Top 10 mobile app design agencies in 2026

The other lists don't agree on much. We read thirteen of them and found 86 different agencies named. Ramotion is on ten of them; no other agency is on more than six, not counting its own list. So rather than invent a ranking, we counted: the nine agencies here are the ones those lists name most often. Then we checked what each one says about itself.

This list is for founders and product leads choosing who designs their iOS or Android app: the flows, the screens, the prototype and the design system a developer builds from. If you need the whole product built from nothing, that's a bigger hire, and we cover the difference further down.

The short version

• Want one senior team to design the app at a fixed price, and build it too if you like? Usarion (us).
• Want a well-known studio with a published price list and a $50,000 floor? Ramotion.
• Want a designer on a monthly plan for a SaaS app, with your own developers building it? Eleken.
• Want a premium consumer app with the brand made at the same time? Clay.
• Want the studio behind interfaces for Robinhood and Headspace? MetaLab.
• Want a large team that designs and builds at enterprise scale? Appinventiv or Fueled.
• Want an LA product team that starts at $25,000 and builds the whole thing? Goji Labs.
• Want strategy and research before anyone draws a screen? IDEO.
• Want a full app build with its typical cost published before you call? Blue Label Labs.

How we picked these ten

• Other lists keep naming them. We read five of the six list articles on page one for "mobile app design agency", "best mobile app design agencies" and "top mobile app design agencies" (the sixth wouldn't open for us), plus eight more lists on the same subject that a web search turned up. One of the thirteen is written by a publisher, not an agency. We counted each agency's appearances, leaving out every author's own entry. Ramotion is on ten lists; Eleken and Clay on six; Appinventiv on five; Fueled, Goji Labs, IDEO and MetaLab on four; Blue Label Labs on three.
• Ties are alphabetical. Seven agencies are named three times each. Blue Label Labs comes first alphabetically, so it takes the last place. The six left out by that rule are Frog, Infinum, UX Studio, Wandr, Work & Co and YML.
• Facts come from their own sites. Where a company doesn't say something, such as a price or a location, we've left it out or said so.
• Nobody paid to be here, and nobody was asked.

The ten at a glance

1. Usarion

Website: usarion.com · Founded: 2020 · Founder designing since: 2011 · Clutch: 5.0

We're a mobile app design agency that designs iOS and Android apps from the first user flow to the screenshots on the store listing. The same senior team can also build the app, so the version that reaches the store is the one you approved, not a developer's best guess at it.

The work runs in five steps: understand who opens the app and what they need first, map every flow and state, design and prototype, test on real phones rather than a simulator, then prepare the store build and assets. The price is fixed against a written scope before we start. The cost and timeline sections below have the numbers and the weeks.

Our work page has eight mobile app projects. Two show how we work. Fiteats is an AI meal planner we took from an idea to a finished design in 30 days: an information architecture, a full user flow, 74 wireframes and 48 screens. KIP is an app for electronic music fans, designed in two rounds, 16 screens and then 17, with the second round cutting detail from every card so the artists and the cover art could lead.

Our founder, Imran Khan, was Creative Lead at Superside, with work at Superside for brands including Meta, Red Bull and Ray-Ban.

Best for: founders taking an app to the store for the first time, and SaaS teams adding a mobile app to a product that already has a dashboard.

Not for: games, or white-label work for other agencies. If you're starting a whole product from zero, our list of MVP development companies is the better place to start.

2. Ramotion

Website: ramotion.com · Offices: San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York · In business: 15+ years

Ramotion is the name the lists agree on most: ten of the thirteen we read include it. It's a brand and product design agency with 70+ team members, and its app design page covers iOS layouts built to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, Android interfaces, and shared components for React Native or Flutter apps. Designs are handed over as Figma libraries with design tokens, and the page lists pre-coded React UI component libraries among the ways it speeds up the build. Its mobile work includes the icon design for OPPO's ColorOS, which it says now reaches over 500 million users.

What we liked most is that it prints its prices. A fixed-price discovery sprint is $35,000. A full redesign or new multi-platform launch runs $50,000 to $150,000+, and the page is plain that $50,000 is the floor, even for early-stage startups. If you'd rather keep a team on, embedded support is $9,500 a month part-time or $16,800 full-time.

Best for: funded companies that want a polished app and a brand that matches it, and can spend $50,000 or more.

Not for: a pre-seed budget or a quick test of an idea.

