How Much Does It Cost to Develop an App? Guide for Planning Your Budget

The app development cost depends on the scope of work to be done by software engineers and their hourly rates. The thing is, the scope may range from 260 to 1800 hours and the rates may vary depending on the developers’ location and expertise. That's why it can be tricky to estimate the cost right off. But, don’t worry. In this article, we’ll answer the question ‘How much does it cost to build an app?’ in detail so you can plan your budget.

In general, the app making cost is somewhere between $40,000 - $300,000. But, it can go up to $300,000+ for complex apps.

We’ve roughly calculated three categories of applications by their complexity to show how the average cost to build an app is estimated (based on hourly rate of $50).

These are applications with a basic set of functionality, such as user profile, push notification, navigation, simple user interface, and minimum content display. The development time for such apps is 2-3 months to complete. Simple app development cost is around $40,000 - $120,000.

Medium apps are more challenging to create as they contain more sophisticated functionality, interactive elements, and a bunch of content. The examples of such solutions are social networking apps, e-commerce apps, fitness tracking apps, and online learning apps. App development costs run between $120,000 - $200,000.

Complex applications come with responsive design, extensive navigation, third-party integrations, hence characterizing a high-level of complexity. For instance, when a healthcare organization decides to move from a pre-packaged EHR/EMR system to a custom-built one. In this case, the price will be higher. Costs of creating app ranges from $200,000 to $300,000+.

But, what defines an app complexity? Primarily, the feature set. To better understand, we’ve prepared the table to show what you’re paying for depending on complexity level.

As you can see the price is varying. That’s why it’s always best to get quotes from the IT provider to receive an accurate estimate for your app idea.

Not all applications are equal, and the inequality in average cost of app development is in the type of app and device platform. Let’s see how these factors define the price.

To show you that the price of mobile app development may vary widely based on the business industry, we have listed different types of applications across domains with their building cost range.

Note: The numbers below are based on our software developers’ experience creating similar apps and IT industry standards.

Don’t find your app idea in the list? Feel free to contact our Business Development Manager to receive a personalized estimate of your app concept. Our team will provide a detailed app cost estimate after analyzing your business and product demands.

Incorporating advanced technologies, such as AI/ML, IoT, Big Data analytics significantly influences app development costs. For example, IoT-based apps require hardware integration, which increases complexity and expenses. Let’s see some key modern technologies and how they impact the building price.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI-based applications employ artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to contribute to smart functionalities, such as recommendation systems and predictive analytics. Incorporating AI techniques demand development efforts and specialized expertise, which all add up to the price. The cost for AI-enabled apps ranges between $50,000 - $300,000.

Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT-based applications implies the development of embedded software to run on the IoT devices. Such solutions involve interfacing with diverse hardware components, adding complexity to the app engineering, and raising the expenses. Commonly, the cost of IoT embedded systems is around $30,000 - $250,000+, depending on the solution’s complexity.

AR/VR

AR/VR apps are made to deliver immersive experiences by overlaying digital information on the real world (AR) or making entirely virtual backgrounds (VR). The raised price is associated with specialized hardware, 3D modeling, animation, and interactive content. The cost of AR/VR app development varies from $40,000 - $300,000, depending on the interactivity level and quality of graphics.

Blockchain

Blockchain apps are complex applications that operate on decentralized ledgers to guarantee transparent and tamper-proof transactions. Integration challenges, smart contracts, strict compliance with regulatory and security requirements increase the time for development and consequently prices. Typically, blockchain app development cost falls between $50,000 - $200,000, depending on the type, complexity and industry of the blockchain implementation.

The choice of specific platforms the application will run on will also impact the cost of creating an app. Here’s a breakdown of the average app price according to the type of the OS platform.

Android app

App based on Android is a mobile application made to function on Google's Android operating system and aims to interact with device’s elements. The price for Android app development runs from $70,000 - $250,000+, depending on product’s specificity.

iOS app

iOS apps are made to work on Apple devices, like iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches. These devices run on an iOS operating system, which uses Swift or Objective-C programming languages. The iOS app development cost can cost between $70,000 - $250,000+, depending on app’s scope and programmers’ rates.

