ith the prediction of making a revenue of $932 billion by 2023, the mobile app industry has become a burgeoning name for businesses. Have you ever thought of planning to build an app for your business?

Whether you are a progressive startup, SME brand, or a big enterprise with a grounded position on the market, everyone who would like to create their high-quality mobile application asks the same question, how much does it cost to develop an app?

To be honest, there are many online calculators available that can be used to get the approximate idea; but they will give you an estimate with the price tag of $20,000 to $35,000 for an app build with a myriad of features. And the smaller apps with basic features will cost around $10,000 to $50,000.

Before you fall for these costs, let me tell you that it is just a marketing trap to grab your attention. The estimation you will receive through online calculators will never provide you with a breakdown of the development cost. Secondly, if you noticed, why is there a huge gap between costing $20,000 to $35,000?

The truth of the matter is, app development costs are influenced by various factors and parameters. So to get a real estimation of the app development, you will need to closely understand how each factor is contributing to the price.

The good news is, you won’t have to go anywhere, as we have covered all the major factors in this article that help you understand in depth.

So here we have covered:

• How Much Does It Cost To Build an App Worldwide?
  – Cost To Build an App In UAE, Dubai, USA, India etc.
• How Long Does It Take To Build an App?
  – Basic
  – Moderate
  – Complex
• What Are The Factors Affecting the App Development Cost?
  – App Development Cost By Complexity
  – App Development Cost By Platform (Android/iOS or Cross-Platform)
  – App Development Cost by Location
  – App Development Cost by Development Stages
  (Research & Planning, App Development Team, Designing UX/UI, User Features, Backend and Frontend, App Testing, Deployment and publishing, App Maintenance)
• How Much Did It Cost to well-Known Startups?

Let’s get into the deep of each point for a better understanding..

1. How Much Does It Cost To Build An App In the Globe?

How much does it cost to build a custom mobile application? A Clutch has conducted a survey with some of the leading mobile app development companies from all across the globe to know the average cost of mobile app development. And it comes up with the surprising figures that:

“The average cost of the app development is starting from $25,275 and $171,450, but could climb up to $500,000 or higher”.

But the reality is, figuring out the cost of custom mobile app development globally is one of the daunting tasks. Even the expert survey reports don’t have the same answers for you.

Let’s have a look.

• A VDC survey of enterprise app developers found that mobile apps cost an average of $140,000 per app.
• A Kinvey survey of CIOs found that the average price of app development would be $270,000 per app.
• An EMM survey showed that over 75% of enterprises budgeted over $250,000 for mobility solutions.

However, coming to the real-life grounds, the actual app development is far from these figures.

“To help you understand how much app development costs globally, we take $25 as an average per hour cost of the developer. A basic will cost you $25,000, moderate complex apps will cost in between $30,000 and the complex application will cost somewhere $50,000+.”

Average Cost To Create an App in UAE

But there are thousands of software development companies around the world that not only claim to be the best but also ensure the delivery of outstanding solutions. Before you get straight into the process to hire an app developer, there are so many parameters to evaluate including a well-established or recently founded company, experienced or fresher, local or foreign, expensive or cheap and more. Finding and hiring the best tech team by evaluating these parameters may be confusing not only for startups but also for entrepreneurs.

But over the top, the common myth among businesses is “good things come with an expensive price tag” or emerging companies are not experienced enough to deliver high quality products. If you are also keeping the same unbiased analysis about app-building cost, then look at the cost of building apps that greatly vary with the hourly cost of the developer.

Different geographical locations offer different average hourly costs that bring the major difference in the overall costing of the app all across the world.

So how much does it cost to build an app worldwide? Here is the infographic costly for the quick idea:

“What’s so surprising here is that the highest-priced app developers are in North America with $150/hr, while the best-skilled developers in India are available at 7x cheaper cost. The only difference is India boasts the highest competition among developers and has the lowest living cost as compared to the USA.”

2. How Long Does It Take To Build an App?

How much time does it take to develop an app? It is one of the major parameters to consider while calculating the app development cost. But, the bitter truth is, there is no standard time for developing an app as each stage in the development process takes a different amount of time to complete depending upon the complexity.

So when it comes to developing an app, it takes more than a week, a ton of research and planning, communications, development cycles, app testing, app deployment and more. So according to the expert calculations, the survey has revealed that the time of development is depending upon the complexity and it could be:

• 4 to 6 weeks for creating a simple app with minimal basic features.
• 6 to 9 weeks for developing complex apps with proper custom features.
• 10+ months for developing advanced levels of apps with cutting-edge features.

The rough estimation of the days (8 hours), weeks and months will be further converted into hours and then calculated with the per hour cost of the developer to understand the final cost of the application with the standpoint of development time.

