As you read, you will learn about the following points about app development cost calculation:
Let’s dive right into the cost calculations.
The reasons for choosing application development are as follows:
With over 3.5 billion smartphone and 1.35 billion tablet users worldwide, there is no doubt why companies see mobile app development as a lucrative industry.
How to Make an App Like Uber: Features and Tech Components [2021]
The ridesharing market has witnessed a huge surge in the last few years. Uber is the most vivid example of a taxi-hailing company that turned into a multi-billion business
So, how much does it cost to develop an app in 2021?
| Type | Development cost | Terms (in months) |
| Offline application | $12,000 to $25,000 | 1 to 9+ mth |
| Data-driven app | $171,450+ | 1-1.5 mth |
| Authentication app | $60,000+ | 3-6 mth |
| Social networking app | $35,000 to $50,000+ | 3-6 up to 9+ mth |
| Chatbot assistants | $20,000 to $80,000 | 3-6 up to 9+ mth |
| E-Commerce app | $10000 to $30000 | 3-6 up to 9+ mth |
| Fintech apps | $70,000+ | 3-6 up to 9+ mth |
| On-demand app | $53,400 to $930,000 | 5-7+ mth |
| Marketplace app | $40,000 to $90,000 | 9+ mth |
| IoT & Hardware app | $10,000 and $50,000+ | 3-6 mth |
The median cost to develop an app ranges from between $38,000 to $91,000. The medium complexity app cost is between $50,000 and $120,000․ If we talk about complex and feature-rich applications, app development cost can reach between $121,000 to $211,000 and even go beyond this number.
Cons of an in-house team:
Pros of app development outsourcing:
Cons of dev outsourcing:
WHAT INFLUENCES THE COST TO DEVELOPMENT AN APP?
The cost of developing an application is not abstract – it is influenced by: deadlines, complexity and features of the project implementation. But the most important factor is time. Accounting for the time spent on developing applications is fundamental to the calculation.
Development of a mobile application for one IOS and Android platform about $30k to $50k+. The server side is included in the assessment. By timing – depends on the depth of study, it can be faster or slower.
The visual design of an app is no less important than its features. Building a UX and UI for your app will cost you $5,000 and up for 10-20 app screens. The cost to design an app greatly depends on the number of screens, visuals complexity, the need for custom elements, and branding.
Let’s see Experts opinions about Design Tips to Increase App Stickiness.
How do you structure your development team?
Software development is a headache for many executives. It is necessary to correctly set the task for the developers, know how to control them, always be able to quickly make changes or “roll back” the release if a critical error is found in the product.
We divide a project of any scale into seven mandatory stages:
# 1: Choosing a Methodology
# 2: define the roles and composition of the team
# 3: We run CustDev, collect requirements from clients, write a technical task
# 4: provide the team with technical tools
# 5: planning team work
# 6: delegate tasks, control their implementation
# 7: post, test and refine the product
Employee Title |
North America |
Central Europe |
Eastern Europe |
Latin America |
South Asia |
Southeast Asia |
Business Analyst |
$72 – $85 |
$50 – $80 |
$30 – 67 |
$23 – $40 |
$20 – $45 |
$25 – $35 |
Architect |
$110 – $125 |
$60 – $100 |
$45 – $67 |
$45 – $75 |
$35 – $80 |
$30 – $50 |
Project Manager |
$88 – $95 |
$50 – $70 |
$25 – $62 |
$41 – $68 |
$30 – $50 |
$24 – $50 |
Graphic Designer |
$65 – $85 |
$55 – $70 |
$25 – $57 |
$44 – $70 |
$20 – $45 |
$24 – $50 |
Junior Developer |
$55 – $80 |
$32 – $50 |
$22 – $31 |
$28 – $55 |
$21 – $30 |
$20 – $25 |
Middle Developer |
$65 – $90 |
$36 – $70 |
$27 – $40 |
$27 – $60 |
$22 – $35 |
$25 – $30 |
Senior Developer |
$78 – $125 |
$45 – $80 |
$30 – $59 |
$32 – $65 |
$25 – $50 |
$24 – $33 |
Lead Developer |
$85 – $125 |
$50 – $100 |
$35 – $65 |
$28 – $70 |
$32 – $65 |
$24 – $35 |
Junior QA |
$60 – $80 |
$26 – $70 |
$18 – $30 |
$35 – $45 |
$15 – $30 |
$20 – $26 |
Senior QA |
$85 – $125 |
$40 – $80 |
$34 – $55 |
$41 – $60 |
$22 – $44 |
$24 – $33 |
Knowing how much does it cost to build an app is not enough, as expenses don’t stop with app launch to the market. You need to understand ‘how much does it cost to maintain an app’ and be prepared to spend on app support
Such costs can vary from $5,000 to $10,000 annually (Clutch, 2018).
