Mobile app development is a relatively young and rapidly developing industry, now occupying a significant place in the activities of businesses and start-ups.
Appreciating the fact that an estimation of average cost of mobile app development is essential in planning and decision-making.
Some of the determinants of these costs are the features included in the system, the platform, design expectations, and the location of the development team.
In this blog, we will discuss the average cost of mobile app development and give you tips on managing the costs and planning for your project in the mobile environment.
Breakdown of Mobile App Development Costs
When it comes to calculating the cost of mobile app development, knowing major phases of cost accumulation can assist with such estimation.
Here's a detailed breakdown of expenses by category:
Pre-Development Costs
Before we write a line of code, there is a set of actions that form the basis for your mobile app development cost.
These include:
-
Market Research and Ideation: While conducting detailed market research, you can easily define your target audiences, analyze competitors, and recognize your app idea's strengths and weaknesses.
An average cost of mobile app development for this stage can vary between $5,000 and $20,000 depending on the type of depth of the study.
- Wireframing and UI/UX Design Costs: Designing of wireframes and coming up with the interactive interface is important for the success of the process of mobile app development. Design costs range between $3,000 and $10,000. UX can indeed play a very helpful role in the attraction and retention of users.
Mobile App Development Costs
This is where the bulk of your spending will occur which will vary greatly based on several factors:
Costs by Platform (iOS, Android, Web):
The dynamic nature of both iOS and Android will currently entail that you will need two different sets of codes, thus adding cost to it.
The average cost of mobile app development for a single platform is in the range of $30,000 to $150,000. Integrated solutions may be more affordable, but it all starts at $20,000 at a minimum.
Role of Developers (Front-End, Back-End, Full-Stack):
The kind of developer you hire also fluctuates the overall cost of the project, mostly in regard to the cost of training.
While the front-end developer is more concerned with the graphical user interface, the back-end developer deals with how the application functions in the back end, for example, the server and database.
Full-stack developers can do both, though they might be a bit expensive when it comes to offering such services.
You can expect to be charged anything from $50 to $200 an hour, depending on their level of experience and area of expertise.
Post-Development Costs
After the app's launch, it's crucial to budget for ongoing costs to ensure that your mobile app development cost is current and efficient:
- Testing and Quality Assurance: A rigorous testing process is vital to find and fix problems before launching. It can cost anywhere from $5,000 and $15,000, or even more, based on the level of complexity of the application.
- Marketing and Launch Expenses: Launching your app successfully requires an effective marketing plan. Costs can vary greatly in the range of $5,000 to over $50,000, based on your strategy for marketing and the channel you use.
- Maintenance and Updates Costs: Support after launch is essential for maintaining interest of users. Maintenance costs can be as high as 15 percent of the initial development budget each year.
As you can see, mobile app cost development can be wildly different depending on various aspects. If you know these types of categories, you will be able to develop a budget that can cover all phases of development efficiently.
Factors Influencing Mobile App Development Costs
Understanding what factors make up the mobile app development cost is important in the development of a realistic budget.
The need for mobile application development is also underlined by the fact that, based on data from the current industry, this market will soon exceed $407 billion by 2026. Apparently, here are factors that should be taken into consideration concerning overall development costs:
App Complexity
The level of sophistication of your application defines the amount of money that you are likely to spend on the project.
- Simple Apps vs. Complex Apps: As for less complex applications designed similar to built-in iPhone or Android apps like a calculator or a to-do list, the charges may go as low as $10,000-$30,000. Hypothetically, simple apps mostly with basic features cost $10,000 to $50,000 while complex apps that offer more functionality like a real-time chat app or a multi-factor authentication app can cost $50,000 or more and can cost upwards of $200,000 or more.
- Custom Features and Functionalities: Customization of your mobile app with such features means added mobile app development cost and time. Integration of custom features including GPS, account system, or payment interfaces also put additional workload and cause costs to increase.
Geographic Location
Where your development team is located greatly influences your cost of mobile app development.
- Cost Variations Based on Developers' Locations: While North American and Western European software developers are among the most expensive, costing $100-$250 per hour. On the other hand, developers from Eastern Europe and Asia can charge from $30 to $100 per hour.
