notifications. Because of guideline 4.2.6, each studio will publish from its own Apple and Google accounts. Scope: shared app with classes, bookings, payments and notifications (55 days), brand configuration and theming system (10 days), build pipeline that produces signed apps per brand with their own icons and store metadata (12 days), admin per studio and a super admin (12 days), testing and first launches (8 days). Platform total 97 days, or $106,700 to $145,500 ex GST. Then about 1.5 days per studio for onboarding, store account setup and first submission: 30 days, or $33,000 to $45,000 for all 20.

What does each brand cost to run?

Each separately published brand app carries its own yearly store fees, review cycles and support, so per brand running costs often decide whether the model is profitable. Running cost lines per brand:

• Apple Developer Program: 99 USD per year at the listed price, paid by the brand if it is the submitter.
• Store submissions: every release goes through review for every brand. With 20 brands, a release is 20 submissions on each store.
• Push notification and email setup per brand sender.
• Support: brand specific questions, store account problems and expired certificates.
• Hosting: shared, but growing with brands and users.

A picker app avoids most of these. It is one store listing, one review per release and one set of credentials.

Who owns what when you resell an app?

The contract must say who owns the platform code, the brand apps, the store accounts and the customer data, and what happens to each when a client leaves. Points to settle in writing:

• The platform code stays with the platform owner; the client receives a licence, not ownership.
• The client’s brand, trade marks and content stay with the client.
• The store account belongs to the client if it is the submitter, and the platform owner’s access is removed on exit.
• Customer data is exported in a usable format within a set period.
• Price changes, service levels and support hours are stated.
• Privacy roles are clear: who collects personal information and who handles it on whose behalf.

See who owns the source code and our software development contract checklist.

What will it cost over three years?

For an agency with a handful of clients, licensing is cheaper over three years; a platform you own only pays back when you have many brands and can charge each of them. Assumptions, not quotes: 20 brands; licensing at the HighLevel white label app price of US$497 a month plus a US$297 plan, converted at an assumed A$1.50 per US$1; own platform from the worked example with hosting at $4k to $10k a year and maintenance at 15% to 20% of the platform build from year 2. Per brand Apple fees are paid by the brands in both cases.

Option, 20 brands	Year 1	Years 2 and 3	3 year total
Licensed white label (US$794 a month)	$14.3k	$28.6k	$42.9k
Own multi brand platform	$143.7k to $200.5k	$40k to $78.2k	$183.7k to $278.7k

The licensed option is far cheaper but leaves you dependent on one vendor’s roadmap and pricing. The owned platform makes sense when the product is the business: if 20 studios each pay $300 a month, that is $216,000 over three years, before growth.

How AWLabs approaches white label platforms

We start with a Development Consult, then a paid Discovery Audit, credited in full against the build, that tests whether a licensed product or a single picker app would meet your goals before anything is built. If your own platform is justified, you receive a fixed price Schedule of Work with three options: The Minimum, The Recommended and The Complete. Senior engineers lead every build. See our SaaS development and web and mobile app development services, and our SaaS development cost guide.