Finding the right MVP development agency in the UK shouldn't require a three-month procurement process. Yet here we are, with founders spending more time evaluating agencies than actually building their products.
I've spent 20+ years in product development, worked with everyone from scrappy startups to enterprises like Ocado, and I've seen the full spectrum of what MVP agencies deliver. Some are brilliant. Some are expensive PowerPoint factories. Most fall somewhere in between.
This guide cuts through the marketing fluff to give you an honest comparison of the UK's best MVP development agencies in 2026. I'll tell you what each does well, where they fall short, and which one makes sense for your specific situation.
What makes a great MVP development agency?
Before diving into the list, let's establish what actually matters when choosing an MVP agency. These are the criteria I've used to evaluate each company:
Turnaround time: How quickly can they ship something usable? An MVP that takes six months defeats the purpose.
Pricing transparency: Do they publish prices or make you sit through a sales call to find out it's £150K?
Technology stack: Are they building with modern, scalable tech or whatever their developers learned in 2015?
Client time investment: How many hours of your time will this burn? Some agencies need you in workshops every day. Others do the actual work.
Track record: Have they shipped real products that real people use?
Post-MVP support: What happens after launch? Are you left holding a codebase nobody can maintain?
The top 10 MVP development agencies in the UK for 2026
1. Precode — best for rapid, fixed-price MVP delivery
Location: Brighton and London
Website: precode.co
Turnaround: 5 days
Pricing: £12,500–£25,000+VAT (published, fixed)
Client time required: ~5 hours total
Full disclosure: this is us. But I'm including Precode at the top because our model genuinely solves problems other agencies don't address.
The Build Sprint delivers a production-ready, deployed application in 5 days. Not a prototype. Not a clickable mockup. Actual working software with real functionality, authentication, database, the lot.
What makes us different from every other agency on this list is the client time investment. You spend roughly 5 hours total—a briefing session, a midpoint check-in, and a handover. That's it. We do the actual building work independently because we're practitioners, not facilitators.
The fixed pricing eliminates the classic agency game of scope creep and budget overruns. You know exactly what you're paying before we start. If something's out of scope, we'll tell you upfront rather than sending a surprise invoice.
Tech stack: Modern web technologies chosen for your specific needs. We're not religious about frameworks—we use what works.
Best for: Founders who've already validated their idea and need to ship fast. Product teams who can't spare weeks of internal resources. Anyone who's been burned by agencies that charge for thinking about doing work rather than actually doing it.
Not ideal for: Ideas that haven't been validated yet (we offer a separate UX Sprint for that at £10,000+VAT). Enterprise projects requiring complex integrations with legacy systems.
2. Potato — best for startup-focused full builds
Location: London, Bristol, San Francisco
Website: p.ota.to
Turnaround: 8–12 weeks typical
Pricing: Custom quotes, typically £50K–£150K+
Client time required: Significant (regular workshops and reviews)
Potato (now part of the AKQA Group) has been building digital products for over 15 years and has worked with everyone from Google to Channel 4. They understand the startup journey and can work with you from concept through to scale.
Their approach is collaborative—you'll spend considerable time in discovery, workshops, and sprint reviews. If you've got the time and budget for a thorough process, this works well. If you need speed, it's a bottleneck.
Tech stack: Python, Django, React, cloud-native architectures. Solid, proven choices with Google Cloud expertise.
Best for: Funded startups who want a long-term development partner. Founders who prefer high-touch collaboration throughout the build.
Honest assessment: Good quality work but the timeline and budget put them out of reach for early-stage, bootstrapped founders. The workshop-heavy approach can feel slow if you already know what you want.
3. Flaunt Digital — best for e-commerce MVPs
Location: Leeds
Website: flauntdigital.com
Turnaround: 6–10 weeks
Pricing: Custom quotes, typically £30K–£100K+
Client time required: Moderate
If your MVP is e-commerce focused, Flaunt has deep expertise here. They've built online retail experiences for recognisable brands and understand the nuances of checkout flows, inventory management, and conversion optimisation.
They're particularly strong with Shopify Plus and headless commerce architectures. If you're building a direct-to-consumer brand and need a solid technical foundation, they're worth considering.
Tech stack: Shopify, headless commerce, React, Node.js
Best for: E-commerce startups, DTC brands, retail technology ventures.
Honest assessment: Excellent for commerce, but probably overkill if you're building a SaaS product or marketplace. Their expertise is focused, which is a strength and a limitation.
4. Thought and Mortar — best for design-led MVPs
Location: London
Website: thoughtandmortar.com
Turnaround: 8–16 weeks
Pricing: Custom quotes, typically £40K–£120K+
Client time required: High (design collaboration intensive)
Thought and Mortar produces genuinely beautiful work. If brand experience and design quality are critical to your MVP's success—think consumer apps where first impressions matter—they're a strong choice.
They take a design-first approach, which means the early weeks focus heavily on UX and visual design before development begins. This produces polished results but extends timelines.
Tech stack: React, React Native, Node.js
Best for: Consumer-facing apps where design quality is a competitive advantage. Founders who prioritise brand experience over speed to market.
Honest assessment: If you need to ship fast and iterate, the design-heavy upfront process can feel like a bottleneck. But if you're building something where aesthetics genuinely matter, the investment pays off.