- Comparing Costs Between Different Countries and Regions: That said, let us agree that offshoring has the potential of lowering costs while increasing the understanding of the potential trade-off of cost versus quality. For example, many young businesses try to hire developers from countries such as India or the Philippines for cost-effective prices, but issues like language differences or differing time zones may appear.
Design Requirements
The subject of design is equally significant for the general mobile app development cost.
- Impact of Advanced UI/UX on Costs: The user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) components are a strong factor in retaining users and investors. Nevertheless, delivering high-quality UI/UX tends to increase the production costs because talented designers are needed for that task. The development of an application can range from $15,000 and go as high as $100,000.
- The Role of Animations and Graphics: Adding animations and other graphic extensions makes the app more attractive but the cost of development goes up as well. Logo and Mutual buttons could escalate the price by $5,000 to $20,000; integrated animations could cost even more.
Technology Stack
It is evident that the decision about the right technology stack affects development processes and costs.
- Native vs. Hybrid Apps: Local applications developed for particular systems perform better but have high costs of creation (from $30,000 to $150,000 for every platform). Multiplatform apps can be built for less than $20,000, but they won't run as smoothly as native ones.
- Consideration of Frameworks and Libraries: The frameworks and the libraries used can affect costs; their selection also has to be precise. There are frameworks that make developers work faster; a good example is React Native or Flutter, but these frameworks come with qualifications, meaning that they may attract higher hourly rates.
Knowing these factors lets you set up more feasible expectations when it comes to your budget for developing a successful mobile app.
Read More: Master the Mobile App Dev Lifecycle: Guide
Average Cost Comparison
Cost for Different Types of Apps
One of the factors that influences the costs of developing an app greatly is the type of application being developed.
According to industry research, the average cost of mobile app development varies as per their types:
- E-commerce Apps: These are expected to cost between $25,000 to $150,000 because they must allow for secure payment processing, among other features such as inventory tracking capabilities.
- Social Media Apps: In most cases, the cost ranges from $30,000 and can exceed $200,000. Such costs fail to materialize due to several aspects, including the extent of interaction roads, real-time features, and scaling capabilities.
- Utility Apps: Still, they are fairly comprehensible, as it ranges from $10,000 to $50,000 for utility apps, as a rule. However, getting other features aligned with this can significantly raise this amount. Knowledge of these cost ranges will allow businesses to define their budget and scope correctly.
Cost Estimates by Development Method
The method used in developing a particular app greatly determines the kind of prices that will be tagged to it. Here's a breakdown:
- In-house Development: While having a dedicated team is more costly since it means having specialized people to handle your development, it affords you control and direct communication with the team. Building an app in a house may cost anywhere between $50,000 to $250,000, inclusive of wages or salaries, benefits and overheads.
- Freelancers: Businesses with slightly limited resources will be able to hire freelancers for $15,000-$75,000, depending on the services needed. But before proceeding with the plans, one has to determine the dependability and the vast working experience of their possible associates.
- Development Agencies: Venturing with a development agency often comes with experience coupled with efficient service delivery but is relatively costly. The average cost of mobile app development may be anywhere between $50,000 and $300,000 but perhaps for client acquisition alone, the techniques already in place at the agency may make such investments worthwhile.
Global Cost Averages
New research shows that it costs differently to develop a mobile app from one geographical location to another. Clutch has found that the average cost for developing an application in the United States is $150,000 and $40,000 to $80,000 in Eastern Europe.
Price ranges from $20,000 to $50,000 are quite common to countries like India and Philippines and for this reason, many start-ups go there for cheaper prices.
Such global differences reinforce the significance of selecting the right development partner over budget, scope, and the quality one expects to achieve.
Comparing these costs should assist business organizations to make the right decisions that are geared towards the achievement of business goals and objectives based on efficient budgeting.
Budgeting for Mobile App Development
Setting a Realistic Budget
While considering the planning of the mobile applications, there is an important concept: Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
MVP is an initial version of your application that contains only that set of features, which is enough to attract the first customers and to receive their feedback for the further evolution.
In this way, by following only the core needs, a business can start fast and for minimum money. And Statista also suggests that companies that develop an MVP are able to cut development costs by as much as 30% as they are also confident of the quality of the product developed.