3. What Are The Factors Affecting the App Development Cost?

There are thousands of blogs, article available on the internet claiming to hire mobile app developer and get your app developed in between $10,000 to $20,000. But if the truth is asked, how many of you have actually got your application developed at this cost?

I’m sure nobody!

Because there is no fixed cost of app development. It greatly varies from several thousand dollars to insanely expensive prices reaching millions. But the basic app development cost calculations depend on how much an app developer will cost you on an hourly basis.

Based on the survey responses for custom app development cost, it is discovered that different companies around the world charge between $10 to $150 per hour, with an average of $45 an hour.

While for the high-end app development solutions, the rates are anywhere between $12 to $200 an hour with an average of $100 per hour. The overall cost will be decided on the number of tech developers required for the project and how many hours they have devoted to each stage of development.

But before you drill straight into the process of querying a software development company, it is important to understand that the total cost will be depending upon several elements. The tailored mobile apps come in a variety of scales, designs, utility and functionalities and each parameter demands a lot of development efforts. And each of them influences the app development cost.

So let’s understand the important parameters influencing the mobile app development cost:

• A) App Development Cost By Complexity

The complexity of the app will have a direct impact on the time and cost of the app development. Majorly, user features, app functionality, number of screens, the sophistication of design, backend, frontend adds up the layer to the complexity of the app. And with each layer of complexity, the app development time, cost and efforts are manifold.

Here is the rough estimation of development time and cost with different complex levels:

• B) App Development Cost By Platform (Android/iOS or CrossPlatform)

The choice of platform impacts the cost of app development in many ways. To make it understand, just think, will native Android app development cost you the same as hybrid applications do? No!

If you are planning to build an app for a single platform, there is no major difference in development cost. But in case you are planning to target users through multiple platforms and decide to make an app for more than one platform, you need to pay for each individual platform.

So here, before you hire an app developer for any specific platform, they need to understand Android and iOS market share, target audience, a variety of devices, OS requirements, app services, and technical requirements. App development for each platform requires different programming languages, utilizes different tools and has different APIs.

Android or iOS Native Apps: They are basically developed for specific guidelines and device hardware. To build native applications, you need a platform-specific programming language and it is expensive when you need both Native Android and Native iOS.

Here are the rough estimations of developing Native iOS and Android apps.

Hybrid Applications: Comparatively, hybrid applications can save 60% of the development cost when your aim is to target large audiences, cross-platform availability and quick time to market. There are a number of leading cross-platform app development frameworks available that help you build multiple applications that run on a variety of devices by using the same code base.

Here is the rough estimation of app development cost with different choice of frameworks:

• C) App Development Cost by Location

The most popular locations to hire an app developer are the USA, UAE, India, Canada, South America, UK, Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia and more. But the hourly rate of developers greatly varies according to the geolocation. So while calculating the app development cost, it is important to take the location of the developer into consideration.

So based on the survey, here is the map indicating the per hour cost of the developer for each platform in different countries.

Evidently, with $100 to $150 per hour, an average cost of the app developer in the USA followed by Canada with $60 to $90 per hour developer’s cost are the most expensive regions to hire app development company.

On the other hand, India and UAE with the per hour development cost of $15 to $25 seem to be quite famous for cheap and reliable app development solutions.

But over the top, the cost of the app developer won’t guarantee the quality of your app development. Sometimes cheap app development costs may save you money, while expensive costs are only for the name of the company’s reputation.

• D) App Development Cost by Development Stages

When you decide to create an app, you can’t expect your software development company to inform you about the development cost breakdowns that each stage will acquire. They just analyze your requirements first and provide you with the project estimation. But surely, before they send you the quotes, they will estimate the hours that each stage of the development will take.

So here is the cost and time breakdown of development stages that majorly affects the app development cost:

i) Project Planning and Research: Most companies often overlook this stage of development and rush directly to hire a team of app developers. But the reality is, planning and research will help you outline the project in a better way and identify the new opportunities for your project.

The planning phase must include:

• Market research and business analysis
• Identifying project requirements
• Defining the scope of the project
• Deciding app features and goals
• Deciding the tech stack required for the project
• Planning out time and budget for the project

So how much time does it take to define the project strategy? Typically the app planning and research will take 30 to 80 hours and can go up to 250 hours depending on the app’s complexity. But the planning phase can provide you well-documented guides to the clients and development team that assist through the development stages.

ii) Development Cost To Designing An App: To make your app look engaging and attractive, it is important to design it well. Thus, most development companies include dedicated efforts on designing and user experience.