3. Eleken

Website: eleken.co · Based in: Kyiv, with Eleken US, LLC in Newark, Delaware · Founded: 2015 · Clutch: 4.9

Eleken designs only for SaaS products, and it sells design by the month rather than by the project. Its mobile page is straight about what it doesn't do: it's a design-only agency, so your developers build from its Figma files, prototypes and design system. Its examples include PrimePro, a contractors' app it says launched as an MVP in four months, and JobCall, a property maintenance product it redesigned mobile-first.

The pricing page has the numbers: $4,599 a month for a part-time designer, $6,599 for a full-time one and $11,999 for two, with a two-month minimum and a three-day free trial. Its FAQ puts an MVP app design at two to four months. Every designer goes through a three-month training program before client work, and the about page counts 200+ projects.

Best for: SaaS teams that already have developers and want a designer who stays for months.

Not for: anyone who needs the app built, or a consumer app outside software.

4. Clay

Website: clay.global · HQ: San Francisco · In business: 16 years · Team: 78

Clay is a branding and UX agency with 529 projects behind it, and it designs and builds: its about page lists mobile app development and front-end and back-end work beside research and interaction design. Its mobile work on the homepage includes a new app and visual identity for Joe & The Juice, the coffee and juice bar chain. Earnin's founder says that soon after the company launched Clay's designs, it was featured in the App Store and on Google Play.

It says its co-founders lead each team, which is the opposite of the big-agency habit of selling with seniors and staffing with juniors. It doesn't publish prices: it works on time and materials, a fixed fee or a retainer, and sends a proposal with a timeline and an estimate after a few discovery calls.

Best for: consumer brands where the app has to look and feel premium from day one.

Not for: a small budget or a quick prototype.

5. Appinventiv

Website: appinventiv.com · Offices: India, the US, the UK, the UAE, Canada and Australia · Since: 2015 · Team: 1,700+

Appinventiv has the largest team of the agencies here that publish a headcount, and it leads with engineering. Its story starts in 2015 with fewer than ten people, as a mobile-first agency; it now calls itself a digital engineering company, with 1,700+ people and what it calls 3,000+ digital masterpieces. Its portfolio includes a mobile app for KFC and a UX strategy for Domino's that it says raised conversion by 23%. It lists Deloitte Tech Fast 50 awards for 2023 and 2024.

Its mobile-first design page prints separate figures for design and for development: designing a mobile app costs roughly $30,000 to $150,000, and developing one $25,000 to $300,000 or more.

Best for: enterprises and well-funded companies that want design, engineering and integration from one large team.

Not for: a founder who wants to talk to the designer every day.

6. Fueled

Website: fueled.com · Based: fully remote, across North America and EMEA · In business: 15+ years

Fueled was a product and app design agency when it merged with 10up, an enterprise WordPress agency, in 2023, so today it does both apps and enterprise websites. On mobile, its homepage talks about iOS and iPadOS apps since the early days of the App Store, App of the Year wins for clients, and an app Apple asked it to make. The rest of its homepage shows how big its clients are: Google's Site Kit plugin for WordPress, and WhiteHouse.gov relaunched in eight weeks.

It doesn't publish prices, and we didn't find an office address on its site; its about page describes a fully remote team.

Best for: large brands and institutions that want an iOS app and a serious web platform from the same partner.

Not for: an early-stage startup on a tight budget.

7. Goji Labs

Website: gojilabs.com · HQ: Los Angeles · Founded: 2014 · Products launched: 500+

Goji Labs calls itself a strategy-led product agency: product strategy, UX, engineering and AI in one team. Its FAQ says it has launched more than 500 products, used by over 25 million people, for clients including KCRW, WWF and the World Health Organization. A typical team is a product strategist, a UX designer, a project manager and one or more engineers.

It's also unusually clear on money and time. Engagements typically start at $25,000, priced on a blended rate that covers design, development, testing and project management. Its mobile page says a focused custom MVP takes four to six months, and apps with custom back ends and many integrations six to twelve. Its developers review each design against your tech stack before you approve it.

Best for: startups and mid-size teams that want one team to research, design and build the app.

Not for: design-only work for a team that already has developers.

8. IDEO

Website: ideo.com · Founded: Palo Alto, 1991 · Studios: San Francisco, Cambridge, Chicago, London, Shanghai

IDEO isn't an app studio. It's a design and innovation company, founded by David Kelley, Bill Moggridge and Mike Nuttall, that designed the first mouse for Apple, and its then-CEO Tim Brown wrote Change By Design, the 2009 book that put design thinking into words. What it brings to an app is the work before the screens: research into how people behave, and the strategy that decides what gets built.