Cross-platform app

Cross-platform solutions, made with Flutter, run efficiently across platforms by relying on a single code base, thus, optimizing the app price. Typically, Flutter app development cost is $60,000 to $200,000+, which is lower than starting a native-like solution. By creating cross-platform applications, you can lower the cost to build mobile applications by up to 30-40%.

Web app

A web version of the app is built to function across the web browsers on multiple devices and cost less to build initially compared to native services. Web application development cost starts from $5,000 for a simple solution and can go up to $200,000+ for a fully-featured platform backed with continued hosting and maintenance charges.

So, giving a rough answer to how much it costs to create an app: basic application will cost around $80,000, while medium and complex apps will cost between $160,000 and $250,000 or more. But, if you ask vendors from several countries, you'll hear different numbers. This is due to the large distinctions in IT consulting hourly rates depending on the software company location.

Let's take a look at how the average cost of app development differs in various parts of the world.

It is weird to realize that the highest-priced app developer in North America charges $120 an hour, while the best one in India is 6x cheaper. But, these are the realities of the market, which does not mean such a significant difference in the quality of the result.

The golden means is to find app developers in Northern and Eastern Europe. There are many trustworthy software development companies that can deliver custom mobile solutions for approximately $50 to $70 per hour. For example, Estonia is known for its proficient and well-educated workforce with a focus on technology and digital innovation.

Application development costs are affected by the scope of work to be done by the developers and their hourly rates. If we specify these factors, three aspects that determine the app price are:

• App complexity
• Customization of UI/UX design
• Development team location and expertise

Let's look at them more thoroughly.

To know the answer to the question: 'How much does it cost to develop an app?', you should find out how complex the application you are about to build is. There are three things that determine the complexity of app project:

• Feature set
• Backend infrastructure
• Third-party integrations

Features set

Functionality and number & intricacy of implemented features are the biggest cost drivers in app development. Screens, buttons, fields involved, the amount of logic required matter a lot. Basically, EHR software development cannot cost the same as to develop an app like Uber.

Depending on the complexity of solutions, developers need different time to implement the requested features. For instance, a complex system requires the use of third-party API or coding from scratch. Simpler solutions, in turn, require standard instruments and engage native features.

Well then, it's time to discover what features influence the complexity of the whole app. We’ve prepared the table with common feature categories for simple, medium, and complex apps, revealing the progression in feature complexity and how it affects the price and time. Let’s look at the table below.

Backend infrastructure

In mobile application development, backend is normally an OS that provides developers with APIs to provide data exchange between an app and a database. To track user activity and assess the performance of your consumer app, it is equipped with analytics. Depending on the number of parameters you are going to track and how detailed and specific the tracking will be, costs vary.

Third-party integrations

Apart from basic essential functionality, many apps demand integration with 3rd-party services, such as payment gateways, geolocation, or APIs to enhance user experience. Adding these services impacts the cost to get an app developed. The price for the third-party services starts from $50-$500/month (for simple apps) and goes up to $500-$10,000+/month for medium and large systems.

Creating a unique and intuitive UI/UX design is a complicated deed that provides additional expenses to your app engineering. The cheaper variant suggests using OS-supplied items and building screens of standard elements. The quantity of screens is also a determining factor.

There are a few aspects that should be factored as well.

The final answer to the question ‘how much does it cost to make an app?’ depends on the region and team’s expertise level. For instance, US-based developers charge 2x-3x higher than software engineers from Estonia: $150/h and $50/h consequently. The cost of offshore software development ranges from $30,000 to $250,000+. The precise amount counts on the product’s complexity and other variables.

The infrastructure expenses also differ based on the location. Office rent, utilities, and equipment also incur additional costs and are upper in some regions than in others. Taxes and regulations, insurance, wages, and sick leaves also differ across countries and regions.

The app development team cost can also be affected by the structure of the software development team. Here’s a full team composition:

• Project manager
• Business analyst
• Solution architect
• UI/UX designers
• Developers
• QA and DevOps engineers
• Team Leads

Below are the hourly rates of specialists in the most prominent regions.

Lastly, you need to understand that the tech specialists’ hourly rate will differ depending on the:

• Programming language required (Swift, Java, Kotlin, PHP, Flutter, React, etc.),
• Software complexity and number of specialists engaged
• IT experts’ seniority level (senior, middle, or junior), experience, and qualifications
• Specific domain/technology knowledge (fintech, telemedicine, blockchain, etc.)

