How Much Does It Cost to Develop an App?

How much does it cost to develop an app? Published industry surveys place a simple app with a handful of screens and no custom backend in the tens of thousands of dollars, a mid-complexity app with user accounts, a backend, payments and integrations in the low-to-mid six figures, and a complex product (marketplaces, telehealth, anything with real-time features or heavy compliance) well above that. These are industry ranges, not PS3G quotes, and the useful part of the answer is not the range but the drivers behind it.

Those drivers are what you build, how many platforms you ship on, what sits behind the app, how it is designed and tested, which regulations apply and what it costs to keep running. This guide walks through each, then shows how to get quotes you can compare.

• Short answer: industry ranges
• Cost drivers
• Native vs cross-platform effect
• Backend and compliance costs
• Maintenance after launch
• Getting comparable quotes

Short answer: industry ranges, not PS3G quotes

The figures below are commonly published industry ranges for custom app development in the United States, compiled from agency surveys and cost calculators. They are not PS3G quotes, and no serious vendor will price your app from a table. They are useful for one thing: checking whether a proposal is in a plausible band for what it claims to deliver.

App complexity	What it usually includes	Published industry range (USD)
Simple	One platform or a cross-platform build, 5 to 10 screens, standard UI, no custom backend or a backend-as-a-service, basic analytics	$25,000 to $75,000
Medium	Both platforms, user accounts, a custom backend and admin console, payments or maps, push notifications, a few third-party integrations, custom design	$75,000 to $200,000
Complex	Real-time features, marketplaces or multi-sided roles, offline sync, ERP or EHR integration, regulated data (HIPAA, PCI), heavy testing and security review	$200,000 to $500,000 and above

Two more industry rules of thumb are worth knowing. Hourly rates for app developers vary widely by region, with published US agency rates several times higher than published rates in offshore markets, which is why the same scope can be quoted at very different totals. And annual maintenance is commonly estimated at a fraction of the original build cost, often quoted as 15 to 25 percent per year, which few first-time buyers budget for.

Cost drivers

Mobile app development cost comes down to hours multiplied by rates, plus third-party fees. Rates are set by who you hire. Hours are set by the eight drivers below, and most of them are decisions you control.

1. Features and screens

Every screen has to be designed, built, connected to data, tested on each platform and maintained. A sign-up flow is not one screen; it is sign-up, verification, password reset, profile and the error states for each. Counting screens and user roles carefully is the single most useful thing you can do before asking for a quote.

2. Number of platforms

Two native apps cost roughly twice one native app. A cross-platform build in Flutter or React Native shares most code, but still needs platform-specific testing, store submissions and some native work. The next section looks at this in detail.

3. Backend and admin tools

If the app shows or stores anything shared between users, it needs a server, a database, an API, authentication and usually an admin console for your staff. Buyers often forget the admin console, and it can be as much work as the app.

4. Integrations

Payments, maps, identity providers, messaging, CRM, ERP, EHR, shipping, accounting. Each integration is a few days to a few weeks depending on the quality of the other system’s API and the amount of error handling it needs.

5. Design

A standard-component app that follows Apple’s and Google’s design guidelines is quicker to build than a custom, brand-driven interface with animation and illustration. Both are valid; the custom route costs more in design hours and in engineering hours to match the design.

6. Testing depth

Testing on one phone costs little and finds little. Testing across a device matrix, slow networks, interrupted sessions, accessibility and security adds effort and removes the much larger cost of a bad launch. See the mobile app testing checklist for what thorough looks like.

7. Compliance and security

Health data, payment data, children’s data and anything under a customer’s security questionnaire add design constraints, documentation, audit logging, penetration testing and sometimes third-party review. These are addressed below.

8. Who builds it and how

A local agency, an offshore team, a freelancer, a mixed onshore-offshore team and your own hires all carry different rates, overhead and risk. The cheapest hourly rate is not the cheapest app if it comes with rework, no project management and no one to call after launch.

Native vs cross-platform effect

The choice between two native apps and one cross-platform codebase is the largest single lever on the cost to build an app, and it works differently at each stage of the app’s life.

Stage	Two native apps (Swift and Kotlin)	One cross-platform app (Flutter or React Native)
Initial build	Close to double the engineering hours for the same features	Shared code for most screens and logic; native modules only where needed
Design	Each platform can follow its own conventions fully	One design, adapted for each platform’s expectations
Testing	Two independent apps to test	One codebase, but still two binaries to test on real devices
Maintenance	Two codebases tracking two OS release cycles	One codebase tracking two OS cycles plus the framework’s own releases
Hiring later	Separate iOS and Android skills	One skill set, with occasional native help

Cross-platform is the usual recommendation for business apps that are mostly screens, forms and data. Native is the usual recommendation when the app depends on camera, AR, hardware or platform-specific features, or when a single platform carries nearly all of your users. The full comparison, including hybrid web-view apps, is in native vs hybrid vs cross-platform apps.

Backend and compliance costs

Quotes that look low are often low because they price only the app you can see. Ask every vendor to itemize these.

