RapidDev builds custom mobile and web apps in Minneapolis, typically shipping a production MVP in 6–12 weeks for a fixed $13,000–$25,000. That is a fraction of the cost of hiring an in-house team in the Twin Cities (roughly $330,000–$400,000 in the first year for two engineers) or commissioning a local agency ($90,000–$300,000 per build). One team ships the iOS app, the Android app, and the web app on shared infrastructure, and the founder owns all of the code.
One team for your iOS, Android, and web build. We help Twin Cities founders go from a Figma mockup or a Lovable prototype to a production app that clears a health-system security review and holds up in front of investors.
Minneapolis is not a copy of the coasts, and that shapes what a launch has to be. It's the headquarters metro for 17 of Minnesota's Fortune 500 companies — UnitedHealth Group, Target, Best Buy, U.S. Bancorp, 3M, General Mills, and Medtronic among them — so the region's economy runs on healthcare, medical devices, retail, and finance rather than pure consumer tech. That gives founders a rare advantage (enterprise buyers and design partners are down the street) and a rare bar to clear (a demo has to survive a health-system security review and a procurement checklist, not just a pitch). Minnesota is a federally designated Tech Hub for 'Smart MedTech,' its medtech startups have raised $6.28B since 2019, and the investors here are Midwest-practical: they want revenue and unit economics before a Series A, not blitzscaling. We build for that reality — the architecture that passes enterprise diligence, the polish that wins a design-partner meeting, and the speed that keeps a lean, capital-efficient team moving.
UnitedHealth Group, Medtronic, and the Mayo Clinic Platform anchor one of the densest health-tech clusters in the country. Techstars runs a UnitedHealthcare-powered accelerator in the metro, and Mayo Clinic Platform gives startups access to curated, de-identified clinical data. That means the design partners and first customers a health-tech founder needs are local — but so is the expectation that your app is HIPAA-aware from day one.
Minnesota's medtech corridor — often called Medical Alley — has produced more medical-device innovation per capita than anywhere in the US, and its startups have raised $6.28B in venture capital since 2019. Minneapolis-Saint Paul is a US Department of Commerce Tech Hub for 'Smart MedTech,' so connected-device companion apps and clinician dashboards are a first-class local category, not an afterthought.
With Target, Best Buy, U.S. Bancorp, and General Mills headquartered here, a Twin Cities B2B founder can land enterprise pilots without leaving the metro. The flip side: those buyers run real security reviews and procurement processes. We build the auth, data model, and audit trail that clear those checklists the first time.
Twin Cities investors — Matchstick Ventures, Bread & Butter, Great North Labs, and the Gener8tor program among them — want traction and clean unit economics before writing a Series A check. Seed rounds are smaller and more disciplined than on the coasts, so every dollar of your build budget has to show up as shipped product. A fixed-price v1 keeps you capital-efficient in exactly the way local investors reward.
the Twin Cities by the numbers
Who we build for in the Twin Cities
Patient, provider, and remote-monitoring apps built HIPAA-aware for a metro anchored by UnitedHealth, Medtronic, and the Mayo Clinic Platform.
Payments, lending, and banking apps with Stripe and real compliance — the category U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo's local presence keeps busy.
Companion apps and clinician dashboards for connected devices, the backbone of Minnesota's 'Medical Alley' medtech corridor.
Storefronts, loyalty, and fulfillment apps in the home metro of Target and Best Buy, where retail expertise runs deep.
Multi-tenant dashboards and admin tooling for the vertical-software startups selling into the region's dense base of large enterprises.
Tracking, ops, and grower-facing apps for a state built on Cargill, ag, and food — logistics that has to work offline in the field.
RapidDev builds native and cross-platform mobile apps, Next.js web apps and dashboards, full MVP-to-scale product builds, and production AI features for Minneapolis founders — mobile and web ship from one team on shared infrastructure, built to clear enterprise and health-system security reviews.
No stitching together an app shop and a web agency. We scope and ship your iOS, Android, and web product on shared infrastructure — so everything actually works together.
One codebase, both stores. We build React Native and Expo apps that pass App Store and Play Store review the first time, with the native feel your users expect.