Its digital work shows that. It helped launch PillPack, the pharmacy service Amazon later bought for $750M+, and worked with FEMSA on a digital ecosystem for its OXXO stores. It doesn't publish prices.

Best for: large organizations working out what product to make, and for whom.

Not for: a startup that already knows what it's building and needs screens next month.

9. MetaLab

Website: metalab.com · Home: Canada, with a team spread worldwide · Since: 2006

MetaLab's homepage says it simply: "We make interfaces." Since 2006 it has helped startups and established brands design, build and ship products, and its case studies read like a list of apps on a phone: Robinhood, Uber, Headspace, Midjourney, Suno. For Robinhood it designed a new advisory product, built for what it says are 25M+ investors.

Its about page describes a global team with a Canadian home and people from Vancouver to London to Australia. It doesn't publish prices, and its site says very little about process, so expect to learn that on a call.

Best for: well-funded startups where the interface is the product and has to be best in class.

Not for: a team that needs a price before the first call.

10. Blue Label Labs

Website: bluelabellabs.com · HQ: New York, with offices in Seattle and San Francisco · In business: 15+ years · Team: 100+

Blue Label Labs (BlueLabel) is a remote-first team of 100+ strategists, designers and developers, headquartered in New York. Its homepage now leads with AI agents, but its app work is still on show: one client says an app it designed increased usage eightfold, and another that revenue beat its goals by nearly 40% after launch. It staffs every project with both a UX designer and a UI designer.

Its FAQ has some of the most detailed pricing on this list. A full app from discovery to App Store averages about $120,000 for one platform, within a range of $50,000 for a bare-bones MVP to $2,000,000 for an enterprise app. While a build is running, expect $20,000 to $60,000 a month. A typical project takes four to five months, with four to six weeks of discovery and design. Some lines in that FAQ look older than the rest of the site (it mentions 7 years and 64 people), so confirm the numbers on a call.

Best for: companies that want a full app build with predictable, sprint-based billing.

Not for: a design-only project.

What a mobile app design agency actually does

It decides what the app does on each screen and how people move between them. In practice that means the user flows, wireframes, the visual design of every screen and every state (empty, loading, error, offline), a clickable prototype you can put in front of users, and a design system developers can build from. Some agencies stop there and hand over files. Others, like Clay, Goji Labs, Appinventiv and us, build the app as well.

App design isn't the same as website design (we've written a separate list of SaaS website design agencies for that). A phone app gets opened many times a day, on a small screen, often with one thumb, and someone who gets lost in onboarding deletes it rather than reading an FAQ. So the hardest work is in the first few minutes: what the app asks for, in what order, and how quickly it gives something back.

When we designed Fiteats, an AI meal planner, the whole app depended on knowing a person well enough to plan their week. So we put every question it needs into onboarding, five short steps of chips and choices you tap, and wrote a plain example under each activity level, because "Moderately Active" means something different to everyone. Once those are answered, the app stops asking and simply plans, until you change a preference. That's the kind of decision an app design agency is paid to make, and the kind you should ask to see in its portfolio.

Design only, or design and build?

The agencies here split into two groups. Eleken designs only, and says so. Ramotion designs and writes front-end code. Clay, Appinventiv, Fueled, Goji Labs, MetaLab, Blue Label Labs and Usarion design and build.

A design-only agency suits a team that already has iOS, Android or React Native developers. You get the files, the prototype and the design system, and your team builds. The risk is the handoff: a transition or gesture that looked simple in Figma turns out to be expensive to build, and quietly gets dropped.

A design and build agency suits a founder without developers, or a team that wants one budget and one point of blame. Ask whether the same people do both halves, or whether design hands over to a separate engineering team inside the same company, because that's still a handoff.

How to choose a mobile app design agency

Start with what has to be true when the work ends: an app in the store by a date, a prototype for an investor meeting, a redesign that stops people dropping out of signup, or a design system your own team can extend. The short version at the top matches those to names on this list.

Then cut the shortlist to two or three with these questions. You should get straight answers on the first call.

1. Who's on the first call, and who designs the app? If the person selling isn't the person designing, ask to meet the designer, and ask if they'll still be on it in month three.
2. Can they show an app that's live in the store? A live app shows what survived development. A Dribbble shot doesn't.
3. Do they design every state, or just the happy path? Ask to see an empty state, an error and a loading screen from a real project.
4. Will they test on real phones? A layout drawn on a laptop often breaks on a small screen or under a thumb.
5. What exactly do you get at the end? Figma files, a prototype, a design system, store assets, or code. More on handoff below.
6. Is the price fixed, monthly or hourly, and what makes it move? Ramotion, Eleken, Appinventiv, Goji Labs and Blue Label Labs publish enough to compare before you call.

