What to ask before you hire an app developer

Before you hire an app developer, ask ten questions. What have you shipped that I can download today? Who owns the code and the accounts? What's in the price and what isn't? The answers tell you more than any portfolio.

These are the questions I'd want a client to ask me.

1. What have you shipped that I can download today?

Not designs. Not a video. A link to a store.

Getting an app through review and keeping it live is a skill of its own. Someone who has done it will send you a link in ten seconds.

2. Who owns the code, the accounts and the data?

You should. The app goes on the store under your company's name, in your developer account. The code is handed to you.

If the developer publishes it under their own account, you don't own an app. You rent one, and leaving them means starting again.

3. What exactly is included?

Ask for the list of screens and what each one does. If it's not on the list, it's not in the price.

A quote with three headings and a number is a guess. A quote with forty named screens is a plan.

4. What is not included?

The better question. Server costs. Map and text message fees. Store accounts. Changes after sign-off. Translation.

A good developer tells you before you ask. If the answer is that everything is included, it isn't.

5. When do I first get it on my own phone?

It should be weeks, not months. A test build you can tap through every couple of weeks is how you catch a misunderstanding while it's cheap.

If the first time you see it is the end, the end will be a surprise.

6. Who handles the store submission?

Review notes, demo accounts, privacy answers, screenshots. Someone has to do it, and someone has to deal with a rejection.

Ours got sent back once over a setting we didn't even use. It happens. You want the person who fixes it in a day.

7. What happens after launch?

Apps need looking after. Phones update, stores change their rules, things break.

Ask what the monthly care costs and what it covers. A developer with no answer is planning to disappear.

8. How do changes work?

You'll change your mind. Everyone does. Ask how a change gets priced and agreed before it gets built.

The wrong answer is that you'll sort it out as you go. That turns into an invoice you didn't expect.

9. What do you need from me?

A serious developer has a list. Content, logins, a registered company for the store accounts, one person who makes decisions and answers within a day.

Most late apps are late because of this list, not because of the code.

10. Can an AI assistant connect to it?

This is the new one, and it will matter more every year. Ask whether the system behind the app can be used by an AI assistant like Claude or ChatGPT.

If they look blank, they're building you something that's already a step behind. I explained why in what makes software AI-ready.

What are the red flags?

• A price given before anyone asked what the app does.
• No live app you can download.
• The app published under their name.
• Nothing to see until the end.
• A deadline that sounds too good. It is.

What does a good answer sound like?

Specific. Slightly boring. Full of things they'll need from you.

The developer who makes it sound easy hasn't done it. The one who tells you what will go wrong has.

Those are the terms we work on: your name on the listing, your accounts, your data, and a test build on your phone during the build. See the apps we've shipped, then ask me these ten.