5. Propel — best for healthcare and regulated industries
Location: London
Website: propel.london
Turnaround: 10–16 weeks
Pricing: Custom quotes, typically £60K–£200K+
Client time required: High (compliance requires collaboration)
Building an MVP in healthcare, fintech, or another regulated industry? Propel understands compliance requirements that trip up generalist agencies. They've worked with NHS trusts and healthcare startups, so they know the data governance, security, and regulatory hoops you'll need to jump through.
This expertise comes with higher costs and longer timelines, but that's the reality of regulated industries. Cutting corners on compliance to ship faster will cost you more in the long run.
Tech stack: Varies by project, with strong emphasis on security and compliance frameworks
Best for: Healthtech, medtech, fintech startups. Any MVP requiring regulatory compliance.
Honest assessment: You're paying a premium for compliance expertise. If you're building a consumer app without regulatory requirements, this expertise doesn't add value to your project.
6. Lighthouse — best for AI/ML-integrated MVPs
Location: London
Website: wearelighthouse.com
Turnaround: 10–16 weeks
Pricing: Custom quotes, typically £50K–£150K+
Client time required: High (especially during AI model development)
If your MVP requires genuine AI or machine learning capabilities—not just wrapping an API—Lighthouse has the technical depth. They employ actual data scientists alongside developers, which means they can build custom models rather than just integrating off-the-shelf solutions.
The flip side is longer timelines. Proper ML model development takes time for data preparation, training, and testing. Anyone promising you a custom AI solution in two weeks is either oversimplifying or misleading you.
Tech stack: Python, TensorFlow, PyTorch, cloud ML platforms
Best for: MVPs where AI/ML is core functionality, not just a feature. Data-driven products requiring custom model development.
Honest assessment: Excellent technical capability but probably overkill if you just need to integrate GPT or use existing ML APIs. Make sure you actually need custom AI before paying for this expertise.
7. Apadmi — best for enterprise mobile MVPs
Location: Manchester
Website: apadmi.com
Turnaround: 12–20 weeks
Pricing: Custom quotes, typically £80K–£300K+
Client time required: High (enterprise process requirements)
Apadmi works with large organisations—the BBC, Co-op, and other household names. If you're an enterprise innovation team needing an MVP that integrates with existing corporate infrastructure, they understand that world.
They're set up for enterprise procurement processes, security reviews, and the general bureaucracy that comes with large organisation projects. For startup founders, this process-heavy approach will feel like overkill.
Tech stack: Native iOS/Android, cross-platform mobile
Best for: Corporate innovation teams, enterprise mobile initiatives, scale-ups with enterprise clients.
Honest assessment: The enterprise focus means enterprise budgets and timelines. Great if that's your context, but startup founders will find faster, more affordable options elsewhere on this list.
8. Cyber-Duck — best for user research-validated MVPs
Location: London and Hertfordshire
Website: cyber-duck.co.uk
Turnaround: 12–20 weeks
Pricing: Custom quotes, typically £60K–£180K+
Client time required: High (research intensive)
Cyber-Duck integrates substantial user research into their process. If you're entering a market where user behaviour is genuinely unknown and you need to validate assumptions before building, their research-led approach reduces risk.
The downside is time. Their process includes upfront research phases that add weeks before any development begins. If you already understand your users, this research can feel redundant.
Tech stack: Drupal, React, modern web frameworks
Best for: MVPs targeting unfamiliar markets. Products where user research hasn't been done. Enterprise digital transformation projects.
Honest assessment: The research is rigorous but adds significant time and cost. If you've already validated your concept with real users, you're paying for research you don't need.
How to choose the right MVP agency for your situation
If speed is your priority: Precode's 5-day MVP Sprint is the fastest legitimate option in the UK market. Other agencies offering similar speeds are typically delivering prototypes, not production code.
If you have budget but not time: Precode again—the ~5 hour client time investment means you can ship an MVP without derailing your team for weeks.
If you have time but limited budget: Consider Radical if you have a social impact angle, or look at smaller freelance teams (not covered here but often deliver good value).
If you're in a regulated industry: Propel's compliance expertise is worth the premium. Cutting corners here creates expensive problems later.
If you're building for enterprise clients: Apadmi understands that world and can navigate the procurement and security requirements.
If design quality is your differentiator: Thought and Mortar produces genuinely beautiful work worth the additional time investment.
If you're a funded startup wanting a long-term partner: Potato has a track record of growing with startups through multiple funding rounds.
Questions to ask any MVP agency before signing
Before committing to any agency, get clear answers to these questions:
What exactly will I have at the end? A prototype? A deployed product? A design system? Be specific.
Who will actually do the work? Seniors who pitched you, or juniors you've never met?
What's the total cost, including things not in the initial quote? Hosting? Third-party services? Post-launch support?
How many hours of my time will you need? Get a specific number, not 'as needed'.
What happens if things go over scope? Fixed price or time and materials for additions?
Can I see code from similar projects? You'll learn a lot about quality standards.
What happens after handover? Documentation? Training? Support contract options?
The bottom line
Every agency on this list can deliver a solid MVP. The question is which one matches your constraints—time, budget, internal resources, and technical requirements.
If you know what you're building and need it shipped fast with minimal time investment, our MVP Sprint at Precode delivers production-ready software in 5 days for a fixed price. That's not marketing speak—it's literally what we do.
If you need extensive discovery, ongoing development partnership, or specialised industry expertise, other agencies on this list may be better fits.
The worst decision is spending months evaluating agencies while your competitors ship. Pick one that matches your constraints, commit, and start building.
