How Much Does it Cost To Build a Mobile App?
It’s a question we get asked daily:
“How much does it cost to build a mobile app?”
The answer is always the same.
“It depends”
Depends on what? Well it depends on almost everything.
What problem are you trying to solve?
How many features do you anticipate your app will need?
How many platforms will it be on?
What kind of backend integrations and services are required?
As a mobile application development company, these are a few of the questions we need to answer when determining price and scope. But it’s important to remember, the more features you’re building, the higher the price. Mobile apps are different than websites. They require different design specs, user flows, and are coded in their own unique language. Similarly, websites are not the same as webapps. Facebook is not the same as a small business site. Where a small business site may cost hundreds, Facebook costs millions to build and maintain.
In this post, we’ll do our best to break down the differences between small, medium, and enterprise scale mobile apps. But first, we’ll take a look at what factors affect the cost of building mobile apps.
What Factors Affect The Cost of a Mobile App?
As mentioned above there are many factors that either increase or decrease the price of an app. As we scope and price apps according to these factors, it’s important to define what they are.
Business Objective / Project Scope
Project scope is the first indication of the scale of your app. Answering the question “what problem are you trying to solve?” gives an idea of the undertaking involved.
If the problem you’re trying to solve is simple, for example to display beautiful wallpapers sourced from an open API - monetized with ad revenue, that’s a fairly simple problem.
If the problem you’re trying to solve is to create the next “Uber for chefs!” (or “Uber” for anything) that’s going to be a rather complex problem. There are tons of moving parts involved.
Mobile App Platforms
The number of platforms your app is being built on directly affects your mobile app development cost. As we’ve covered before, there are a variety of platforms to build your app on. When building native mobile apps, the cost to build iOS and Android may double in price as there is minimal code sharing involved. App development costs can increase further if your app strategy supports companion apps such as native Apple Watch or iPad.
Things to keep in mind when determining your platforms:
How will my users use this app?
Do they require my app on multiple form factors (mobile, tablet, wearable, TV)?
How does multi-platform tie into my business strategy?
Integrations, Features & Technology
This is the category with the most amount of flexibility. Integrations, features, and technologies are the majority of app development costs. Because the majority of this work is manual and custom, the more features and integrations you want to include, the higher the cost of your app. We’ll take a look at the most common types of integrations and features.
Backend Integrations
These are services that exist outside of the mobile device that are integrated into the app. Things like payment processing, user authentication, business logic, messaging and notifications are all handled on servers outside of the mobile device. Depending on how your infrastructure is setup, these services may exist, or may need to be developed out. Note: developing them from scratch will increase app development costs.
Third Party Integrations
Third party integrations can be less costly to implement depending on the service and vendor. Typical third party integrations include analytic platforms, push notification services, social integration and authentication (oAuth), and integrations with other tools. Depending on the type of APIs that are exposed, costs can vary.
Features & Technology
Features and technology include device specific features your app intends on utilizing. Keep in mind, the more device features your app uses, the greater the complexity, scope and cost. Most smartphones come with a standard list of technologies app developers can use in features.
These include:
Camera
Bluetooth
Geolocation
Map
Gyroscope
Accelerometer
Near Field Communication (NFC)
As you can see, there are a variety of factors that determine mobile app pricing. To scope an app requires a deep understanding of business requirements, objectives, and the possibilities of development. That is why app development costs can range.
Next we’ll break down what budget expectations are within small, medium, and enterprise level apps.
The Small Sized Mobile App
Mobile App Cost: $50,000 - $100,000
Mobile Platform: 1 (either iOS or Android)
integrations & Features: 2-3
User Flows: 2-3
Small mobile apps are typically simple in design and nature. They do not require features such as user profiles, custom integrations, video player, or ecommerce, . They usually have a few APIs they plug into that display data, or ad integrations, and focus more on UX.
A few apps that come to mind include publishing apps, weather apps, stock apps, wallpaper apps, and apps that generally display information.
These apps are typically free to use, supported by ads, and are supported on a single platform.
The Medium Sized Mobile App
Mobile App Cost: $100,000 - $200,000
Mobile Platforms: 1-2
integrations / Features: 3-5
User Flows: 3-5
The Medium sized app category is where most apps fall into. Because of the amount of functions, features, and user flows, the apps can be quite complex and challenging to build. These apps may make use of popular integrations and features such as social media, location services, maps, Google / Apple pay, and ecommerce. They may plug into backend product catalogs and display dynamic information.
Popular medium sized apps that come into mind include Realtor Canada Mobile App, TED Mobile App, and The Athletic, and health & fitness apps.
These apps do a few complex things really well, and are generally supported on both popular mobile platforms.
The Enterprise Mobile App
Mobile App Cost: $200,000+
Mobile Platforms: 2 +
integrations / Features: 5+
User Flows: 5+
Enterprise scale mobile apps are complex written apps that involve many integrations and features. They are generally core to a company’s business model and part of their digital transformation strategy. Types of features these apps require include full-scale ecommerce and supply chain integration, custom video player with authentication levels and ad-insertion, real time fleet management and tracking.
Popular apps that come to mind include Uber, PayPal, CNN, Zara, Amazon, and AirBnB.
Since these apps are core to the company’s business, they will be built for as many platforms as possible to ensure maximum reach.
Conclusion
As we started before. App development costs will vary from all types of firms. Something we haven’t mentioned in this post, but have covered before, is the type of app development company you work with, will greatly determine your costs as well.
Think your app might be too expensive to build? Our advice? Start with a minimum viable product to gain market validity.
This ensures a few things.
You can build your core feature that is crucial to your app. Test your feature against the market. Keep costs low, and build a relationship with the right partner.