If you are interested in the job of mobile-app-developer you can find the open vacancies here.
Another research shows that during the first year, 50% of the app development cost will be spent on maintenance. During the second year, you will have to spend around 20% and 10%-25% for each subsequent year (Outsystems, 2018-2019).
App maintenance includes the following types of works:
Therefore, when you plan your budget, it is important to divide it between two major spending patterns: cost to develop an app and app maintenance cost.
You can calculate how much it will cost to build an app by yourself. The formula for app development cost breakdown is simple: the number of hours multiplied by the hourly rate. The majority of companies provide a rough mobile app development cost estimate before the development stage begins so that you know how much money you will need.
Usually, app development companies use two main charging approaches:
Even though you might feel anxious about this approach, it offers a lot of benefits. With the fixed price structure, you cannot change anything during development. When working within time & material frame, you are free to change the scope of work, add features or remove some even in the middle of the development process. Thus, you can build a highly customized app that your users will love.
Be sure to find out by which pricing structure the company works before you sign an agreement, as it can greatly influence the final cost to develop an app and the whole development approach.
Even though you can know the answer to the ‘how much does it cost to build an app’ even before the development starts, very often companies fail to meet the defined budgets. There are a number of hidden mobile app development cost drivers that are often overlooked.
Companies that decide to start native app development, often forget about the need to implement the support of other operating systems after the first version of an app is launched.
Solution: Conduct coherent market research to find which platform your target audience prefers. Plan for the first version of the app for the most popular platform. Launch the first version of your digital product to test the waters and collect customer feedback. Based on the received data, plan the development of the app for another operating system and include all the improvements from the start, thus saving money on further re-development.
During the development, your development team can come to the conclusion that your app needs integration with some third-party API, CRM, or service. This can significantly increase the app development timeline and consequently the cost to develop an app.
Solution: When you hire an ap dev team, look for a company that offers services of mobile app architect. Such specialists will create the infrastructure of your application and will think through all integrations, even with third-party services. Thus, you won’t unexpected spending and shifts of development timeframe after you have started it.
What expenses do you include in the question ‘How much does it cost to build an app?’
Often, businesses overlook such an important spending pattern as marketing. Even before you launch your app to the market, you need to work on its promotion. You can start warming up your audience by releasing sneak peeks of your app, working with influencers to be your beta testers, and share their experience with their audience. After the launch, the marketing battle only starts.
Here are a few channels that you can include in your marketing activities:
Software development companies don’t include the maintenance cost into the app development price. This part is often overlooked and might create confusion. That’s why you need to be prepared that even after you launch your application, you will need to spend even more money.
App development cost usually takes only 35% of the whole budget that a company spends on app support over the next two years after its launch (Computerworld, 2012)
The answer to the ‘how much does it cost to build an app?’ question wouldn’t be full without the definition of development stages and costs that are spent on each of them.
In many software development companies, the app development process is divided into five stages. Depending on the vendor, the name of each stage may vary:
Let’s see how each stage influences the final cost to develop an app.
This stage, which is also called discovery, is usually the first step in app development for many companies. According to the research by Clutch, 70% of companies start with analysis and project planning. This phase usually involves the work of business analysts, UX/UI designers, software architects and a product owner who together work on the following tasks:
The cost of this stage may vary from $5,000 to $25,000 and even go beyond. For the vast majority of projects, planning and analysis take 2-5 weeks.
This stage of mobile app development is fully dedicated to creating user flows, defining how users will interact with your application, and how the interface will look. This step is essential for creating a user-friendly product that will be easy to use and relevant to their expectations.
The cost to design an app starts at $5,000 and can go beyond $50,000. The price you will need to pay depends on the number of screens that should be designed and the overall complexity of your application.
How much does it cost to build an app? As you can see, there are a lot of influencing factors that can shift the cost to build a mobile app in either direction.
The average cost to develop an app is usually $5,000-$10,000. This cost includes the creation of the first and simplest version of an application without a backend. In most cases, companies pay $20,000-$30,000 for development.
The cost of building an app also includes this stage. Testing and quality assurance are essential in app development, as this phase helps to make sure that your app is ready for customers, does not have any problems, and provides impeccable user experience.
In most cases, you will have to pay $5,000-$10,000 for app testing.
