How Much Does it Cost to Build a Mobile App?

Creating a mobile app can be an exciting venture, but one of the first questions you might ask is, “How much does it cost to develop an app?” The truth is, app development costs can vary widely depending on numerous factors such as the app’s complexity, the platform you choose, and the team you hire. In this blog, we’ll dive into a detailed breakdown of app development costs, explore the hidden expenses that might catch you off guard, and offer practical tips on how to optimize your budget without compromising on quality.

App Development Cost Breakdown

Understanding the cost of app development begins with breaking it down into its core components. The process typically involves several stages, each contributing to the final cost:

1. Planning and Research: This stage involves market research, defining the app’s features, and creating a roadmap. Costs can range from $5,000 to $15,000 depending on the complexity of the research required.
2. Design: The design phase includes UI/UX design, wireframing, and prototyping. This can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000, depending on how sophisticated and customized the design needs to be.
3. Development: The bulk of your budget will go into the development phase. Depending on the app’s complexity and platform, development costs can range from $20,000 to $150,000 or more.
4. Testing and QA: Quality assurance is crucial for a successful app launch. QA costs usually account for 10-20% of the total development cost, ranging from $5,000 to $20,000.
5. Deployment and Maintenance: Post-launch, you’ll need to account for deployment to app stores and ongoing maintenance, which can cost around $10,000 to $30,000 annually.

How Much Does It Cost to Develop an App Based on Development Stages?

The cost to develop an app can be broken down into three primary stages:

1. MVP (Minimum Viable Product): An MVP allows you to launch your app with essential features, costing anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000.
2. Full Product Development: This includes all features and refinements, costing between $50,000 and $250,000, depending on complexity.
3. Post-Launch Maintenance: Post-launch support and updates can add $10,000 to $50,000 annually to your budget.

App Development Cost Based on Its Type or Platform

The platform you choose—iOS, Android, or both—will significantly affect your development costs:

1. Native Apps: Developing an app specifically for iOS or Android can cost between $20,000 and $150,000, depending on complexity.
2. Cross-Platform Apps: Cross-platform development can save money, ranging from $25,000 to $200,000, by using frameworks like React Native or Flutter to build for both platforms simultaneously.
3. Web Apps: Web apps, which run on browsers, are generally cheaper, with costs ranging from $10,000 to $70,000.

How to Estimate App Development Cost?

To estimate the cost of developing an app, consider these factors:

1. App Developer Rates, Experience, and Expertise: Rates vary depending on location, expertise, and project complexity. For example, developers in North America charge between $50-$150 per hour, while developers in Eastern Europe might charge $30-$70 per hour.
2. Platform Costs: Pros and Cons: Decide between iOS, Android, or both. iOS apps are typically faster to develop but have higher store fees. Android apps reach a larger audience but often require more testing due to device fragmentation.
3. Type of Mobile App Development Technologies: Native development is more expensive but offers better performance. Cross-platform development is more cost-effective but may compromise on some native features.
4. Core Mobile App Features: Features like user authentication, payment gateways, and geolocation can increase costs. Advanced features like AI integration or AR can drive costs up significantly.
5. Additional Team Members to Build a Mobile App: Beyond developers, you might need designers, project managers, and QA testers, all of whom add to the overall cost.
6. The Cost of Outsourcing Mobile App Development: Agencies vs. Freelance Developers: Agencies provide a full team and end-to-end services, usually at a higher cost. Freelancers are cheaper but require more management and coordination on your part.

5 Hidden Costs of Developing an App

When budgeting for app development, don’t forget to factor in these hidden costs:

1. App Store Fees: Both Apple and Google charge a fee for publishing apps—$99/year for Apple and a one-time $25 fee for Google Play.
2. Marketing and Promotion: Getting your app noticed requires marketing, which can cost between $10,000 and $50,000 or more.
3. Ongoing Maintenance and Updates: Apps need regular updates to fix bugs and add features, which can cost around 20% of the initial development cost annually.
4. Data Storage and Hosting: Depending on your app’s data usage, hosting costs can range from $500 to $5,000 per month.
5. Security and Compliance: Ensuring your app meets security standards and complies with regulations (like GDPR) can add significant costs, particularly in regulated industries like healthcare or finance.

How to Reduce the App Development Cost?

