Mobile app development: understanding the costs

The question most often asked by organizations that want to have a mobile app developed is: What does it cost to build an app? There is no single answer to this: it depends entirely on your requirements and technical specifications, the availability of branding elements, UX, and visual design. That answer only raises more questions. Do you want to develop an app for one-time use, for example during a campaign period or for a one-off television program?

Depending on the complexity of your requirements, costs can range from €40,000 for a simple app to €300,000 for an advanced app for both iOS and Android. In this blog article, we explain how the costs of developing a mobile app are structured, what you can expect from the app that is delivered, and what the development timeline looks like. We also look at the points you should consider as a client before contacting an app development agency.

Average costs to develop an app

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The information in the table above varies quite widely, so the question is what you can do with it. The fact is that a large number of factors influence the final cost of developing a mobile app. 

Elements that determine app development costs

Organizations often underestimate how costly their requirements can be when developing an app. If there is no clear insight into the desired core functionality, what the MVP (minimum viable product, meaning what the app must be able to do at minimum) should look like, and which features are nice-to-haves, your budget may be exhausted before the app is ready for use.

Using a budget overview is recommended if you want to understand where your money is being spent. This gives you a clear picture of the total scope of development costs and makes potential savings easier to identify. It also helps you determine whether you are getting “value for money” or whether certain investments do not justify the expected returns.

It is also important to appoint a product owner from within your organization. This person is responsible for the final product. On average, the product owner is involved in the development project for 8 to 16 hours per week and makes decisions quickly so the team does not have to wait. This person also makes the key decisions on behalf of the organization, participates in stand-ups, and is responsible for the budget.

Developing for iOS or Android?

There are two ways to develop the foundation of an app: native or hybrid. 

Do you want to have an iPhone app developed, or does the app also need to work on Android devices? Keep in mind that costs can differ per platform. Make sure you understand where your target audience is. Do they mainly use iPhone or Android devices? Does your app serve a social purpose and need to be accessible to everyone? Then choosing one platform is not an option. Both platforms use different programming languages, development tools, and SDKs. If you want to develop for both iOS and Android, a hybrid app is an interesting option. 

React Native and Flutter are cross-platform frameworks that solve this problem. They allow developers to write code once and then release it on both Android and iOS devices. By choosing app development with a hybrid solution such as Flutter, costs are significantly lower than developing 2 separate apps. 

These benefits also apply to further development, management, and maintenance of the app. If there is no need to add device-specific features, hybrid development based on React Native and Flutter is a good solution. Suitable features include a news feed, search, bookings, calendar, chat, dashboard, insights, multilingual functionality, login features, multi-factor authentication (2FA), and sending push notifications.

Design process

Branding

Just like a website, a company, or a product, an app also has a brand. You may be able to use the name of your organization. If not, you have probably already thought about a suitable name. But app branding involves more than just a brand name. The brand name must be translated into a logo. The logo can then be used in different ways and places within the app. An icon also needs to be developed: the small icon that appears on the home screen of your smartphone. Sometimes an organization’s logo is also used as the icon. In other cases, a custom icon is used because it visualizes the product better or fits the icon size more effectively. In addition, a specific illustration style and typography are chosen, and iconography forms an important part of the branding.

Design

By design, we mean the visual elaboration of the screens. The goal is to distinguish between 2 components: visual design and UX design. Visual design focuses on creating attractive screens, while UX design focuses on functional screens. In short, the mobile user’s needs are taken into account. This includes a logical structure for the app and all its screens, based on the so-called “user flow.” As you would expect, this requires a visual designer and a UX designer with mobile expertise. Some designers have both areas of expertise, so 1 person may be sufficient.

Content creation and copywriting

Of course, the app will contain content. For one app, that may be purely textual content and icons. For other apps, it may include charts, audio, video, images, or data. In any case, take content creation into account. Copywriting is the writing of text for the app. This may sound easy, but it is a discipline in its own right. That is why we often work with experienced copywriters who understand mobile users.

Development process

The duration of the development process is not fixed, because it depends on the scope and complexity of the project. By clarifying the following elements, the scope of the development process can be defined. 

Understand

In a short period of time, we determine who you are, what your goals are, what we are going to develop together, and when it will be considered a success. In the Understand phase, the app requirements are defined. In this phase, we determine the following elements of the mobile app:

Number of screens and features to be developed

For every screen, however simple, a basic infrastructure setup needs to be developed. This is separate from the features themselves.