As you can see, answering the ‘how much does it cost to build an app?’ is not easy because of a lot of influencing factors. It depends on features complexity, country to which you decide to outsource, and the company you are working with. For example, a small to medium app development company in Europe can charge you $25,000 to $115,000 for app development. If you decide to work with a company in the USA, the price will be much higher – $485,000-$730,000.
The average price to develop an app can shift in either direction based on the number and complexity of features that you want to implement. Some of them, like push notifications, can eat up half of your app budget and reach hundreds of thousands of dollars in implementation.
Let’s answer ‘how much does it cost to build an app?’ based on the features you are going to implement.
Those features are also called native device features, as they entail the use of device hardware. The latest smartphones have a lot of built-in capabilities, like internet connection, NFC, Bluetooth, etc. The development of such features can take a lot of time, from as little as 30 hours to 100 hours of ap development.
This is probably the most important feature for the vast majority of modern applications. Depending on its logic and complexity, like the ability to remind a password, it might take from 10 to 70 hours to implement them.
The features of this type include SMS, social media sharing, push notification, email, etc. – everything that helps you interact with users. Some features can be implemented with the help of APIs, while others need to be developed from scratch.
Depending on your requirements, it might take from 25 to 145 hours to implement such functionality.
Features of this type are popular among apps, including food delivery applications, maps, and others. They can be implemented with the help of GPS and iBeacons, which will take from 10 to 150 hours of development time.
There are a lot of available payment gateways that you can use in your app for in-app payments, like Apple Pay, Google Pay, Stripe, PayPal, credit cards, Payoneer, etc. Depending on the complexity and customization, you might need to spend from 20 to 200 hours on such functionality.
If you create an application that can be used on iPhone and iPad, it might make sense to add a feature that would allow users to sync data between different devices. The development will take from 20 to 200 hours.
Today, data encryption is a requirement in many countries. If you don’t want to have problems with GDPR and other regulations, consider adding such functionality to your application. The development can take from 10 to 80 hours based on the used protocols, level of protection, and your personal requirements.
Here is how much companies usually pay for the implementation of some basic and flagship features:
Dev cost |
Push Notifications |
Ratings & Reviews |
Native Integration |
Web Portal |
Performance Management |
>$5,000 |
70% |
71% |
40% |
29% |
61% |
$5,000-$10,000 |
15% |
12% |
28% |
26% |
18% |
$10,000-$15,000 |
7% |
12% |
11% |
16% |
5% |
$15,000-$25,000 |
6% |
5% |
10% |
11% |
13% |
$25,000-$50,000 |
0% |
0% |
7% |
6% |
1% |
$50,000-$100,000 |
1% |
0% |
1% |
9% |
0% |
$100,000+ |
0% |
0% |
3% |
3% |
0% |
Note: Please be aware that the above estimation is an approximation. The number of development hours highly depends on the type of app you decide to develop, features, and logic.
If you are interested in knowing ‘how much does it cost to build an app?’ of different types, take a look at the table below proving approximate examples.
App type |
Features |
App dev cost |
Timeline |
Examples |
| Dating app | Social login/signup User profile management Likes and dislikes Live chat Notifications Feeds |
~$45,000 | ~4-6 months | Tinder, eHarmony, Woo |
| Audio & video streaming app | Social login User profile management Live announcements Broadcasts feed Followers stats Push and message notifications |
12% | ~5-7 months | Periscope, Twitch, Vimeo |
| Messaging app | Sign up & login Security preferences User profile management Auto syncing of contacts Audit, video, location, contacts sharing Backup creation Notifications Voice calling % |
~$70,000 | ~5-8 months | WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger |
| Social network | Sign up & login Live feed Profile management People search Share photos, videos, content Send photos, videos, content Messaging |
~$80,000 | ~5-13 months | Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn |
Note: Please remember that the above numbers are an estimation for the first version of an application. Depending on the requirements, your project might turn into ongoing development and go beyond all timelines.
Now that you know how much it will cost to make an app, let’s summarize how you can avoid unexpected expenses and stick to the set timeline.
Get in touch with our team for a free consultation and mobile application estimation.
✔ App development cost depends on a number of factors, like the country to which you outsource the work, company you work with, and set of features you are going to include.
The minimum app development cost is $5.000-$10,000. If you decide to go further, you will have to pay $38,000-$172,000 for a bigger app and $172,000+ for an app with native versions for iOS and Android.
✔ In 80% of cases, it takes 3+ months to develop an app. Almost 40% of all applications take 6+ months to create. The final timeline depends on the number of features and supported operating systems.
✔ Mobile app maintenance cost vary from $5,000 to $10,000 annually. During the first year, 50% of app development cost companies spend on maintenance. You will spend around 25% and 15%-25% for each subsequent year.
