How Much Does a Mobile App Cost to Build?

The honest answer is: $25,000 to $200,000+, and that range is not a cop-out. Mobile apps span more ground than almost any other software category. A parking meter app and a fitness platform with AI coaching are both "mobile apps." What you're building determines what it costs.

This article breaks down the real cost drivers so you can make informed decisions — not just pick a number out of thin air and go looking for someone who'll quote it.

The Baseline Cost Ranges

Here's how we generally categorize app complexity and the budget ranges that correspond:

Simple utility or companion app — $25,000 to $50,000

This covers apps with a small screen count (10–20 screens), minimal backend requirements, and straightforward user flows. Examples: a companion app for a physical product, an appointment booking front-end for an existing system, a basic content reader. Authentication, push notifications, and a simple API — no more.

Mid-tier app with real backend requirements — $50,000 to $100,000

Most business apps land here. Real-time features, relational data, multiple user roles, custom admin tooling, a proper API layer, and more complex state management. Think: a client portal, a service marketplace, a field service management tool.

Full-featured consumer app — $100,000 to $200,000+

In-app subscriptions with Apple IAP and Google Play Billing, AI features, real-time communication (WebSockets or similar), offline data sync, complex media handling, or deep third-party integrations. Consumer apps that compete in the App Store at scale fall here.

These ranges assume a professional team — agency or experienced senior freelancers — working at US/Western European market rates. Offshore teams in lower-cost markets will quote lower. Whether that's worth the trade-off depends on what you're building and your tolerance for communication overhead and quality variance.

The 6 Biggest Cost Drivers

Understanding what moves the price helps you make trade-off decisions before you commit budget.

1. Platform count

Building for iOS only is cheaper than building for both iOS and Android. But with React Native and Expo, the delta is not 2x — it's more like 15–20%. You share the application logic, state management, and most UI components. What changes between platforms is some native module behavior, platform-specific UI conventions, and QA. If your audience includes Android users at all, building both is almost always the right call.

2. Backend complexity

If you already have a web application with a REST or GraphQL API, and your mobile app can consume it directly, you save significant backend development time. If you're starting from scratch — or if your mobile app needs a substantially different API shape than your web product — backend development is a major budget item. A properly built API with auth, rate limiting, webhook handling, and a decent data model takes time.

3. Design

A custom design system built from scratch — type scale, color palette, component library, spacing system, icon set, interaction patterns — takes 3–5 weeks for a senior designer and adds cost. Apps built on an existing design kit (like modified versions of shadcn or a licensed UI library) cost less. Custom brand-specific UI with animations and custom gestures costs more. This is also one of the areas where cutting corners is most visible to users.

4. In-app subscriptions

Do not underestimate this. Apple IAP and Google Play Billing are two entirely separate systems with different APIs, different terminology, different webhook formats, and different edge cases. Server-side purchase validation is mandatory if you're granting access to paid content. Managing subscription state — active, expired, in grace period, billing retry, refunded — across both platforms is a non-trivial implementation. Budget 2–4 weeks of focused development time specifically for subscriptions, or use RevenueCat to abstract the complexity (which adds a SaaS cost but dramatically reduces implementation risk).

5. Offline support

Apps that need to work without internet access — field service tools, inspection apps, anything used in areas with spotty connectivity — require a local database (SQLite via expo-sqlite, or WatermelonDB for complex relational data) and sync logic. When does local data win? When does server data win? What happens when two devices write conflicting data? This is legitimately complex engineering. If you need it, scope it carefully. If you don't, eliminate it from the spec entirely.

6. Custom hardware integration

Bluetooth LE for connecting to physical devices, NFC, custom camera pipelines for barcode scanning or document capture, integration with health sensors via HealthKit or Google Health Connect — each of these adds scope that doesn't exist in a pure data app. Hardware integration work is also harder to estimate upfront because device firmware quirks and OS-level limitations only surface during actual device testing.

Discovery vs Assumptions

Every agency that quotes you a fixed price without a technical discovery phase is quoting based on assumptions. Those assumptions will be wrong somewhere — and you'll pay to correct them mid-project, usually at the worst possible moment.

Technical discovery is a structured planning engagement that produces a detailed scope document, architecture decisions, and a cost estimate grounded in reality rather than hope. It takes 2–3 weeks and costs a fraction of what mid-project pivots cost.

Our mobile app technical discovery produces a written deliverable — screen inventory, data model, API design, App Store risk assessment, phased timeline, and a detailed cost breakdown. You can use that document to hold us accountable, or take it elsewhere.

Ongoing Costs Post-Launch

Build cost is a one-time number. Operating a mobile app is an ongoing cost that most first-time app builders don't plan for.

Annual maintenance: Major iOS and Android OS updates ship every fall. Your app needs testing and often code changes to stay compatible. Expect 1–2 weeks of developer time annually just for OS compatibility maintenance, separate from any feature work.

Infrastructure: API hosting, database, storage, push notification delivery (via Expo push or direct APNs/FCM), analytics. For most apps in early stages this runs $50–$300/month. Consumer apps at scale are a different story.

App Store fees: Apple Developer Program is $99/year. Google Play one-time $25. If your app generates revenue via subscriptions, Apple and Google take 30% for the first year (15% after 12 months of subscription tenure, or 15% for developers with under $1M/year revenue via the Small Business Program).

RevenueCat (if used): Free up to $2,500 MTR, then 1% of revenue.

A rough rule of thumb: budget 15–20% of your initial build cost per year to keep the app maintained and running. A $75,000 app will cost $12,000–$15,000/year in ongoing engineering and infrastructure — before adding any new features.

Get a Real Number for Your Project

Ballpark ranges are useful for orientation. Getting a real number requires understanding your specific requirements.

Use our estimate tool to answer a few questions and get a rough project size. When you're ready to turn that into a real plan with specific costs and a timeline, technical discovery is the right next step.

See our full mobile app development service.

For a complete overview of the mobile development process, see our mobile app development guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do mobile app cost estimates vary so much?

The main variables are: feature complexity, number of platforms (iOS/Android/both), whether you need a custom backend or can use an existing API, third-party integrations (payments, maps, notifications, hardware), and the experience level of the team. A "simple app" with a complex backend is not simple.

Is it cheaper to build for one platform first?

With React Native or Expo, building for both iOS and Android simultaneously adds roughly 20–30% to cost compared to one platform — not double. Building one platform first only makes sense if you're doing a true market validation experiment and will commit to the second platform later.

What ongoing costs should I budget for after launch?

App Store fees ($99/year Apple, $25 one-time Google), backend hosting ($50–$500/month depending on scale), push notification services, monitoring tools, and ongoing bug fixes and OS compatibility updates. Budget 15–20% of build cost per year for maintenance.