Fast, SEO-ready web apps on Next.js. From investor-facing marketing sites to the logged-in product itself — dashboards, admin panels, and customer portals for enterprise buyers.
The whole thing, mobile and web, on shared infrastructure. Ideal when you're moving off a Lovable or Bubble prototype that's hit its ceiling and need production code that survives a health-system or enterprise security review.
Ship the AI feature your product actually needs — chat, search, or agents — wired to your data with streaming, evals, and cost controls, not a demo that falls over.
You see a working, deployed build every single week. Here's the exact path from a first call to a launched app — five steps, no surprises.
We map your idea (or your stuck prototype) to a concrete feature list, a fixed price, and a timeline. You leave with a plan whether or not you hire us.
What you get
A fixed price + timeline
Clickable Figma flows and a technical architecture — including the compliance and security posture your buyers will ask about — you sign off on before a line of production code is written.
What you get
Clickable Figma + signed-off architecture
You get a working, deployed build every single week — not a black box. Test on real devices, give feedback, watch it take shape.
What you get
A deployed build every week
We handle App Store and Play Store submission, production deploy, and a full handover — code, docs, and access are yours to keep.
What you get
Live app + all code and access
Keep us on a retainer for new features and fixes, or take the wheel with your own team. Your call — we don't lock you in.
What you get
A retainer — or a clean exit
Production-grade, boring-in-the-best-way tools that your future in-house team can hire for and maintain. No lock-in, no proprietary magic.
Building a custom app in Minneapolis costs anywhere from $13,000 with RapidDev to over $300,000 with a large agency, depending on who builds it. Here is the honest math on the four realistic paths — with real 2025 Twin Cities salary numbers, not a vendor's guesswork.
Hire a team in-house in the Twin Cities
true first-year cost of a minimal 2-engineer team
Twin Cities / US agency
typical price for a comparable custom build
Offshore / freelance
typical Eastern Europe / LatAm blended rate
RapidDev
fixed price, quoted before we start
| Path | Typical cost | Time to first shipped product |
|---|---|---|
| Hire a team in-house in the Twin Cities | ~$330K – $400K / yr | 2–4 months just to hire, then build |
| Twin Cities / US agency | $90K – $300K+ | 4–8 months |
| Offshore / freelance | $25 – $50 / hr | Highly variable — often 2–3x quoted |
| RapidDev | $13K – $25K | 6–12 weeks to a live, submitted app |
The numbers behind this, sourced
For less than the loaded first-year cost of one Minneapolis full-stack engineer, RapidDev ships your entire app — mobile, web, and backend — in 6 to 12 weeks.
App development in Minneapolis with RapidDev costs a fixed $13,000–$25,000, quoted before any code is written rather than billed by the hour. A focused single-platform MVP starts at $13,000; a full mobile-plus-web product with payments and AI features runs up to $25,000.
You get a fixed price before we write a line of code — quoted, not billed by the hour. Every Minneapolis build lands in the $13K–$25K range depending on scope.
Solo founders and pre-seed teams validating one core flow with real users.
Seed-stage startups shipping a fundable v1 to the App Store and the web.
Health-tech and Series A teams replacing a no-code MVP or adding serious AI features.
A few of the builds we've shipped for Minneapolis founders. Details generalized to protect client confidentiality.
Challenge: A Twin Cities founder had a Lovable prototype for a remote-monitoring app but couldn't pass a hospital system's security review to start a pilot.
What we shipped: We rebuilt the backend on Supabase with real RLS and audit logging, made the data flow HIPAA-aware, and shipped native iOS + Android — clearing the health system's security checklist.
Challenge: A Minneapolis team's lending product worked in a demo but had no real payments flow and no way to onboard its first enterprise partner.
What we shipped: We shipped a Next.js web app plus mobile, wired Stripe for payments and payouts, and built the role-based access and reporting the enterprise partner's diligence required.
Challenge: A Medical Alley device maker needed a companion app and a clinician dashboard, but every new feature in their Bubble MVP broke two others.
What we shipped: We migrated their data into a proper Postgres schema and rebuilt the companion app and dashboard on shared infrastructure, so device data, patients, and clinicians finally lived in one place.