Here are some tips to help you reduce your app development costs:

1. Start with an MVP: Launching an MVP allows you to validate your idea with minimal investment and add features based on user feedback.
2. Prioritize Features: Focus on essential features first, and plan to add more complex features in future updates.
3. Choose Cross-Platform Development: If you’re targeting both iOS and Android, a cross-platform approach can save time and money.
4. Outsource to Cost-Effective Regions: Consider outsourcing to countries with lower development rates, like India or Eastern Europe, to optimize costs.
5. Use Pre-Built Solutions: Leverage existing libraries and tools to reduce custom development time.

The Most Popular Global Apps and Their Development Cost

Let’s take a look at the development costs of some of the most popular global apps:

1. WhatsApp: Estimated development cost: $250,000 to $500,000.
2. Instagram: Estimated development cost: $100,000 to $300,000.
3. Uber: Estimated development cost: $150,000 to $250,000.
4. TikTok: Estimated development cost: $150,000 to $300,000.
5. Airbnb: Estimated development cost: $75,000 to $150,000.

These figures highlight the range of costs involved in developing a top-tier app, depending on the complexity and features.

Do You Want to Hire an Agency or a Freelancer?

Picking the right sort of development team plays a vital role in figuring out how much it costs to make an app. You can hire an app development company or recruit independent mobile app developers to execute your project. And frankly, neither of these two options is a terrible choice, but hiring an offshore agency might give you an edge over opting for freelancers.

The primary advantage of employing freelance developers is that they are pretty cheap, with as low as $20 per hour. But there are a few serious downsides as well.

Why? Because building an application isn’t simply about writing a couple of hundred lines of code. There are a ton of other important things to consider, like planning, UI, and UX.

On the contrary, app development outsourcing is more reliable because they have a wide pool of talent and have a legitimate business. So, choosing an app development agency comes with an array of benefits that freelancers cannot ever offer, including:

• Accountability
• Smooth project management
• Ease of communication
• Quality assurance
• All-inclusive solutions
• Discipline and schedule
• Efficient involvement

In simple words, app development cost with freelance developers is less, but the process takes a long time for completion, whereas development companies might cost more, but you will get quality results in a way too short time.

Cost of Hiring an App Developer

The average cost of hiring an app developer can range from $25 to $60 or more per hour, depending on the developer’s expertise, experience and the region.

For fixed-price projects, the average developer’s cost can start from a few thousand dollars for simpler apps and go up significantly for more complex or feature-rich applications. It’s essential to do proper research and obtain quotes from multiple developers to understand the specific costs associated with your app development project.

The report from Clutch states that the average cost of hiring app developers is between $25 and $49 per hour. In addition, they stated that the average cost of mobile app development projects can range from $10,000 to $49,000 to fully complete and launch.

The development team comprises multiple professionals in their respective fields.

Business Analysts: Business analysts are responsible for understanding requirements, analyzing the business domain, assessing the budget, documenting the process, and producing the software business model.

Project Manager: Following the selection of the software model, the project manager puts together the team, assigns tasks, ensures that deadlines are monitored and reached on time, and provides the necessary resources to finish the project effectively.

Architect: Usually, the architect is responsible for choosing the prototype, incorporating user input, and supervising the design, testing and fine-tuning each step until it’s perfect.

Developer: Developers are responsible for coding the application. They are proficient in multiple programming languages, technologies, and tools that ensure that your software runs smoothly and has the functionality that users have requested. Developers can be broadly divided into two categories: front-end and back-end. Each is in charge of their own specific front-end and back-end development activities. PHP, JavaScript, Kotlin (Android), Swift (iOS), and many other languages are primarily utilized. Back-end languages include Python, Java, and many others.

UI/UX Designer: They are in charge of creating a unique and visually appealing application that grabs the user’s attention.

QA: Once the app is ready and before it’s published, the application comes for testing. The QA team ensures the application functions properly by finding and reporting bugs to the developers.

Here, we have listed down the hourly rates of the development team as per their professions to give you a rough idea. Before you step into the hiring cost of developers, you should know how to hire developers.

How Much Does It Cost to Maintain an App?

Deploying your app on the server is not the final step since you must monitor and maintain the app to ensure the app keeps running smoothly, always remains secure, and continues to meet the on-demand needs of its users.

The cost to maintain an app can vary depending on multiple factors such as the frequency of updates required, the complexity of the app, the technology stack used, and the size of the dedicated development team.

Generally, app maintenance cost can be 20% – 45% of the app development cost during the first year after the development. This includes bug fixes, feature additions, updates, and user feedback implementations.