These are the key driving factors that impact an application development cost. Keep reading to learn what is the cost spent on during the app engineering process.

The cost of developing mobile application is made up from development and additional components. Summing them up gives you an approximate price.

In this paragraph, we’ll disclose the development part and the costs of each stage. The additional cost factors will be revealed in the paragraph following this.

The Product Discovery phase (also known as analysis and planning stage) is an essential step of the mobile app development process to identify tech and business requirements before proceeding with development costs. This phase usually engages the work of business analysts, UX/UI designers, solution architects, and a product owner. The team studies the market and competitors, analyzes your business needs, and product demands

Based on the research, we determine the requirements documentation, decompose and detail the features, set the timeline, as well as make a cost estimate to develop a mobile app.

Discovery phase budget share in mobile app development costs range from $5,000 to $25,000 and up. The planning and analysis takes approximately 2-5 weeks.

It’s barely possible to build a great product without an experienced designer who'd offer UI/UX design services. This phase is dedicated to the modeling of how the application will work. The design team determines the core user scenarios, visualizes the features and functionality, and plans the user user journey.

The design team also creates an app prototype, so you can check how the solution will feel and look and its capabilities before the coding starts.

The UI/UX design budget in app development price begins from $5,000 and can go far beyond $50,000. The cost depends on the number of screens to be designed, and solution logic complexity.

How much does it cost develop an app? As you've seen, there are many factors that can shift the price either way. The minimal app development cost is $5,000-$20,000. The development of a more complex mobile application will take $40,000-$80,000 and may reach $250,000+.

App development stage requires thoughtful attention from your software team as it’s the ground and most expensive phase of app engineering. It stands for the building of the server-side of the application, APIs integration, and converting the UI design into a working product. The more intricacy the functionalities are, the more time it will take for developers to create and implement them, leading to raised costs.

The cost of making an app also contains the stage of testing and app deployment. The QA engineers conduct multiple tests to ensure the system works smoothly and corresponds to the initial project's demands. Once the app is tested, it is deployed in the production environment and released to end users.

Project Managers coordinate the work of the entire team and make sure the product will be ready in time and comply with all the requirements. In turn, the right management approach has a great impact on mobile application development costs.

The project management budget in app making cost is about $1,200-$12,000.

Here is the final cost breakdown. It’s approximate and based on the average hourly rate of $50 in Northern and Eastern Europe.

Note: The prices below are based on one platform: Android or iOS.

We tried to give a detailed answer to the question: 'How much does it cost to make and app?' as possible. Finally, experience shows that the best-proven way to look at the money paid for mobile app development is as an invested money and subsequently returned investments. Just to arrange the information we provided you with and feel free to contact us for consultation.

Beyond functionality, design, and hardware integrations, there are hidden costs to keep in mind to plan the budget for app development. Let’s know them.

The administration panel is surely a very useful tool for managing app content, users and statistics. There are options to adopt existing admin panel templates for your needs, but finding a good one is a problem. So it makes sense to create an adequate panel to meet your business requirements.

Depending on the app’s complexity and its functionality, making an admin panel from scratch can range from $5,000 for a basic setup to over $60,000 for a feature-rich administration system.

Apart from the cost paid to a developer to build the app, there are also fees for functional (3rd-party) services. The more integrations you want to implement (e.g., notifications, chat integration, patent processing, geolocation, etc.), the higher will be the final price of mobile app development.

Roughly, the functional costs, like the fee for 3rd parties, are about $5,000 to $20,000 per year. The price will depend on the number of such services and the logic of a certain integration for your application.

Another point to consider is how much does it cost to maintain an app. It usually includes bug fixing, adding new features, getting ready for a new OS version, and so on. It also depends on how many features you'd like to add per year and how complex they are. App support is a must-have service even if you have no plans scaling up and adding new features into the application. The app maintenance cost will rise over time as your app gets more complex.

You should also think of allocating a sum to your marketing strategy to launch the mobile app to attract first users. When it comes to planning the mobile app marketing budget, the sum is individual. Some entrepreneurs manage to afford between $1,000 and $5,000. While others are willing to spend thousands of dollars on app promotion.

