Refract Group2026
Mobile app design
A mobile app designed and tested on the device.
We design mobile apps: the flows, every screen with its states and the components your developers build from. A focused piece on one area takes four to six weeks. Product design starts from $10,000 a month.
In short
What you get
The flows for each journey, every screen with its states, a component set and a prototype you can try on a phone. Your developers receive it in a format agreed with them, and the files are yours.
What it costs
Mobile app design is priced as product design, which starts from $10,000 a month. A first piece of work on one journey in the app is one week for $2,500, credited against work that starts within 60 days.
How long it takes
One area of an app, such as onboarding or a payment flow, takes four to six weeks. The design of a whole app takes ten to sixteen weeks. We agree which before the work starts.
When it’s not a fit
The design is finished and you only need developers, the job is a responsive website, or nobody on your side can decide what the first version leaves out.
How the design work runs
See the app we designed for DoughProAgree the scope
On a call we settle who the app is for, which journeys it has to handle and whether it sits beside a web product. You show us whatever exists.
Map the flows
We lay out each journey from opening the app to finishing the task, including what happens when there is no data or something goes wrong.
Design the screens
Screens and components are designed together, so each new screen is assembled from parts that already exist.
Test on the device
We put the designs on a phone and try variations of navigation, reach and selection there. On Atrium we tested each of those on the device.
Hand over to developers
Your developers get the flows, the screens with their states and the component set, in a format they agreed to at the start.
Where app design leads
Questions about app design
Mobile app design is priced as product design, which starts from $10,000 a month. The price depends on how many journeys the app has, whether it shares a design system with a web product and what your developers need at handover. A first piece of work on one journey is one week for $2,500, and that amount comes off the price of any work that starts within 60 days.
Four to six weeks for one area of an app, such as onboarding. Ten to sixteen weeks to design a whole app. Which of those you need is settled before the work starts, along with the dates. A first piece of work on a single journey takes one week.
One design, adjusted for each platform. The structure, the flows and the components are shared. Navigation, system controls and gestures follow what people on each platform already expect. How far the two versions differ depends on how the app is being built, so we decide it with your developers at the start.
It can be part of the work. We can scope the design alone or the design and the build together, and at our studio the people who design a product also build it. If you already have developers, we design alongside them, agree the components with them and review what they build.
It depends on what people do with it and how often. An app suits something opened most days, used away from a desk or reliant on the phone itself, such as its camera or notifications. A responsive web product suits work done at a desk and needs no install. A first week of work can settle the question before either is designed.
We put the design on a phone and use it the way your users would. A layout that looks right in a design file can leave the main action out of reach. On Atrium, mobile had its own navigation, reachability and selection behaviour, and we tested variations of each on the device.
The flows, the screens with every state and the component set, with a note on how each component behaves. Before the work starts we agree with your developers the file format, how much is documented and whether we review the build. All of the files belong to you.
Yes. We work from Sydney, and mobile apps are part of our product design work. We designed the app for DoughPro, a money app. The design is built around coming back, with streaks, small wins and a balance you can read at a glance. For Atrium, a CRM, we designed mobile as part of the same system as the rest of the product.
Yes. That work can start with a single journey or with an audit of the app as it stands. A UX audit takes one week and costs $2,500, and we carry it out on a phone, inside the app. What it finds tells you whether the app needs a redesign or a shorter list of changes.
We need to know who the app is for and what they have to get done with it. We need to see anything that exists already, whether that is a build, a web product or a set of sketches. We also need one person who can make decisions, and an introduction to your developers if they are already chosen.
A closer look at the work
- Prototype vs MVP: what should you build first?A prototype tests a question. An MVP is a usable first product. Choose the next build by the uncertainty you need to resolve and what real use requires.
- What does a product designer actually do?Product design connects a user’s problem to a working product: research, flows, interface design, prototypes and the decisions needed to build and improve it.
- How to run a UX audit that leads to useful fixesA UX audit follows real tasks through your product, records where people get stuck and ranks fixes by user impact, evidence and the effort required.
Got an app to design, or one that needs work?
Tell us who it’s for and what exists so far. We’ll say what we’d design first.
Most teams start with a call, then a sprint or an audit.
The people you’d work with, from the first call to launch