How to read an app design portfolio

Polished mockups on a colored background tell you the agency can make a nice picture. They don't tell you it can design an app. Open a case study and look for three things: the flow between screens rather than single screens, the states other than the perfect one, and a decision the team changed its mind about.

The last one is the most revealing. In our first round for KIP, each card carried the tempo, key, genre and release date. That was a lot of data on a small card, and the music got lost under it. In the final round the DJs and the artwork come first, on a near-black screen, and the track data waits on the detail pages for the people who want it. An agency that can tell you a story like that about its own work will tell you the truth about yours.

What mobile app design costs

Five of the nine other agencies here publish a figure on their own site:

• Ramotion: discovery $35,000, a redesign or new launch $50,000 to $150,000+, embedded support $9,500 or $16,800 a month.
• Eleken: $4,599 a month for a part-time designer, $6,599 full-time, $11,999 for two; two months minimum.
• Appinventiv: design alone $30,000 to $150,000; development $25,000 to $300,000+.
• Goji Labs: engagements typically from $25,000.
• Blue Label Labs: about $120,000 per platform for a full design and build, from $50,000 to $2,000,000.

Clay, Fueled, IDEO and MetaLab quote after a call. Ours starts from $5,000 for a fixed-scope project, or $2,000 a month for a senior designer on a plan, with $3,500 and $8,000 plans for more hours and more people. Our pricing page has what each plan includes.

What moves an app's price is easier to predict than the numbers suggest. The number of screens and states matters most. Then whether iOS and Android ship together, whether a design system already exists, how much user research comes first, and whether the same agency builds it. Design is one part of the whole app's cost: Blue Label Labs gives four to six weeks of a typical four to five month project to discovery and design, and the rest to development and testing.

A project suits an app with a clear launch. A monthly plan suits a team shipping new features every month after launch. We offer both.

How long mobile app design takes

For us, four to eight weeks for most apps. The first two or three days go on who the app is for and what they need first, about two weeks on the flows and a prototype, and the remaining weeks on the screens, testing on real phones and the store build.

Fiteats took 30 days from an idea to 48 finished screens, including the camera scan that names a food and adds its calories and macros to a meal. Every screen in it, from the first onboarding question to the shopping list, works from the one weekly plan the app's AI makes.

The other agencies' figures give a sense of range. Eleken puts an MVP design at two to four months on a subscription. Goji Labs says a custom MVP, designed and built, takes four to six months. Blue Label Labs gives a typical full project four to five months. Design alone is quicker than design and build, and a new brand identity first adds time to any of them.

iOS, Android or both?

Founders often ask this first, and the answer usually comes from the people you're building for. If your first users are mostly on iPhones, design for iOS first and follow with Android. If you need both at launch, design both from one design system.

The two platforms have different habits. iOS apps follow Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, Android apps follow Material Design, and users notice when an app borrows the other's back button, navigation or date picker. One design system with platform-specific components lets the app feel at home on each without being designed twice. If your developers build with React Native or Flutter, tell the agency early, because a shared code base changes which platform differences are worth keeping.

It's fine to ship one platform first and the other later. It just changes the price, so say so in the brief.

What you should get at handoff

Agree on this before you sign. A folder of screens isn't a handoff. At the end of a design project you should have:

• A Figma file a stranger can find their way around: layers named, components reused rather than copied.
• A design system: colors, type, spacing and components, documented as tokens, and every state of every screen.
• A clickable prototype of the main flows.
• Store assets: the icon and the screenshots for the App Store and Google Play listings.
• A walkthrough with whoever builds it, recorded if you can.

Ramotion and Blue Label Labs say on their sites that the files and IP are yours once the project is paid for. Goji Labs says you get a system you own and can operate. Ask every agency the same question, and get the answer in the contract.

How to redesign an app that's already live

A redesign is often the better buy than a new app, because real users have already shown you where it fails. Start with what the app's analytics and reviews say: where people drop out of signup, which screens they never reach, what they complain about. Fix the worst of those first. A redesign that redraws every screen at once throws away the habits your loyal users have built, along with the parts that were never broken.

When you brief an agency for a redesign, give it access to the live app, your analytics and your support tickets on day one. An agency that asks for those before it shows you a mood board is the one to keep talking to.

FAQ

If you want your app designed by the people who'll answer for it in the store, at a fixed price, book a call and bring whatever you have: a sketch, a prototype or the app that's live now.