Every agency quote for a React Native AI app collapses into one fuzzy bracket: $60K–$150K . That bracket is useless. Here's the actual line-item breakdown — hours, dollars, API bills — for what a React Native AI app cost looks like in 2026.

Solo indie, from scratch: 436–832 hours = $32K–$62K Agency, from scratch: $80K–$180K Template starting point: $79 + 20–60 hrs customization Year-one ongoing (API + infra): $3.6K–$30K

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The line items

1. Discovery + IA + design — 60-100 hrs

The part juniors think doesn't count. Data model. Routing graph. What an "AI session" means in your domain. Empty states. Permission denials. Offline behavior. Under-estimated by 4x in every indie project I've seen.

2. Auth + Supabase + RLS — 40-80 hrs

-- The 30-line policy file that takes a full week to get right create policy "users can only see their own transcripts" on transcripts for select using ( auth .…