The launch day is exciting. The app is live in the App Store and Play Store. Your team can download it. Customers are using it. The project is done.
Except it isn't done. It has just entered its maintenance phase, which will last as long as the app is in use. Most businesses don't budget for this phase properly — or at all — because during the project, the focus is entirely on getting to launch. The ongoing costs feel abstract until the first crisis.
Why Apps Need Ongoing Maintenance
Operating System Updates
Apple and Google release major iOS and Android updates every year, usually in September and October respectively. Each major release brings changes to the platform: new APIs, deprecated functions, updated UI standards, and changes to how the operating system handles things like notifications, permissions, camera access, and background processing.
Apps that aren't updated alongside the OS changes don't always break immediately. But they accumulate incompatibilities. Minor visual inconsistencies appear. Certain features stop working. Eventually, on a new enough OS version, the app may crash, fail to open, or be flagged as "not optimized for this iPhone" in a way that erodes user trust.
If you ship an app in 2025 and don't touch it until 2027, it will have compatibility issues with two major iOS versions and two major Android versions. Users on the latest OS versions will notice.
Bugs from Real-World Usage
Testing before launch is thorough but not complete. The test environment, no matter how good, is not the same as millions of real users on thousands of different device configurations, network conditions, and usage patterns.
Real-world usage surfaces bugs that testing missed. A user with an unusual amount of data in their profile triggers an edge case. Two users editing the same record simultaneously creates a conflict the system doesn't handle gracefully. A specific combination of device and OS version has a rendering issue that nobody tested.
These bugs need to be fixed when they're found — not scheduled for a theoretical future version. An unfixed bug that users encounter regularly will result in poor App Store ratings, which reduces downloads and trust.
Backend and Server Maintenance
Most business apps connect to a backend: an API server, a database, and associated infrastructure. This backend needs the same maintenance as any web application — server software updates, database maintenance, SSL certificate renewal, security patching.
The app is the visible surface. The backend is what makes it work. Neglecting backend maintenance eventually produces app failures that look like app bugs but are actually infrastructure issues.
Crash Monitoring and Performance
After launch, you need visibility into what's happening with the app in production. Crash reporting tools (Firebase Crashlytics, Sentry) automatically capture crash events with diagnostic information — which device, which OS version, what the user was doing, what the stack trace shows. Without these, you're learning about crashes from user reviews and support messages, after the fact, without diagnostic information.
Performance monitoring tracks app startup time, screen load times, API response times, and network errors. This is how you know whether the app is getting slower over time, and where the bottleneck is.
These tools have minimal cost but require setup during development and ongoing attention after launch.
App Store Listing Updates
App Store listings require periodic maintenance: updating screenshots when the app UI changes, responding to user reviews, updating the description when features change, and — importantly — ensuring compliance with updated App Store guidelines. Apple and Google both update their policies, and an app that was compliant at launch may need changes if policy shifts affect its category.
Apple occasionally removes apps from the App Store that haven't been updated in a long time (their "App Store Improvement" notices). This isn't hypothetical — it has happened to many businesses that launched apps and forgot about them.
What It Costs
A reasonable benchmark: 15-20% of the original development cost per year for maintenance.
For an app that cost Rp 200 million to build, budget Rp 30-40 million per year for maintenance. This covers:
- Annual OS compatibility updates for both iOS and Android
- Bug fixes from production issues
- Backend/server maintenance
- Crash monitoring and performance monitoring tools
- Minor UI improvements based on user feedback
- App Store listing management
It does not cover new features. Feature additions are change requests with their own scope and cost.
What Happens If You Don't Maintain
The consequences follow a predictable pattern.
In year one after launch: minor bugs appear but the app is largely functional. Users start leaving one-star reviews for specific issues.
In year two: OS changes create compatibility issues. Some features stop working correctly on the latest devices. The issue is visible in crash reports but nobody is looking at them.
In year three: the app crashes regularly on current devices. App Store rating has declined. Support requests are common. Downloads have dropped because the ratings are bad.
By year four: rebuilding is the only option. The underlying framework version is too old to update incrementally. The cost of rebuilding approaches or exceeds the original development cost — and you've lost the user base and the goodwill you built at launch.
This pattern is avoidable. It's entirely the result of treating maintenance as optional.
The Right Mental Model
An app is not a product you buy once. It's a system you operate. Like any system — a vehicle, a piece of machinery, a physical store — it requires regular upkeep to keep working well. The cost of upkeep is predictable and manageable. The cost of neglecting upkeep is unpredictable and often severe.
Budget for maintenance before you build the app. It's part of the total cost of the system you're commissioning — not an optional add-on that can be decided later. If you're still in the planning stage, understanding the full development timeline before you start helps you set the right expectations for the entire lifecycle, including the maintenance phase that follows launch.
CERIS offers maintenance contracts for mobile apps alongside our development work, so clients have ongoing support from the team that knows the codebase. See our mobile app development service or get in touch and we'll assess what it needs.
