Twelve Questions to Ask an App Development Company Before You Sign

Most bad engagements are visible in the sales process. These are the questions that separate a product team from a body shop.

Wve Labs is a digital product company: product strategy, design and engineering under one team. Since 2015 we have designed and built mobile apps, web platforms and custom software for startups, growth companies and established organisations. Mobile has been at the heart of Wve for more than ten years and remains one of our deepest areas of expertise.

What we build in this area: 1. Who owns the code, the accounts and the App Store listings on day one?. 2. Which named engineers work on this, and are they employees?. 3. What happens in week three when discovery contradicts the estimate?. 4. How is success measured, and what is the baseline today?. 5. What does handover or in-housing look like if we want it later?.

Wve Labs answers all of these in writing before a contract. You own your code and accounts, and the people in discovery are the people who build.

How the engagement runs. Discovery agrees the one decision or moment the product has to improve and how it will be measured. Design owns the system and the flows rather than a folder of screens. Engineering ships against one API, one design system and one event taxonomy, so the app, the website and the internal tooling stay one product. Nothing scales until the first release beats its baseline.

If you are weighing this up, we can tell you quickly whether it is worth building and what it realistically takes. Serious engagements start around $25,000. Email business@wvelabs.com or call (800) 588-9094 and you will talk to an engineer, not a salesperson.