190+ people across 17 countries, a 4.9 rating on Clutch, and 600+ apps shipped. Here's the leadership standing behind your build.
CEO & Founder
Founder of RapidDev, a global software firm whose team has delivered 1,000+ client projects. He helps founders cut through the hype and ship practical, production-grade software — fast.
Columbia University · Harvard Business School · U.S. Navy veteran · 1,000+ client projects
Matt on LinkedInCOO
Runs operations across RapidDev's 190+ person, 17-country team — the person making sure your build ships on time and on scope.
CTO
Owns the technical bar for every build: the architecture, code quality, and security review that has to survive enterprise and investor diligence.
Dev Lead
Leads the engineers who ship your weekly builds across iOS, Android, and web on shared infrastructure.
Both — that's the whole point of working with us instead of stitching two vendors together. We build your mobile app (iOS and Android from one React Native codebase) and your web app on shared infrastructure, so your data, auth, and payments live in one place instead of three.
Yes — it's one of the most common reasons Minneapolis founders come to us, given how much of the local economy runs through UnitedHealth, Medtronic, and the Mayo Clinic Platform. We build HIPAA-aware architecture with real row-level security, audit logging, and access controls, so your app clears a health system's security checklist and procurement process the first time rather than after months of rework.
Yes, and it's one of the most common reasons Twin Cities founders come to us. No-code prototypes are great for validation but hit a ceiling on security, scale, and hiring. We migrate your data into a real database and rebuild the product in production-grade code you own — usually without losing any of your existing data.
Most builds land between $13,000 and $25,000, quoted as a fixed price before we start — not billed by the hour. After a free 45-minute scope call we send a concrete feature list, price, and timeline. The band depends on scope: a focused single-platform MVP sits near the bottom, a full mobile + web product with payments and AI features toward the top.
Typically 6–12 weeks from kickoff to a live, submitted app. A focused MVP can ship in 4–6 weeks; a full mobile + web product with AI features runs closer to 9–12. You get a working, deployed build every week, so you're never waiting months to see progress.
No — we work with Twin Cities founders remotely and asynchronously. You'll have a dedicated point of contact, weekly demos, and a shared board. If you prefer a video kickoff or working sessions, we're happy to schedule around Central time.
You do — completely. The code lives in your GitHub, the App Store and Play Store listings are under your accounts, and we hand over full documentation at launch. We never hold your product hostage, and you're free to bring the work in-house or hire your own team whenever you want.
It comes down to structure, not corners cut. A Minneapolis full-stack engineer averages about $142,000 in base salary, and loaded cost runs roughly 1.4x once you add benefits, payroll tax, and tooling — so two engineers cost $330,000–$400,000 in year one before they ship anything, and senior talent is scarce because the big HQs absorb it. We scope a fixed set of features up front with a small, senior-only team, reuse hardened patterns for auth, payments, and infrastructure, and carry none of that ramp-up cost. That's how a comparable v1 lands at $13K–$25K instead.
Absolutely — most of the founders we work with are non-technical or first-time technical founders. We handle every technical decision, explain trade-offs in plain English, and give you a product you can maintain or hand to a future CTO. You focus on customers and fundraising; we handle the build.
Every build includes a 30-day bug-fix window after launch — if something we shipped breaks, we fix it at no extra cost. Beyond that, you can keep us on an optional monthly support retainer for ongoing fixes and new features, or take the code in-house and maintain it yourself. You own the code either way, so you are never locked in.
Small adjustments within the agreed scope are just part of the weekly sprint — you review a working build every week and give feedback we fold in. If you want to add or swap something bigger that changes the scope, we handle it with a simple change order: we tell you the price and timeline impact before doing the work, you approve it, and only then do we build it. No surprise invoices, and no silent scope creep.
Grab a 45-minute slot with our team below. We'll map your idea — or your stuck Minneapolis prototype — to a concrete feature list, a fixed $13K–$25K price, and a timeline. You walk away with a real plan either way.
Prefer email? Contact us instead.
Book a free 45-minute scope call. You'll walk away with a concrete feature list, a fixed price, and a timeline — whether or not you decide to work with us.
Serving Minneapolis and the Twin Cities · Remote-friendly · You own everything we build