In-app, UI/UX designing is more about the presentation of the app which includes:

• User Research and analysis
• Information Architecture
• App Navigation
• Wire-framing
• Logos, Icons, Colors
• Rendered Designs
• App Interface
• Prototype

This phase of the app development will take up to 36 to 70 hours that can go up to 300 hours in case of complex applications. The expense of creating this phase of the app will be in between $2,000 to $10,000+ for highly user optimized designs.

iii) Cost To Develop User Features: As said above, the app complexity will decide how much time and cost it will take to develop app features. While user features contribute much to the complexity of the app and cost, though there is no definite answer that can be given until a set of features have not been decided to develop.

To have a perspective about how much does it cost to develop, the app makers were asked to roughly provide the time taken to develop three sets of user features- simple, complex and advanced.

Here are the bifurcation of the user features, time and cost for each set of app:

iv) Cost of Developing Backend and Frontend: Backend and frontend is the heart and soul of the app. They are one of the most decisive elements in the success of the commercial app. And to make your commercial app running smoothly you need to have an admin panel that helps you monitor the activities, monetization strategy or services.

So here is the rough estimation of the admin features, cost and time that it takes up to develop.

Now coming to the backend and frontend of the app. No matter how brilliant an app you have developed, it will be a big failure if it has a weak backend and vice-versa. To make it simple you need to hire a Backend/frontend developer that may cost you $25/hr to $35/hr and goes up to $100/hr for the high-end applications.

v) Cost of App Testing

Rigorous testing of the app will ensure the quality of the mobile application and make sure that it functions smoothly. App testing can comfort the users with a seamless app experience without UI walls, bugs, crashes or any other hiccups.

To test your application, you need to hire an app assurance engineer that makes your app run on multiple devices to identify the scope of bugs. The amount of time and cost required depends on the types of testing procedures, the purpose of the app, its complexity and the number of screens.

Majorly testing of the mobile app includes:

• Quality assurance
• User experience testing
• Functional testing
• Performance testing
• Security testing
• Device and platform testing

In case of simple apps, a few basic testing runs are enough and can be completed in less time. Complex and advanced level apps require multiple testing as they have advanced features.

vi) Cost of App Deployment: Publishing an app to the app store usually requires the least time if it is developed according to the guidelines of the app store. So it’s a critical moment that has to be left with the mobile app development company.

If you are thinking that it is as simple as putting your app for publication, then you might be mistaken here. Its process is detailed, requires a dozen of information on the app which directly impacts the success of the app deployment.

Usually, the Apple app store charges standard annual fees of $99 whereas the Google play store charges one-time developer’s fees of $25 to publish a mobile app. But there is much optimizations and administration work included than just uploading the app to the store. So developers usually take up to 8 hours to 50 hours to fulfil these requirements. So the average app cost of deployment can be between $200 to $550.

vii) Cost of App Maintenance and Support: Your job is not yet over! Even the most brilliant applications required constant support and maintenance to make it run smoothly and ensure an excellent user experience.

Support and maintenance activities may include:

• Infrastructure & 3rd party APIs charges
• Continue fixing bugs and app updates
• Code optimization
• Emergency maintenance
• Developing new features
• Updating for the latest OS versions
• App Stability and performance

Usually, mobile app development companies charge an average of 25% of the development cost per year.

4. How Much Did It Cost to Well-Known Startups?

If you just go a few years back, you will release the applications like Uber, Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp, Talabat, Amazon, Postmates has quickly taken over the world and have become the biggest inspirations for emerging businesses.

So everyday app development company receive many questions from potential clients that “what exactly will it cost to develop an app like Uber? Or How much does it cost to build a social media app like Instagram?”.

Here, it seems to be simple to answer these questions, but in reality, they are not as these apps are made up of advanced features and complex architecture.

So let’s walk you through the world-famous example of application and compare the approximate app development cost.

• Instagram’s initial development cost was around $50,000 for a single platform.
• Uber raising $250,000+ revenue was started with the investment of $60,000 on app development.
• WhatsApp’s initial version for iOS was built for $45,000.
• The Postmates raised $750,000+ in the seed round.
• Snapchat has a large social media network that raised $485k in 2012, which is just a drop in the ocean today with the funding of over $3billion.

These all are the estimated budget based on the average per hour developer’s cost and the real number of development hours.

If your startup business model is also somehow similar to these popular apps, then you need to drop a query to the tech experts that have the best alternatives to help you get the app and enable you to earn millions of revenue.

Summary

At the end of this blog, surely, you have a deep understanding of how much an app development cost is calculated. The data and insights presented above are rough estimations but very close to the real-life statistics. If you are planning to hire a mobile app development company, then these cost and time estimations of making an app will really help you understand the whole process. In fact, our guide has not only served a real breakdown of the app development budget but also helps you pick the tech experts that suit your business requirements.

Original Post on – https://medium.com/codex/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-an-app-in-2021-9aadb3d68349