Creating a realistic budget does not only require people to set their budget estimate regarding the mobile app development cost but also the marketing costs, maintenance costs, and also the cost of having to update the mobile application.
It also assists stakeholders in developing realistic plans for the allocation of their money since detailed breakdowns encourage the visual imagining of resources' expenditure.
Tips for Cost Management
The management of mobile app cost development is an important aspect of its development. Here are some practical tips:
- Prioritization of Features: Find out the strategic needs for your app. These are the single features that relate directly to the user requirement on the app and to the main goal and objective of the app. It means that one can avoid extensive spending on project-related issues, which makes it easier to achieve the goal of development.
- Avoiding Common Budget Pitfalls: Be careful with projects that have a tendency to expand in the quantity of the requirements during the work progress; that is known as scope creep. Not only is this expensive, but it can also take time-sometimes much longer than putting the effort in to do the work yourself. Treat your development team in an understandable and comprehensible manner about the project's aims and objectives to remain holistic to the original project strategy as much as possible.
Future Trends in Mobile App Development Costs
In the mobile app market, in particular, recent figures show global mobile app development market size is anticipated to grow from $194.87 billion in 2021 to $407.31 billion, at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 18 % during the period of 2021-2026.
This growth shows that more and more people need and want mobile applications, as well as the shifting technologies that contribute to the average cost of mobile app development.
Impact of Emerging Technologies (AI, AR/VR)
AI, AR, and VR are not innovative technologies in the field of mobile app cost development but they are becoming more mainstream.
As per a Statista report, 80% of companies think that AI will augment their app features and benefit the users. But their integration may also lead to an increase in development costs at first.
- AI Integration: Adding features like conversation or suggestion with AI can improve an application's features but it needs AI developers, which adds to the expenses. The estimates also forecast that on average AI integration could cost 20-30% of the total development budget.
- AR/VR Features: Since the development of the app design requires integration of AR or VR it can go up to x2 or x3 times higher than expected. According to a study, basic AR applications can be developed for $50,000 and on the other hand VR applications over $100,000.
Businesses should evaluate these mobile app development costs against the possibility of achieving higher user interactions and increasing their market position.
Predictions for Future Cost Trends in the Industry
Looking ahead, several trends may impact mobile app development cost in the coming years:
- Increased Demand for Customization: The demand increases for such more unique solutions that meet particular needs of certain companies, which will in turn increase the demand for custom app development. The trend may result in an increased average cost of mobile app development since developing applications to meet specific organizational requirements will take more time and money than procuring ready-made apps.
- Shift Towards Low-Code/No-Code Solutions: Low-code and no-code platforms were additionally stated to cause improvements in development time and costs. Such platforms help create simple applications for businesses, especially since it is accessible even without advanced programming skills, thus giving relatively new, smaller companies opportunities to compete. Low code application development is expected by Gartner to contribute more than 65% of all application development by 2024.
- Focus on Security and Compliance: With the current rising levels of data privacy regulations across the world, the expenses of having to address these issues are set to rise. This new approach means that the developers are likely to spend more on measures of protection and safety, which causes an increase in the total overall mobile app development cost.
- Geographic Cost Variations: Although operating in countries with low wages is still self-evident, there is also a benefit to be weighted against cost - collaborating with local developers can ensure that there is adequate and efficient communication with the outsourced team.
Conclusion
All in all, companies interested in getting into the mobile app marketplace must have strong knowledge of what the average cost of mobile app development will be for developing an app.
Some of the items that can influence the overall cost included the type of apps, selection platform, design concept and incorporating new technology.
Opportunities, like customization, increasing popularity of low code, and geographical cost impact on project price.
If mobile app development cost is in your strategic plan it might be advisable to factor in initial costs as well as ongoing costs for maintenance and promotion, as well as in the case of new feature addition. This makes it important that you have a sound financial plan to help capture the market for your application in a highly saturated environment out there.
In case you need professional assistance and an individual approach to the mobile app cost development, feel free to connect with our specialists at Developers.dev.
Our dedicated, experienced team is eager and ready to help you develop an inexpensive yet unique, high-quality mobile application that will meet your needs efficiently and can help you be unique in your market.
You have an idea of an app, let us take your idea to the next level.
