How much does an app cost?

What does it cost to create an app? This is probably one of the first questions that app brands and developers have when starting a project. The bottom line of every mobile app development budget is the app development cost estimate. Very often, a business owner finds herself trying to address these two questions: how much does it cost to employ a professional to create an app for my business versus how much does it cost to create an app on my own. 

Both methods have advantages and disadvantages. Let's take a look at both and see how they affect app development costs.

An app developer gains vast knowledge in mobile app development for various platforms after a number of years on the market, as app ventures can be very complex, involving AI, ML, IoT, and another advanced mobile tech. Working with such a team will prevent you from repeating the same mistakes because they are smart and learn from their mistakes on app projects. App creation is a multi-step process that necessitates meticulous preparation and adherence to a strict timetable – all based on previous knowledge.

If you plan to build a mobile app in-house, you can definitely reduce app development costs, at least at first, because over time, working through bug fixes due to a lack of expertise, you can eventually catch up with the price tag you will get from an app development company if you were to employ one. As much as we'd like to place a dollar figure on the cost of app development, we can only provide an estimation because each app development phase includes a number of variables that affect the final cost. Fortunately, there are many software development budget shaping variables that can assist you in deciding the cost of an app's development.

An app development cost breakdown comes down to:

• What an app's features and intent are – what an app should actually do for its users.

• Supported mobile platforms and devices – whether an app will be created exclusively for iOS or will also have an Android version. What particular models, such as the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Mini, Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus, and others, will it support?

• Points of integration – Can an app be incorporated with third-party software that will serve as its content source?

• Use of visual objects – the expense of an app is heavily influenced by the complexity of its visual objects.

• Usage of mobile hardware features – whether or not an app can make use of smartphone features such as GPS navigation, NFC technology, motion co-processors, Virtual Reality technology, and other innovations found in smartphones and tablet computers.

• Maintenance strategy – after an app development project is completed, it will almost definitely need technical assistance from the manufacturer.

Having said that, we can apply some standard or average metrics for software development project costs to various types of applications. Based on data from several organizations that have calculated these app development costs based on their consumer projects analysis, these benchmarks vary very widely:

• The cost of developing a simple app ranges from $45K to $65K.

• The cost of developing a medium-complexity app ranges from $65K to $120K.

• The cost of creating a complex app is $120K or more.

• Hiring a web app developer costs about $90K per year.

The remainder of this study lays out the available data on app development costs from a variety of sources and methodologies.