Speaking generally, the marketing budget share in the average cost of application development is around 40% per year.

When you are planning on creating a mobile application, not only the average cost of developing an app matters. If you don't have a team to make it happen, you are probably thinking of hiring someone to make an app. So the question comes up about what development approach to choose:

• Form an in-house team
• Outsource the work
• Hire freelancers

Let’s take a quick look at each option and it affects the price.

The only argument in favor of in-house development is physical proximity to the team which means faster and simpler communication. But, maintaining a whole team is a costly and challenging task as it demands regular involvement and extra administrative expenses.

What’s more, some regions are oversaturated with tech talents making the costs of living pretty high and ramping up the average software experts salary. For instance, here’s the price of hiring in-house team in the USA (according to Glassdoor):

• Full-stack developer = $1350,000-$180,000 per year,
• Designer = $70,000-$160,000 per year,
• Native mobile app developer (iOS or Android) = $88,000 - $150,000.

Thinking of ‘how much does it cost to develop an app?’, you can consider app development outsourcing. This way, you’re contracting a foreign organization to assist you in building your app and control the overall process. What’s exciting, you can either fully delegate the work or augment your team with a certain number of IT experts.

The cost to outsource app development depends on the region you’re hiring developers from. For example, Estonian software engineers charge $45-$55 per hour while hiring programmers in the US and UK costs $100-$120 and $80-$100/hour consequently.

Outsourcing the work to an external partner will help you optimize the cost of developing an app. But, before you select the app development partner, do some homework. Evaluate the contractor and talk to the team:

• Check the vendor’s expertise
• Explore the case studies
• Verify clients’ feedback
• Consider the provider’s security measure
• Learn about communication strategy
• Mind the team's proactivity

Working with freelance developers is a good choice if you have short-term tasks and specialists on your side to supervise them.

If you select this option, bear in mind that you'll want to engage UI/UX designers and QA engineers, as one specialist can't do all the work alone. This way, you'll need to hire and control a team of freelancers, which can be tricky.

On average, the cost to build an app with freelancers per hour are:

• North America: $50-$150
• United Kingdom: $60 - $120
• North/Eastern Europe: $40 - $120
• Australia: $50 - $120
• South America: $20 - $60
• India: $15 - $40

So, how much does it cost to build an app in 2024? Simple apps cost between $40,000 and $120,000, average complexity apps fall around $120,000 and $200,000, and complex apps begin at around $300,000, and can reach $500,000.

That’s why we’ve prepared a conditional template you can use to plan your app development budget. It contains variables that affect the price.

Of course, if you need help with the technical side, you can always turn to an experienced software development company to get expert advice on how to calculate investments for your product creation.

We’ve selected several well-known startups that got funding in a seed round to continue developing their products. These real-life examples may give you more understanding of app startup cost.

• Uber. The company received $200K in seed funding for implementing their ideas. Uber reported $38.59 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2024.
• Instagram. This photo-sharing application got $500K in seed funding for further development. Instagram made $59 billion revenue as of early 2024.
• Tinder. This dating application raised $485K in the seed round in 2012. Tinder’s revenue was $1.9 billion in 2023.
• TikTok. This company raised $250K in the seed round. TikTok is projected to generate $18.5 billion revenue in 2024.
• Airbnb. This large online marketplace raised $600K in 2009. The company reported 2.2 billion in revenue in 2023.

If your startup business model is similar to the models of popular apps, check out the compilation below. In these guides, we explain how to build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) version of popular apps. Including the costs, features, and challenges you may face:

• Build app like Uber
• Developing an app like Instagram
• Cost to make a dating app like Tinder
• TikTok like app development
• Build an app like Airbnb
• Travel app development
• How to build a live streaming app
• Food delivery app
• How to create an educational app
• Create your own fitness app
• How much does it cost to develop a telemedicine app
• Hotel booking app development

The best way to know the cost of creating an app for business is to talk to the company directly. If you haven’t found a tech partner yet, you can try our app development cost calculator below to get a rough estimate of making an app from scratch.

Our app development cost calculator will help you save time and understand how much you need to spend on a mobile application. Of course, you will get the exact figure after the technical experts study your requirements, agree on the functionality, and prepare a detailed estimate for you.