Moreover, the app maintenance costs will be quite high if it’s a native Android or iOS app. In fact, you have to consider around an average of $500 monthly to keep the app running perfectly. If your app development cost is $100,000, then you can expect to spend about $20,000 annually managing your app.

What is the Complexity Level of the App?

The complexity of an app can have a significant impact on the cost of app development. In general, the more complex an app is, the more time and resources it will take to develop, which will result in higher development costs. Here are a few ways that complexity can influence the app development cost:

• Features: The more features an app has, the more complex it is likely to be as developing additional features needs more time and resources.
• Integrations: If an app needs to integrate with other systems or services, it can significantly increase the complexity of the development process.
• User Interface: A more complex user interface can require more design and development time, as well as additional testing and debugging.
• Security: Implementing complex security features and protocols can increase the development time and cost of an app.
• Platform: Developing an app for multiple platforms, such as iOS and Android, can increase the complexity and cost of development.

Hence, it’s important to carefully consider the complexity of an app during the planning and design phase to ensure that the app creation cost is within the project budget. Here’s how complexity influences the price:

Development Team Location

The location of the development team can have a significant impact on the cost of building an app since the labor cost varies across different regions of the world. For example, developers based in North America and Europe generally command higher salaries than those in Asia and South America.

Additionally, taxes and regulations related to employment can also differ significantly between different countries and regions. Hiring developers in some countries may require employers to pay additional taxes, insurance, or benefits, which can add to the overall cost of development.

The infrastructure costs of operating a development team can also vary according to the location. Office rent, utilities, and other overhead costs can be higher in some regions than in others. Moreover, the availability of skilled professionals in certain regions can affect the average cost for app development. If you require a specific technology or skillset, it may be more difficult and expensive to find the right talent in some areas.

Lastly, working with a development team in a different time zone may impact the speed of development and the costs associated with coordination and communication.

Cost implications are the most crucial factor we need to consider when choosing the development team’s location. Here we have put up cost range as per the location, take a look –

• The average cost of hiring app developers in the USA is about $120 per hour; thus, it is considered very expensive.
• The next-most expensive countries after the States are the UK with $100 per hour and Australia with $90 per hour as the app development cost.
• The average hourly rate of app developers in Western Europe is $80.
• On the contrary, in Eastern Europe, you can hire app developers at $60/hour, which can be treated as a moderate price.
• Above all, India has established a reputation for its affordable app development, the average hourly rate of app developers being $40.
• Lastly, South America falls on a middle scale, at $50 per hour for app development.

How TechDotBit Can Help You Optimize the Cost of App Development?

Techdotbit specializes in delivering high-quality app development services while optimizing costs. With a team of experienced developers, Radixweb can help you:

• Plan and Develop an MVP: To validate your app idea cost-effectively.
• Leverage Cross-Platform Development: To reduce time-to-market and development costs.
• Provide End-to-End Solutions: From design and development to maintenance and support, ensuring you get the best ROI.

Average Cost to Develop an App

The average cost to develop a mobile app ranges from $30,000 to $150,000, depending on the app’s complexity, features, and platform. Simple apps with basic features can be developed for as little as $10,000 to $30,000, while more complex apps with advanced features can exceed $300,000.

Over to You

Understanding the cost of app development is crucial to planning and budgeting your project effectively. By breaking down the costs, identifying hidden expenses, and optimizing your development process, you can ensure that your app project stays within budget without sacrificing quality.

How to Calculate Mobile App Development Costs

When calculating mobile app development costs, consider the following factors:

1. App Developer Rates, Experience, and Expertise: Developers’ rates vary widely based on their location and experience level. Choose a team that offers the right balance of cost and expertise for your project.
2. Platform Costs: Pros and Cons?: Decide whether to develop for iOS, Android, or both. Consider the market reach, development time, and cost differences between platforms.
3. Type of Mobile App Development Technologies: Native, hybrid, or cross-platform development will affect your costs and the app’s performance.
4. Core Mobile App Features: Identify which features are essential for your app and which can be added later. Complex features like in-app purchases, geolocation, and social media integration will increase costs.
5. Additional Team Members to Build a Mobile App: Depending on the project’s scope, you may need designers, QA testers, project managers, and more, each contributing to the overall cost.
6. The Cost of Outsourcing Mobile App Development: Agencies vs. Freelance Developers: Agencies offer comprehensive services but at a higher cost. Freelancers are less expensive but require more hands-on management.

By considering these factors, you can develop a more accurate estimate of your app’s development cost and plan accordingly.