Most small businesses in Bosnia & Herzegovina need a website, not a mobile app. An app only pays off once the same person needs to do something regularly — book, order, track a balance. With me a website starts at 800 KM and an app at 2500 KM, and the gap in the work behind those two figures is wider than the gap in the numbers.
Here is how I tell the two apart when a client asks.
The core difference: being found versus coming back
A website exists so people who do not know you can find you. Someone types what they need into Google, clicks, and a second later they are on your site. Nothing to install, nothing to download, no decision to make before they see who you are.
An app exists so people come back to you. It sits on the phone's home screen, it can send a notification, and it remembers who the user is. But before any of that, a person has to find it in an app store, download it and keep it — a real barrier that only people who already know why they need it will cross.
Put simply: a site catches new people, an app keeps existing ones. If you do not yet have anyone to keep, an app solves a problem you do not have.
When an app makes sense
- A repeated action. The same people do the same thing several times a month — ordering, booking, reporting.
- User accounts. Each user has their own data, history and status.
- Notifications. You need to reach the user rather than wait for the user to reach you.
- Phone features. Camera, location, scanning, working without an internet connection.
- Internal use. An app for your own staff — records, field jobs, stock. This is where the investment comes back fastest, because it saves time every single day.
When a website is enough, which is most of the time
- You are introducing yourself, showing your work and taking enquiries.
- The interaction happens once: someone looks, gets in touch, comes in.
- Clients look for you on Google, not in an app store.
- You have few enough customers that they all know you by name.
Worth knowing too: a modern website now does plenty of what people assume requires an app. Online booking, a form that sends a reminder, a layout on a phone that looks like an app — all of that is web. When somebody tells me "I need a booking app", half the time what they actually need is a website with a booking system.
What an app costs beyond the build
The build is one part. The rest is easy to overlook:
- Two platforms. iPhone and Android. I work in React Native, so it is one codebase for both, but testing and publishing are still two jobs.
- Publishing and fees. Apple and Google charge for access to their stores, each on its own terms, and every version goes through their review before it goes live.
- Maintenance is not optional. When iOS and Android ship a new version, the app has to keep up. A website left alone keeps working; an app left alone eventually stops.
- Getting users in. Nobody downloads an app by accident. Someone has to tell them — usually your website.
What next
Start with the website. It is cheaper, it is finished sooner, and it brings enquiries straight away. Once you can see the same people coming back and repeating the same action, the app has a number behind it instead of a feeling.
If you already know you need an app — for internal use, or for a system that already runs on paper — see how I build mobile apps or send me a message with one sentence: what the user would do in the app, and how often. That answer usually settles whether you need an app, a website or a web application — and I will say so honestly even when the answer is "you do not need one".
Frequently asked
Can a website be turned into an app? Partly. A site can be packaged so it installs on a phone and behaves like an app, which is cheaper than a real app. But it does not have the full speed or every phone feature, and it is not always accepted in the stores. A good fit for some cases, a poor one for most.
How long does building an app take? Typically 8–12 weeks — longer than a website, because you are building a system rather than just screens. I agree an exact timeline once I know what the app has to do — an estimate before that is guesswork.