Compliance and security requirements

Are there laws and regulations that must be complied with? Depending on the use case of your app and the information that needs to be processed, certain rules may apply. When personal data is processed, the security requirements are much higher than when this is not the case. 

Number and complexity of integrations

Does the app need to connect to a back-end, Content Management System (CMS), login or identity & access system, analytics tooling, social media, a payment system, maps, or a calendar tool?

Building is almost always more expensive than buying, so in this case we apply a “buy over build” strategy. Many standard tools are available on the market. If a standard solution does not provide APIs, does not exist, or is what makes your app unique, then we simply build it.

Complexity of data processing and storage

Depending on the application’s use case, measures for data processing and storage are determined. If your app is only used to display information one-way, this is not complex. But if users need to communicate with each other via messages and can, for example, send visual material in the form of photos and videos, processing and storing this data can become challenging.

The less information that can be entered into the app, the simpler the processing and storage. Therefore, carefully consider which user data you want to process.

Quality assurance

User feedback is essential for maintaining, improving, and optimizing your app. No app is perfect after launch. Partly because of the wide variety of devices and operating system versions, bugs will always be discovered and counterintuitive processes will need to be addressed. 

To ensure that the app enters the App Store of Google Play in the best possible working condition, delivered code is automatically scanned for a required quality level within the Elements development process.

Concept

We define the app’s point on the horizon and quickly develop a concept based on it. These are sample screens of the final result. This makes your mobile app idea visual and tangible. We can also make this concept clickable. This is an important step in which the main wishes and requirements are validated and tested before we actually start development.

Development

Ultimately, we develop the app with a joint team of developers and designers. We often do this in 2-week sprints, with the first sprints focused on design and the later sprints focused on development. In many cases, we first develop a Minimum Valuable Product (MVP). By this, we mean a minimal version of your final point on the horizon. The biggest advantage is that you can launch an app and onboard users within a short timeframe.

Scale

Based on usage, feedback, and frequently requested functionality, you can then continue developing the app. We call this the “Scale” phase. This helps prevent wasted investment in functionality that you originally envisioned, that takes a lot of development time, and that is rarely used. Instead, you develop functionality based on actual usage and statistics.

Additional costs

• App Store and Google Play costs
• Costs for third-party integrations (e.g. payment gateways)
• Administration, marketing, and infrastructure costs
• Support costs (updates, bug fixing, future improvements)

What affects the cost of mobile applications?

When you want to have a mobile app developed by a digital agency, it is important to be clear about exactly what you want to have built. To provide you with a fair and clear proposal, your initial requirements must be inventoried and analyzed.

The main factors that influence an app’s development costs are:

• Type of app
• Desired features and functionality
• Complexity of the design
• Development of the design if it is not available
• Desired platforms (iOS, Android)
• Back-end infrastructure and app management
• Maintenance costs and desired additional services

Based on these characteristics, a digital agency can estimate the app development process. The number of functions and their complexity are the largest cost drivers in app development. Screens, buttons, input fields, and the required application logic are very important. In the overview below, we cover the estimated development time and costs required for basic mobile app features.

Mobile app development costs: breakdown by functionality

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There are also a few common components that are not included in the budget but that we do recommend:

• Onboarding screens (+/- 2K)
• Accessibility-proof app (+/- 5K)
• Privacy & Security proof app (+/- 5K)
• Branding (+/- 5K)
• Copywriting (+/- 3K)

You will also always have recurring costs, including hosting, possible SLAs, and possible costs on the side of third parties that need to be integrated.

Authorization and social media integrations

User authorization can be either simple or complex. Adding features such as password recovery, password storage, an advanced visual design, or logging in with a social media profile increases costs. Adding functionality such as social media add-ons, payment features, or chats requires third-party integrations that may involve additional costs.

Support for in-app purchases

PayPal, iDEAL, and credit cards are common payment methods within apps. Each payment processing method requires additional development time and may involve external costs.

Use of device-specific features

The use of device-specific features is becoming increasingly complex due to the rapid pace of innovation. Where not long ago calling, Bluetooth, camera, and location information were sufficient to use, developments now follow each other in rapid succession. With the emergence of new features, there is a need to introduce new APIs, which may not yet have been developed.  This affects development time, which influences the total cost.

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