• Backend development. API, database, authentication, file storage, push notifications, background jobs and the admin console. For a mid-complexity app this is commonly a third to a half of the engineering effort.
• Hosting and third-party services. Cloud hosting, a push notification service, SMS and email providers, maps, payment processing fees, crash reporting and analytics. These are recurring costs that start at launch and scale with use.
• Store fees. Apple’s developer program is a yearly fee (published at $99 per year at the time of writing) and Google Play charges a one-time registration fee (published at $25). Both stores take a commission on in-app purchases and subscriptions, with reduced rates for smaller developers; check the stores’ current terms.
• HIPAA. A risk assessment, business associate agreements with every vendor that touches protected health information, encryption, access controls, audit logging, secure messaging and documentation. Expect design constraints and extra testing rather than a single line item. This is general information, not legal advice.
• Payments and PCI. Using a hosted payment provider keeps most card data out of your app and your scope. Building your own card handling is far more expensive and rarely justified.
• Children’s privacy. Apps for children must follow COPPA and both stores’ family policies, which affect data collection, advertising, parental consent and how the app is reviewed.
• Security review. A review against the OWASP Mobile Application Security Verification Standard and, for regulated apps, a penetration test before launch.

Maintenance after launch

Mobile app maintenance cost is the part of the budget that first-time buyers most often leave out, and it is not optional. Apple and Google each ship a major OS version every year, change store policies between them and raise minimum requirements for apps that want to keep publishing updates. Third-party libraries deprecate APIs and devices change.

An app that is not maintained starts failing within a year or two, and an app removed from a store for a policy it did not follow costs more to restore than it would have cost to maintain.

Maintenance has three layers, and a good proposal separates them:

1. Keeping it running. OS and library upgrades, store policy compliance, certificate renewals, crash triage and small fixes. Industry estimates commonly put this at 15 to 25 percent of the original build cost per year; the real figure depends on how many platforms and integrations you have.
2. Running costs. Hosting, third-party services and store fees, which scale with usage rather than with time.
3. Improving it. New features, redesigns and responses to what the analytics show. This is a product budget, not maintenance, and it should be planned as one.

Getting comparable quotes

The spread between quotes for the same app is often wider than the spread between the industry ranges above. Most of the gap comes from vendors pricing different things, not from one being cheaper. To compare like with like:

1. Write a one-page scope. Who the users are, the list of screens and roles, the platforms, the integrations, the data you store and any regulation that applies. Send the same page to every vendor. The guide to how to build a mobile app for your business covers how to write it.
2. Ask for an itemized proposal. Discovery, design, app development per platform, backend, integrations, testing, store submission, project management and post-launch support, each with hours or a fixed price.
3. Ask what is excluded. Admin console, backend, third-party fees, device testing, store accounts, documentation, source code ownership, maintenance.
4. Ask who does the work and where. Named roles, time zones, how you will communicate and who manages the project day to day.
5. Ask for a fixed-scope option. A vendor who will commit to a scope and a price has read your document and thought about it. One who will not, or who prices without questions, has not.
6. Check the references for the thing you are building. An app in the public store with reviews you can read tells you more than a slide.

Traps to watch for: a low fixed price with no scope attached (the scope will be invented later, at your expense); a quote for the app alone when a backend is clearly needed; an hourly rate with no estimate of hours; maintenance that is mentioned but not priced; and source code or store accounts that stay in the vendor’s name.

Where PS3G fits

PS3G provides mobile app development services for organizations of every size, from a founder’s first version to a department’s workforce app, and we quote on a fixed scope after a first conversation and a short assessment rather than from a rate card. Every proposal itemizes design, each platform, backend, integrations, testing, store submission and maintenance, and says what is excluded. We publish our own apps, including a kids’ learning app with 5-star ratings on both stores and the patient and doctor apps of our HIPAA-compliant EHR and telehealth platform, DocVilla, so the maintenance and compliance costs described here are ones we carry ourselves. The team works from Wilmington, Delaware with a delivery center in India.

Related reading

• How to Build a Mobile App for Your Business: From Idea to App Store
• Native vs Hybrid vs Cross-Platform Apps: How to Choose
• Mobile App Testing Checklist: Functional, Device, Performance
• Mobile app development services at PS3G

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to make a simple app?

Published industry ranges put a simple app, meaning a handful of screens on one platform or a cross-platform build with no custom backend, in the tens of thousands of dollars, commonly cited as $25,000 to $75,000. Those are industry figures, not PS3G quotes. The number moves quickly once you add user accounts, a backend, payments or a second platform.

Why do app development quotes vary so much?

Because vendors price different things. One quote includes a backend, admin console, device testing and three months of support; another covers the app screens only. Regional rates differ several-fold as well. Send every vendor the same one-page scope, ask for itemized proposals and a list of exclusions, and most of the variation disappears.

Is it cheaper to build a cross-platform app?

Usually, for the initial build, because most code is shared between iOS and Android. The saving is smaller than “half” because design adaptation, device testing, store submissions and some native modules remain per platform. For apps that depend heavily on camera, AR or hardware, native can end up cheaper because less time is spent working around the framework.

How much does app maintenance cost per year?

Industry estimates commonly put ongoing maintenance at 15 to 25 percent of the original build cost per year, covering OS and library upgrades, store policy compliance, crash fixes and small changes. Hosting, third-party services and store fees are separate and scale with usage. New features are a product budget on top of that.

What hidden costs should I budget for?

The backend and admin console, third-party services (push, SMS, maps, payments, analytics), store developer accounts and commissions, device testing, security review, compliance documentation and maintenance after launch. Ask for each to be itemized or explicitly excluded in the proposal so nothing arrives as a surprise after the contract is signed.

Can I reduce the cost without a worse app?

Yes. Cut the first release to the features that prove the idea, use standard platform components instead of a fully custom design, choose cross-platform when the app is mostly screens and data, use hosted services for payments and authentication, and define the scope precisely enough for a fixed-scope quote. Each of these removes hours without removing quality.